Posted March 4th, 2010 by John Ed Mathison
Below are some of the highlights of our ministry during the month of February.
- February 5 – Spoke at the annual meeting of the Alabama Hospital Association in Birmingham. At the banquet 10 people throughout the state were honored as Hospital Heroes. Last week’s blog concerned this event. If you want to read some inspiring stories of these 10 people, you can go to the website of the Alabama Hospital Association.
- February 6 – Spoke at the opening session of the Every Member in Ministry Conference at Frazer. We began this conference about 25 years ago, where people from all over the country come for a weekend of study together on how to get lay people involved in ministry. Over 22,000 people have attended this conference over the years.
- February 7- was in Mobile, Alabama, to preach at the Springhill Baptist Church. They are without a pastor. The preacher the week before was Coach Bobby Bowden. My good friend Jerry Gunnells is a former pastor here in Montgomery and at Springhill Baptist. He will be serving as the interim pastor. It is a great church. I had the opportunity to be a part of a commissioning of a pulpit search committee. Some pastor is going to be fortunate to be called by that church.
February 7- had the opportunity to give leadership in “The Real Halftime” on Frazer television during the Super Bowl. Jay Wolf from First Baptist Church and I have done this for a lot of years. This year Jim Carpenter joined us, along with Gary Cramer, who is the Chaplain for the Alabama Crimson Tide. He has access to the inner workings of football at the University and is having a great ministry there with not only the football team but other sports teams. I always enjoy going to the University of Alabama to speak at a FCA meeting.
- February 8- helped lead a 5 hour seminar for some 80 pastors from the Montgomery/Prattville and Montgomery/Opelika Districts of the United Methodist Church. Dr. Karl Stegall and I led this seminar on some of the best practices that we have discovered. It was fun working with Karl because he has been one of my best friends in my ministry. I also was able to tell them that I was sharing the seminar leadership with a man who was much older than I and who had mentored me when I was just a young fellow!
February 8 – participated on the panel to ask questions of the gubernatorial candidates. It was an interesting experience to be able to ask questions and hear the answers from all of the candidates running for office. You would be interested to know that the very first question to the gubernatorial candidates came from another panel member, a college professor, who asked the question, “Do you believe in the inerrancy of scripture and how would your answer to this question shape the way you make decisions as governor?” Wow! I didn’t know I was at a political meeting – I thought I was a part of a process of interviewing a potential minister. Actually, I hope all of the gubernatorial candidates will see the possibility of the position of governor as being a ministry that will glorify God and lead the people of Alabama.
- February 9 – led a seminar in Birmingham, Alabama, at the Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church for pastors of North Alabama Annual Conference. Charlie Carlton from Stewardship Resources in Birmingham and I did six of these seminars last year in our Annual Conference and this was the first we have done in the North Alabama Conference. My focus was on leadership.
- February 14 – spoke at the Valentine Banquet and Worship at Taylor Road Baptist Church with Pastor Andy Hepburn. It was a fun time that Lynn and I enjoyed. Our anniversary was February 13, so I told them that this was my way of taking her out to a special dinner on our anniversary. That is a growing church here in our city and the people were most gracious. It takes a brave Southern Baptist preacher to invite a Methodist to come in and preach. I had that opportunity two weeks in row.
February 16 – went to Atlanta, Georgia, to see Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets play the University of North Carolina. My good friend and a great supporter of this ministry is Phillip Cook from Stockbridge, Georgia. He is a trustee at the Shingleroof Campmeeting. He and his wife Julie invited my son Si and me. You know how I love basketball. The North Carolina Tarheels are defending National Champions, but they are not defending much – they are having a tough year.
- February 19 – spoke at a surprise birthday party for Dr. George Washington Carver Richardson, pastor of Hutchinson Missionary Baptist Church. I had preached in his church back in December and feel a real kinship with his congregation. It was a surprise party out at the Gateway Park. He was thoroughly surprised. It was his 70th birthday so Lynn and I had an opportunity to share in a special moment with him, his wife, and his congregation.
