From the Heartland

2008-04-03T23:00:00.002-04:00

Terry and I will be moving out to assume our new position as the senior pastorate of Full Life Church in Fremont, Nebraska. We are really looking forward to the opportunity to serve God with this wonderful group of believers. God has directed every part of this call and process of moving to Nebraska. We will miss our grandkids who we are leaving behind, but we know that God will provide us opportunities to spend time with them.

2007-12-25T09:53:00.000-05:00

Hi Friends,

Merry Christmas '07!!!!!!
My last post was months ago, but my New Years resolution is to post every week this year and make this blog a communication tool for ministry and for developing friendships with fellow bloggers. My prayer for everyone reading this blog is that this coming new year will truly be a year of 'new beginnings'. In biblical numerology the number 8 stands for new beginnings, and we are in a new millennium (the 2000's) so let's look to the Lord for the sprouting of new seeds that have been planted in previous years. Terry and I are looking forward to this coming year with great anticipation as we rest in God's promises to us. Our family is doing great, Ezra is still with us and preparing for Bible College in the Fall of '08. Levi and Jenne have moved just around the corner from us (walking distance), which puts our grandkids a stone's throw away!!!!!, and Jaci and Daren still live in New Hampshire contemplating God's will for their lives. The ministry God has placed us in is in transition as we begin this new year, we have just voted to change the name of the church from 'Hereford Assembly of God', to 'Crossroads Christian Fellowship'! We are believing God for a great harvest of souls for the kingdom of God this coming year and in the years to come. I think this new name makes a statement about us which I hope will be loud and clear to our region, that there is a sweet fellowship to become a part of if you choose the right road...Jesus (He said I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Talk to you next week.

2007-07-29T17:10:00.000-04:00

Terry and I have been on vacation this past week. We went to Ocean City, MD and while we were there took a couple of days to go to Assateague Island National Seashore. What a great time we had on the island. If you are not familiar with it, the island has two herds of wild ponies that roam free all over the island (about 50 miles long). I was great walking on the beautiful beaches and seeing groups of ponies right there at arms length away! All over the park there are signs which tell you NOT to touch or approach the ponies, and you guessed it, everywhere we went people were appraoching and trying to touch the ponies. It reminded me of Paul's words in Romans 7, "the law came and sin sparang to life...". It just seems we humans can't resist rebelling. We have this "authority thing" that says no one can tell me what to do (or what not to do). God'as remedy for this aversion to the law is grace. In a nother place Paul says that grace teaches us to say no ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled and godly lives in this present age...". So what would grace say about touching ponies? I have a feeling it would say the same thing the signs said, "don't touch". What do you think grace would say?

2007-02-26T17:19:00.000-05:00

Wow, it feels like forever since I have posted on my blog (actually a little over a month, please forgive me). Since I last posted I have become a grandpa again! Mikhaila Anne Washburn was born on February 19 in Concord NH to my son Levi and his beautiful wife Jenne. She weighed 6lbs 150z and was 21 inches long. It's really different for me to have a girl in the family. I was one of three boys, Terry and I had three boys, and our first grandchild was a boy. Mikhaila is as beautiful as a little girl can be (of course I'm slightly prejudiced). Terry and I got to be in NH for the birth, what a blessing from God! Today I went with my son Ezra to Valley Forge Christian College to get all the admission information for him to start college in the Fall, the empty nest is coming! Life just seems to rush by and if we're not careful all we will be are spectators as opportunities from the Lord just come and go. Enough of my personal news updates. I have been preaching the last few weeks on the authority of [King] Jesus and how He extends to us His benevolent power, His blessed peace, and His bold priorities (these three thmes are drawn from Matthew chapters 8 & 9). The question for us is how are we going to respond the the absolute authority of the King? Are we in the Kingdom if we are not subjects of the King? If Jesus has all authority (like He says He does, cp. Matthew 28:18-20) then do we havwe any options when He speaks to us? The wonderful thing is that He does not just arbitrarity bark commands and orders (priorities), but He extends His power on our behalf, and provides a peace that goes beyond our wildest comprehension as He molds us in ways that reflect His priorities. Years ago I used to tell people who told me they didn't like a particular Bible verse or truth...'read it till you like it'. That's still pretty good advice!
pastor mike