- February 23 – was in Huntsville, Alabama, for the second seminar on leadership offered to the pastors of the North Alabama Conference. It is encouraging to see the eagerness of pastors, especially young pastors, to learn about leadership.
- February 23 – spent the morning down at the Cumulus Radio Stations. I have always enjoyed radio and doing a two-minute devotional on WLWI every morning at 5:55 a.m. I have been doing that for years. I also enjoy periodically being a part of the Sports Talk program with John and Barry. I am amazed at how many people listen to Sports Talk Radio. I recorded a segment for Mix103 in one of their special promotions. It will be on some time the first week in March during the 7:00 a.m. hour. LeAnne and J. T. are the radio hosts and are a great asset to our community.
- February 26 – wanting to save expenses, the Confessing Movement holds its’ Board meeting by conference call. I have always been actively involved in the leadership of the Confessing Movement. In my opinion, it is one of the reasons why the United Methodist Church is still a vital force in society in many parts of the world. Please pray for the Confessing Movement. You can go to their website and learn much of the work that the CM does. Actually, the first office for the Confessing Movement was at Frazer and I served as the first President.
- February 27 – preached at the Eufaula First Baptist Church for the morning and evening worship services and will be there in revival services on Monday and Tuesday. I believe this is my third time to go for a revival at First Baptist Eufaula. Dr. Ken Bush has been pastor there 30 years. He is also a brave man to invite a Methodist to be a part of his ministry. I will share more about that next month.
God has opened several doors for me to do some individual consulting with churches. I spent several hours doing that this past month. I also enjoy one-on-one time with young pastors.
Our Board joins me in thanking you for your financial support of this ministry. Many of the seminars I do have no charge for those who come and participate and sometime we even help pay expenses for younger pastors. In March I have the opportunity to be a part a teaching team in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where a huge number of pastors will gather for training.
I try to write a blog each week. If you would like to have this e-mailed to you, please send us your e-mail address. The blog will also appear on the website. Thanks for your support.
For the Cause of causes,
John Ed Mathison
Posted February 25th, 2010 by John Ed Mathison
I was invited recently to speak at the awards banquet for the annual meeting of the Alabama Hospital Associations in Birmingham. This event honored ten people from the State of Alabama who had excelled as a “hospital hero.” I enjoyed the occasion and reconnected with a lot of people from across the state that are in the hospital and medical industries. It was interesting to hear a lot of the discussion about those two industries.
The thing that impressed me most was the ten people selected as heroes. Each of them was given a nice award a brief time to speak to the group. I think all ten of them stated that the honor was possible only because of the talents and gifts that God had given them. Each of them also acknowledged their fellow employees who had made the moment possible.
One reoccurring theme in each person was the fact that they saw their business as a platform for doing ministry. They felt that they went to work in the hospital and God used them to get His work done through them.
That is a great concept. Our workplace should be our pulpit where the sermon we preach might have no words with it. It might just be the quality and excellence with which we do our job and the care that we show to people.
God calls each of us to be a minister. Each of us who has a place of business might view it as the platform God gives us to carry out His work. That is a great way to go to work every day.
How is God going to use you today? I know that part of what you do will be for a paycheck, but your biggest paycheck is when you make an eternal difference in the life of a person.
Those hospital heroes were inspiring. God is raising up a lot of heroes in the workplace today. He is inviting each of us to be one of those heroes!
Posted February 17th, 2010 by John Ed Mathison
Friday, February 12, 2010, was a day for history. I am told that it was the first time in history that every state in the United States had snow on the ground on the same day. There was some question about Hawaii, but I understand there was snow on some of the mountain ranges. There was also snow in Florida and all the southeastern states.
The amazing thing is that the Winter Olympics began in Vancouver and the problem there was the lack of snow. They paid about a million dollars a day to haul snow in to the slopes so they could have snow for the downhill ski runs. But the snow wouldn’t last! Those pictures on TV of the ski slopes looking green were some sight.
Doesn’t God have a sense of humor? Every state in the U. S. with snow and Canada was without snow! It came at the most important time in recent Canadian history when Canada was hosting the Winter Olympics.
It just reminded me that God is God. The more we try to figure out the way He is going to do things, the more surprises He has for us. I can look back at my life and see how well planned I had some things, but God had an entirely different idea. He listened to my plans, and must have laughed, and then proceeded to present a different set of plans. Every time I look back, I see that He was always right!
One of the biggest problems God has had with me is that I tend to think that He is my co-pilot and then remember He is my pilot. He is in total charge and can accomplish things without my help. He sees things so differently from the way I see them.
The Psalmist David discovered that when he talked about how much higher were God’s thoughts than his thoughts – like the mountains above the sea. I think some things are so logical – He shows me how human logic does not compare to His logic. He sees things from a totally different perspective.
Thank you Lord for the snow. It was a lot of fun seeing children and parents engaged in snowball fights and building snowmen. I am thankful that there was enough to enjoy but not enough to shut everything down in the South. I am extremely thankful that we didn’t have to spend several days of shoveling the snow.
Thank you Lord for just reminding me that the best laid human plans are totally irrelevant when Your plan comes into place. May we all learn that Your ways are always best and our responsibility is to be obedient to Your plan.
Lord, do You think Alabama ought to apply for the Winter Olympic site in 2014?
Posted February 11th, 2010 by John Ed Mathison
Watching football games on television has grown more and more popular each year. The Super Bowl last week drew more viewers than any other program in the history of television!!
I love to watch football on television. It is good to go to the game, but so many people comment that you see more when you watch it on TV. You get to see different camera angles and you see the replays.
I know night games have become very popular. The biggest argument for me watching it on television at night is the fact that when the final whistle blows, you can see the last play, and then cut out the light and get started on a good night’s sleep.
Recently the Wall Street Journal wanted to find out how much actual playing time of the game itself is covered in television. They dispatched people to six different NFL games. They carried stop watches and measured the time of actual play.
In a three hour plus presentation of a football game on TV, just over eleven minutes were actual playing time. That was shocking for me to read. Just eleven minutes!! The rest of the time the audience sees players going to the huddle, lining up for the play, crowd shots, coaches’ antics, cheerleaders, etc. That means that the television game director decides what you see the other 2 hours and 49 minutes.
The game director for NBC was interviewed about that statistic and some of the things the that the game director has to do to decide which shots he wants to show to the audience. He has at his command many, many cameras and camera angles. He wants to be sure that the audience sees the play, yet sees aspects of the play that you might not see inside the stadium if you are attending the game.
He stated that in most games you will find goats and heroes. Somebody makes an exceptional play and somebody makes a mistake. It is part of the responsibility of the game director to capture those emotions on camera. A good game director can show you many, many interesting aspects of the game.
It occurs to me that our lives are a lot shorter than most of us would think. The one who calls the shots for our lives determines how the game is presented. If I try to select all of the camera shots, etc. for my life, it will just be a demonstration of sin – which is selfish exploitation. If I try to let other people determine what shots of my life they want to see, their perception will slant the whole process.
If God is my game director and calls all of the shots, the short “eleven minutes” of my life can have a tremendous impact and God will get the camera angles that better tell who I really am and what my witness can be.
The most important part of a television production is the game director. He/She makes all of the decisions of what will be shown. The biggest game in town is not the Super Bowl but is my life and your life. Who is your game director – who is calling the shots?
With God calling all of the shots of our lives, we can have the most effective “eleven minutes” possible.
Posted February 5th, 2010 by John Ed Mathison
The first month of the new year provided some excellent opportunities for our ministry.
- January 4-7 – Spoke at the Congress on Evangelism held in New Orleans, Louisiana. This is an event sponsored by the Foundation of Evangelism for the United Methodist Church. The picture here captured one of the opportunities I had for teaching about 300 pastors and laity on the topic of “Evangelism in the 21st Century.”
One of the speakers at the Congress on Evangelism was William Young, who is the author of the bestselling book, The Shack. He was a delightful person to know and gave such a winsome witness.
- January 7 – Got home just in time to watch Alabama win the National Championship. The FCA Chaplain for the University of Alabama football team is Gary Cramer. I have spoken for him at the FCA meeting at the University. He will be here on February 7, to participate in “The Real Halftime” during the Super Bowl.