2007-01-04T14:49:00.000-05:00

Its been a long time since I have been on this blog. The Christmas season and all that goes with it has broken my stride, or maybe I could say it has disrupted my rut! Sometimes we get so used to the way things are we just go on and on and on, unless there is an interruption. God send us divine interruptions! Terry and I traveled to NY and NH over the week between Christmas and New Years, it was like a whirl wind tour, we stayed in three places, four different beds and saw lots of people. I must say though, I am very grateful for family and friends...God created us for just such things. Everything was green up north, my dad (now 77) said it was only the third green Christmas he could recollect up in NY State's snow country. Our daughter-in-law is expecting our second grandchild the end of February, but when we got up to NH to see them she has been put on COMPLETE bedrest for 5 WEEKS! So Terry and I brought Benny (two year old grandson) home with us for a while so she actually could rest. What a blast he is! Well that's enough for now, this blog is starting to sound like some holiday newsletter.
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2006-12-08T11:49:00.000-05:00

This week at our small group we studied a lesson called, 'Why pray when you can worry?'. Its true isn't it? How often do we spend our time and energy worrying (or some other fruitless activity) when we can connect to the Creator of the Universe and have a personal conversation with Him. The Lord has been teaching Terry and I over the past few months some great things about prayer, and how effective it really is. I would love to have you throw up on the blog some of the things God has taught, or been teaching you about prayer. Or perhaps, you have had some incredible answer to prayer recently. Jump on and let's inspire the faith of others by what God is doing in you!
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2006-12-03T19:53:00.000-05:00

WOW I can hardly believe that it's December already! I guess the Christmas decorations all over my house are giving it away. Terry really gets into decorating for Christmas. I remember the first Christmas after we moved to New Hampshire (1983). I went out and cut a scraggly little Christmas tree from out in the woods near our house. When I brought it home I leaned it on the couch and there it stayed for a couple of weeks until we finally threw it out. Boy have we come a long way since then! Terry really makes the house look beautiful now. Maturity can be a wonderful thing. I hope as you get ready for Christmas this year that Jesus remains the REASON FOR THE SEASON in your life.
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2006-11-26T19:11:00.000-05:00

We had a great Thanksgiving. The whole family was here for the weekend. Seems like the older I get the more important family is to me. I'm so blessed to have a family who loves the Lord. Today (Sunday) all the boys played in the worship team at church with me and it was a great time in the Lord's presence. I hope everyone reading this blog had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
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2006-11-20T09:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at our church was a really cool day. We had one of the former pastors return and speak, he's 89 years old! When I first corresponded with him about coming we scheduled it for October, but then that didn't work out, so we scheduled for November 19th. I didn't know that it was that very week 30 years ago that this pastor held the first service in their "new sanctuary". Now we have completely remodeled the sanctuary and he was here on this 30th anniversary. It was all engineered by the Holy Spirit! I was totally unaware of the "coincidence" until a couple of weeks before he came to speak. My point: the Holy Spirit can engineer circumstances to make something special and significant EVEN WHEN WE DON'T HAVE A CLUE! Next time you're wondering if God can make the tangled mess we call life work...HE CAN! Be encouraged!
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2006-11-18T09:30:00.000-05:00

I hope as we approach this Thanksgiving season your 're-focusing' your thoughts onto how good God has been to you. I confess I sometimes lose sight of the incredible blessings He places in my life, its too bad we have to have a 'season' to get us back in focus. This coming week I will have all three of my sons, my two daughters-in-law, and my grandson with us. God has been so good to Terry and I! All three of our sons are serving the Lord, and we have a good relationship with each of them. Take the time this week to thank God for His blessings in your life, and take time to tell someone what a blessing they are to you from the Lord. Let's together bump our attitude of gratitude up the scale a couple of notches. For those of you who read this and have been, or are a part of my life I say, "I thank God for each one of you and the blessing God has made you to me!"
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2006-11-17T16:39:00.000-05:00