- January 9 and 10 – Lynn and I went to Shalimar, Florida, which is just outside Fort Walton Beach. It was a great weekend to go to the beach because the temperature was about 18 degrees. Shalimar United Methodist Church is a growing church where I preached at four morning worship services. It was an inspiration for me to be with Larry Bryars and his staff. One person on his staff was David Hoppenjan, who served as an intern at Frazer.
- January 13-15 – The College of Bishops consists of the United Methodist Bishops in the Southeast. We met in Birmingham for their annual meeting. I am the chairman of the Southeastern Jurisdictional Committee on Episcopacy and met with them. Part of the responsibility of our committee is to make assignments of the Bishops, to develop and implement the evaluation process, and design the format for electing Bishops, etc.
- January 16 – I went to Auburn to participate with my brother George in officiating at the wedding of Catherine Alley and Will Pollard.
- January 18 – I spoke at their annual meeting for their employees of the Berney Corporation, the organization that sells copiers throughout the state of Alabama and the panhandle of Florida.
- January 19-22 – I participated in the leadership at the Synergize 2 conference at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. I had the opportunity to speak on Wednesday afternoon, lead a seminar at lunch on “Leadership for Pastors,” video tape a thirty minute teaching on “Empowering the Laity for Ministry,” which will be used in churches around the world. I also did a brief video for a special event.
The Billion Soul Initiative had about 60 organizations and denominations in 2005. Today there are over 760 networking organizations, para church groups, denominations, etc. The goal is to see 1billion people come to Christ and to start 5 million churches.
I want to introduce you to some of the people participating.
This is Ben Lerner who is the author of a lot of books on health and nutrition. His book Body by God has been on the New York Times bestseller list. He has a network of doctors throughout the country who utilize their practice as a platform for ministry. I had the privilege of doing a five minute video taping for one of his projects which will be used by churches around the world. My focus was on how good health enhances the opportunity for ministry and the best use of our time.
This is a picture of Lazarus Yeghnaz from Iran. I wrote about him in my last blog.
This is a picture of David Grant who heads up Operation Rescue in India. His beautiful smile and contagious spirit are an inspiration.
This picture is of Eddie Leo and his wife. His ministry is so effective with men throughout the countries around Indonesia that military persons and police departments are asking him to give leadership in developing the kind of men who can be real leaders. He is an exceptional witness.
This picture has two wonderful leaders. The person in the middle is Bishop Dale Bronner. He has a huge church in Atlanta. He spoke on the subject of giving godly wisdom. The person on the right is Bishop Ken Ulmer from California. His church bought the Forum where the Los Angeles Lakers played. That is their church building. He is a tremendous preacher. Once I have had to speak following him, and I felt like a valium sedative compared to the energy that he preached in his typical African-American style.
This is Shliasi Kurulo from Fiji. He is one of the real leaders in that part of the world. He has personally been involved in starting thousands of churches during his ministry.
This is a picture of Danny Murray. He is director of the Lee University Singers. They provided the music during the conference. It would be hard to find any group in the United States who would be better than the sixteen singers from Lee University. He gave me five of their CD’s. I have been driving all over Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee listening to their music and singing along with them.
This is picture of Dr. Len Sweet. He is one of the most prolific writers of our day. He focuses on making the church relevant to the 21st century. He is a futuristic thinker. He has had a tremendous impact on seminary education.
James Davis gives the basic leadership to the Billion Soul Initiative. He is like an energized bunny. I don’t know when he ever has time to sleep. He is a great leader!
- January 22 – I flew home from Orlando in time to drive to Guntersville, Alabama, and meet with a delegation of laypeople and their pastor from Dalton, Georgia, on Friday evening. I am going to visit their church to work with their leadership in a couple of months.
- January 23 – I had an opportunity to teach for three hours to about 150 people from several churches in the Guntersville area. The topic concerned “Empowering Laity for Ministry in the 21st Century.”
This picture basically captures the group attending the conference.
This picture was taken as I met with about 30 of the key leaders from the Guntersville First United Methodist Church. They are utilizing the Every Member in Ministry concept and I had the opportunity to work with some of the challenges they are facing in implementing it.