I was driving home this week from a class I was taking and was thinking about Christian maturity. It seems many times that people substitute things they "do" for what they "are". To be a disciple of Christ we need to have a balance of three things: being, knowing, and doing. If we overemphasize any one of these components we end up being a lopsided, out of balance believer. It seems to me that many people think that service=maturity. Now don't get me wrong service is very important, but it does not equal maturity, it is merely one component in spiritual maturity. I know this because you can be a great servant and not even be a believer in Christ, in fact some of the greatest servants are often not believers. So what I'm saying I guess is that you can't be mature without serving, but you can serve without being mature. Next time someone implies you are not mature, don't pull out your list of things you are "doing" as you proof of maturity, spiritual maturity in bigger than that. Just a thought!
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2006-11-11T16:57:00.000-05:00

I know I've been riding this discipleship horse pretty hard in my blog lately, but I've been doing a lot of reading in this area recently. I just finished a great book called 'The Connecting Church' by Randy Frazee. He has some rich thoughts in this work. He has some provocative thoughts on the role of the local church in the shaping of the life of a disciple, I quote from him:
"The Bible clearly teaches that God intends to accomplish His primary purposes through the church. The first Christians understood that a decision to follow Christ also included a decision to make the church the hub of their world, even when it required the abandonment of existing social structures. Yale University professor Wayne Meeks makes this point, 'To be baptized into Jesus Christ signaled for Pauline converts an extroardinary thorough going resocialization, in which the sect was to become virtually the primary group for its members, supplanting all other loyalties.' Frazee goes on to say: Yet the writings of scripture lead one to conclude that God intends the church, not to be one more bolt on the wheel of activity in our lives, but the very hub at the center of one's life and community."
He elaborates on these concepts in his work, but one thing shines through as he discusses this aspect of the place of the church in the life of a believer, we can't do without it, in fact we desperately need the local church. We do not grow on our own, we grow in community. Not in a community that is established or functioning as a 'spiritual Walmart' where we go to get what we need for convenient living, but a place to be challenged to grow in both general and very specific ways in Christ.
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2006-11-08T14:24:00.000-05:00

Its been a busy few days, Ezra bought a new car (Ford Focus) and my involvement with that took some of my free time. I've been reading 'The Great Omission' this week by Dallas Willard, what a provocative read. His overall premise is that "There is an obvious Great Disparity between, on the one hand, the hope for life in Jesus--found real in the Bible and in many shining examples from among His followers--and, on the other hand, the actual day-to-day behavior, inner life, and social presence of most of those who now profess adherence to Him." In essence he's asking where is real Christianity? The kind that transforms lives to be like Jesus. He builds a case that people in America believe that you can be a Christian, but not be a disciple. In defense of this observation he defines a disciple as, '...one who, intent on becoming Christ-like and so dewlling in His faith and practice, systematically and progressively rearranges his affairs to that end."
I agree with Willard, that far too many professing Christians exhibit little or no life-change, Christians look so much like the world they 'blend in'. What would our lives look like if we took discipleship seriously, and as Willard says, 'systematically and progressively rearranged our lives to look like Jesus?'
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2006-11-04T09:03:00.000-05:00

In his book Dissident Discipleship, David Augsburger has a great chapter on humility. He approaches humility from a perspective I have never heard elaborated...he ties humor directly to humility (of course healthy humor). Listen to a couple of quotes along this line:
"A humble sense of humor shows us our own absurdities, reveals our own contradictions, as well as revealing the absurdities and contradictions of those around us. Humor will not keep us from all sin, but it is a significant deterrent. When we laugh at ourselves, the laughter is a kind of reverence, a kind of self-deprecation and truth appreciation that expresses acceptance and wonder. In practice it is a type of confession, a means of contrition; indeed an act of repentance."
Wow, have you ever heard humor described with spiritual meaning as this? This is not flippant theology, but really a deeply thought through concept of how God uses humor in our lives as a relief/release valve where we might otherwise blow up under the pressure. Here's another quote:
"What makes humor and humorous people humble? Humble humor takes life, death, faith, and human fallibility seriously--so seriously that it can laugh at our flawed and feeble efforts to transcend them. We laugh best--indeed, most deeply--in our struggles with those things we hold in utter reverence. We take ourselves, our work, our best efforts at justice and mercy so seriously that we can see their lighter side and feel the deep mirth of humble paradox and contradiction, and then explode in laughter."
When we are unable to laugh at our own flawed humanity we really don't understand the situation. Humor deflates our over-inflated sense of self-importance, and brings pride to its knees as we through laughter at our foibles and failures get a divine 'reality check'! Let me just end this blog with one more quote from the book where Augsburger quotes Haring:
"Humorless people are almost always hopelessly condemned to immaturity. Or should we say that immature people are condemned to a humorless existence."
Give yourself the chance to have a good laugh today...think about something stupid you did yesterday! I've already made my list!
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2006-11-03T12:01:00.000-05:00