- January 24 – On Saturday night I drove up to Huntsville to spend the night. On Sunday morning I met with the Saint Paul Triana United Methodist Church where Dr. Paul Hilliard is the pastor. It is an African-American church. I taught a seminar on evangelism at 8:15, Sunday morning. I then had the privilege of preaching at the 10:45 worship service. His church is positioned in a growing area. They desire to reach people effectively as they move to that area.
- January 24 – I left Huntsville at 12:00 noon following the worship service to drive back to Montgomery for a large seminar at the First United Methodist Church in Montgomery at 4:00 p.m. The seminar involved churches in Montgomery/Prattville District. I focused on stewardship. It was a little bit of a challenge to make a three and a half hour drive in four hours because we had tornado warnings and huge rain storms. I made it on time.
- January 26 – I spent the afternoon with our campus minister at Alabama State University. Stephen Redmond is the first fulltime United Methodist Campus Minister at ASU. We visited with a lot of the professors. I had an opportunity to introduce him to several of the coaches. He has been well received and I am excited about the possibilities for his ministry there.
- January 30-31 – My father served the First United Methodist Church of Panama City for 14 years. They have just completed a new family life center and named it “Si Mathison Community Life Center.” Lynn and I went down to participate with my brother George and his wife Monteigne in the worship services on Sunday morning and the dedication of the new building. God really blessed me when he placed me in the family of Si and Mary Mathison. I still am amazed at how blessed I am to have had them as parents.
- During the month I spent about 14 hours in one-on-one time with pastors in individual mentoring, etc. I am finding this to be very helpful. I also spent some time with four different local church leadership groups.
January presented a variety of different ministry opportunities. I am constantly amazed at the doors that God continues to open. I want to thank you for your support through your prayers and finances that make this ministry possible.
For the Cause of causes,
John Ed Mathison
Posted January 29th, 2010 by John Ed Mathison
A few years ago Dr. Bill Bright founder of Campus Crusade, called me and invited me to a meeting of about 200 pastors and laymen in Atlanta. He then asked if I could come a day early to meet with a smaller group to do some planning. I immediately accepted the invitation.
The smaller group consisted of people representing different denominations and para-church groups. I was the United Methodist that he knew.
He shared his vision of reaching 1 billion new Christians and starting 5 million new churches. That was a big vision, but that was Dr. Bill Bright.
Carrying out that vision has been an exciting endeavor for a lot of people. I have been participating as a part of the teaching team and steering committee to allow God to bring to reality that vision.
Last week in Orlando, Florida, at the Orange County Convention Center we had a Synergize 2 Conference with pastors and lay people from nearly every world region, more than 40 countries, nearly every U S State and Canadian Provinces.
It was amazing to meet people from other parts of the world who are doing extraordinary things to win people to Jesus Christ. I could share volumes of information. In this blog I want to highlight a couple of people and for the Recap for the month of January I will have a lot of pictures of people participating in that conference.
Pictured here is a man who has a great ministry in Iran. His name is Lazarus Yeghnaz and he and his wife are a part of 222 Ministries in Iran. The 222 refers to 2 Timothy 2:2, which directs their mission to train and release the Timothys of this generation to establish churches in every town and city in Iran and every nation where there are communities of Iranians.
Lazarus has a tremendous ministry. Most people think of Iran as an enemy—he sees it as an opportunity. An enemy is something from which you have to run where an opportunity is something which you want to run towards. That is his spirit.
In his ministry there are 3,000 new converts coming to Christ each month. It is estimated that there are about 10,000 new Christians in Iran each month. Wow!
I understand that more Iranians have come to Christ in the last 25 years than in the previous 1,300 years since Islam came to Iran. Lazarus shares how Iran is open to the gospel and thousands upon thousands of hungry Muslims are turning to the message of Christ each year.
As you might imagine, he serves under tremendous danger and direst. He has people in his movement who have “disappeared.” He and his wife have no fear—they were eager to get back to Iran.
Meeting people like Lazarus makes me feel ashamed of petty little fears that I have serving in our culture. He is contributing tremendously to the 1 Billion Soul vision.