Its been a few days since I've been on the blog. I have been reading a very interesting book lately, Dissident Discipleship by David Augsburger. I'll probably post a few thoughts over the next few days from what I'm reading there. He has a chapter on Christian community, let me give you a quote from it, "Christian community is a web of stubbornly loyal relationships knotted together into a living network of persons. We recognize authentic community by the visible strands of commitment and concern that enable people to live jointly, corporately, and cooperatively together." I was riveted by two phrases out of this quote, "stubbornly loyal", and, " visible strands of commitment". Todays culture says run, don't work through the issues. Commitment is seen as a dinasour from some distant past, a relic from a bygone era, like a fine antique that still finds a place on the shelf, but no place in everday life. I'm longing for the kind of community which Augsburger describes, which is stubbornly loyal. Throw me up some comments and tell me what you think that kind of community would look like in "real life".
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2006-10-31T10:15:00.000-05:00

My son Ezra and I spent all afternoon looking at cars yesterday (my day off). His car has seen better days. The whole process of car shopping can really bum you out. You're car never seems to be worth what you think it is, and there car seems to be way over priced...what's a body to do? Anyway it was just some great time to spend with my son...you know a little male bonding! He really want a 5 speed, so it was really fun to watch his excitement trying out the sticks. It really brought back memories of my first vehicles and my fascination with power and speed. Seems kind of like us as Christians, we are so excited at first in our walk with the Lord but after a while we just want the convenience and comfort of a car (or Christian life) that drives itself! Makes ya think doesn't it?
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2006-10-29T14:57:00.000-05:00

It never ceases to amaze me at the grace of God, and how He lavishes it on us as we need it. I tweeked my back this week which forced me to spend more time in reading, study and reflection. In church this morning He strengthed my back just as I needed it to minister today. If you are wondering how you are going to be able to do a specific thing when the time comes let me encourage you to prepare you for the miracle of His grace for the moment. Its a great feeling to know He never lets us down!
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2006-10-28T09:17:00.000-04:00

Tonight is the night to turn your clocks back. I heard a radio announcer last night talking about turning the clocks back, and it got my mind thinking. How many time do we consciously or unconsciously want to live in the past, sort of 'turn our clocks back' living. Most of us have times in our lives where the memories are the fondest. Then we are awakened by the reality that nothing stays the same, and sometimes we grieve that fact. The truth is that if we are a Christian, the future is always brighter than the past, no matter how good the past looks. The apostle Paul said, 'forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead I press on towards the prize'! The writer of Proverbs said, 'the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that grows brighter till the full day.'! It can be tempting to fantasize about our 'golden days' whatever they may be, but God's got something far better in mind for us.
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2006-10-27T18:32:00.000-04:00

Ezra got very generous tonight and took Terry and I out to dinner at Cracker Barrel! It was great to have a free steak dinner, and we saw Ric and Candice Pavase and had a nice chat with them. Just whenyou think teenagers are a financial blackhole they step up and surprise you with something special...thankyou Jesus!
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2006-10-27T15:39:00.000-04:00

Hi church! I sent out an email to everyone recently just to find out what we could do to increase participation level in spiritual activities. I was looking for some creative input about how we can develop things that will help people grow spiritually. Most of the replies centered around why people had not attended specific events, that wasn't really what I was looking for, I was not trying to surface guilt, just looking for input. I am going to start using this blog as much as I can to increase the communication since we live so far apart, scattered around the county. Feel free to click on comments and do a little cyber-dialogue with me I think it will be fun and will help us to grow.
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2006-10-27T15:35:00.000-04:00

Wow, to get one of these blogs going they want three quarts of blood and your first male child! I'm going to continue to experiment with this blog so please be patient with me!

2006-10-27T15:17:00.000-04:00

Hi. I'm just trying out my blog for the first time. Just curious as to how they work, and how useful this could be for communication with the church. Post something if you like so I can begin to practice blogging.

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