The persons pictured here is Eddie Leo and his wife who serves in Indonesia. It is one of the toughest places in the world for the Christian faith. That doesn’t stop Eddie as he heads a ministry that is planting hundreds of churches in this strong Muslim area. He has been active in starting men’s groups throughout neighboring countries. Again, his life is always in danger but that doesn’t seem to bother him at all. I was told that he had two of the pastors serving with him who had been executed in the past year.
The person pictured here is David Grant who directs a ministry called “Operation Rescue.” Thousands of children have been rescued from horrible situations and redirected towards productive lives and introduced to the Christian faith. Most of his work has been done in India where little girls carry little value except as they are traded for use as servants or prostitutes.
One of the great things David did in India was to start a church about 20 years ago. He had a man named David Mohan who wanted to be a pastor. David Grant rented an apartment for David Mohan. The apartment could hold 16 people for a house church.
It wasn’t long before they had to get a larger place to meet, and then God just blessed and the place exploded.
David Mohan today has started hundreds of churches throughout India. He is in the process of building a sanctuary that will seat 54,000 people. Not bad for a church that is only a few years old!
It also points out the importance of a person like David Grant who had the vision to start a church. Think how many people can have a vision for starting something, then turning it over to someone who can come in and give leadership.
I just wanted to share with you a few of these experiences that I have had because God opened this door of opportunity. The Billion Soul Initiative will make a real difference in the world. My life has been both challenged and inspired by these great leaders, here and abroad. I am grateful that God is allowing me to play a small part on this team.
Financial support given to the John Ed Mathison Leadership Ministries enables me to participate in this initiative and to help a lot of young pastors attend such training. I expect to go outside the country at least two or three times this year for conferences that will attract thousands of pastors. Thank you for your support in making this possible.
The witness of each of us contributes to the winning of 1 billion people to Christ.
Posted January 18th, 2010 by John Ed Mathison
One of the biggest challenges of a church today is to be up-to-date in doing ministry. The temptation is to keep doing things the way we have always done them—even though they may be much out of date.
I preached a sermon entitled “A Dirt Road Church in a Interstate World.” It is so easy for the church to be far behind the times. It is easy to have a Guttenberg mentality when we live in a Google reality.
My dad always was ahead of his time in utilizing radio and television. He always told my brother George and me to look for ways to utilize the media. We both have tried to practice that.
Technology today affords so many new ways of doing evangelism and ministry. A lot of us are trying to make use of e-mails, but the possibilities of utilizing text messaging, iPods, facebook, twitter—the list goes on and on, and many new things are just around the corner.
Earlier this month the Reverend Canon David Parrott had a special service to bless high-tech gadgets. He put laptops and smart phones on the altar of London’s 17th-century St. Lawrence Jewry church. He wanted to remind people that technology was used as a daily working tool, and could also be used for ministry.
The special service of blessing was offered in the Christopher Wren-designed building – the official church of the Corporation of the City of London, which runs the capital’s bustling financial district. Parishioners took out their cell phones and other electronic devices and held them in the air for the blessing.
The reason Parrott did this was to update a traditional first of the year back-to-work ceremony called “Plow Monday,” in which villagers would gather and bless a symbolic farming implement which they placed at the church door. Parrott surmised that since there were no fields anywhere near the middle of London, the ceremony would take on a lot more meaning to use technology rather than a plow.
We need to be open to use every means available for meaningful ministry in the 21st century. I believe that God yearn to use all the new inventions that have developed and will be developed. It is up to us to ask for His guidance in trying to figure out how to use these instruments.
This message is coming to you by e-mail from the Internet. May God show us more and more ways to more effectively communicate His Good News. Let’s make the church relevant to meet the needs of people today!
Posted January 12th, 2010 by John Ed Mathison
One door God has opened for me is participating with global church leaders to win one billion converts to Jesus Christ in the next ten years! This was part of a vision of Dr. Bill Bright, founder and chairman of Campus Crusade. The goal is also to start five million new churches!
We have over 40 denominations and hundreds of independent and non-denominational groups participating. It is an ecumenical, diverse movement.
I am serving on a global teaching team to train pastors to carry out the great commission. I am also serving as co-chair for North America.
The Christian faith is exploding in different parts of the world. Recently, Dr. James Davis, the co-chair of Global Networking shared ten reasons to rejoice in 2010. I want to share these with you.
10 Reasons to Rejoice in 2010
1. Africa’s 600 million Christians makes it what missiologist Philip Jenkins calls, the single greatest religious shift in world history!
2. China has 45,000 new converts every day totaling more than 130 million Christians. Nearly 16 million came to Christ in 2009!
3. United States pastors have made startling advances in an increasingly hostile culture. The signs of the next spiritual awakening are dawning.
4. Indian leaders see nearly 15,000 making first-time decisions for Christ every day. More than 5 million in 2009!
5. Indonesia, a Muslim nation, boasts some of the largest churches in the world, and has mushroomed from 1.3 million to 11 million believers in 40 years!
6. In Vietnam, Protestant Christianity grew 600 percent last decade!
7. In the small island nation of Fiji, church planters yielded 200 new churches last year alone, with hundreds baptized every Sunday!
8. In just one district in Uganda, leaders planted more than 1200 churches last year using the Filipino model, and as a nation they are targeting one million new believers in 2010!
9. Korea sends more missionaries than any nation on earth!
10. Nigeria hosts the largest prayer meeting in the world with 2 million each December!
This does not include the phenomenal growth of the Church in Eastern Europe, South America, other parts of Southeast Asia, the wildfires of revival in nations of the former USSR!
In January 2010, I will be speaking at Synergize 2! in Orlando. During March and May I will be part of the speaking/teaching team in conferences in Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey. Pastors Conference!
I really feel like a mule at the Kentucky Derby when I have the privilege of working with some of these world leaders. But God has opened that door, and I am going to be faithful to this opportunity.
Thanks for your prayers and support.
John Ed Mathison
www.johnedmathison.org
Posted January 4th, 2010 by John Ed Mathison
One of the problems most of us have is making excuses for our mistakes. There is a very popular line that says, “It is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.”
That is really a cheap view of forgiveness. It communicates that you can keep on doing the same thing over and over and always ask for forgiveness. Repentance in the Bible means that we ask for forgiveness with no intent of committing that sin again.
Recently a man broke into the Berean Baptist Church in Ellenwood, Georgia. He took a lot of expensive equipment including microphones and laptops containing important records from the church. He broke the lock to the church safe, but it was empty. (I can’t believe that the Baptist Church had an empty safe.)
The interesting thing is that the robber scrawled a note on the wall saying, “Sorry but I’m poor. Forgive me Lord.”
It is easy just to try to excuse our actions by saying that we need to be forgiven. That cheap concept of forgiveness is really an excuse for sin.
This was actually the fourth time the Berean Baptist Church has been robbed in the last two years. The pastor, Rev. Roger Davis, said that he was considering putting up a note of his own telling potential robbers to call him instead and the church would take up a collection for them.
The Bible is clear that each of us has sinned, but God desires to forgive us for our sins if we truly repent and confess. Confession is not a subtle excuse for our actions. It is the key to a right relationship with God and with our fellow man. The Bible says that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Posted December 28th, 2009 by John Ed Mathison
When I was in college and seminary financial funds were always limited. There were some ways to save money. I always ate my meals in the cafeteria because they were paid for, whether you ate them or not. Eating out was extra.
Another thing I never wanted to do was to have a book overdue at the library. That cost money. I figured that if I was in college or seminary I would be smart enough to get the book back on time.
Stanley Dudek’s mother evidently did not have the value of returning books to the library on time. Stanley was going through his mother’s things and found a book that was due at the Bedford Public Library in Massachusetts on May 10, 1910. The overdue fine came to $361.35.
The date 1910 caught my eye because Dad was born in 1910. My Dad said it was always easy to keep up with his age because 10 was easy to subtract from whatever the current year would be.
Ninety-nine years is a long time to have a book overdue. It is interesting that the name of the book was “Facts I Ought to Know about the Government of My Country.” I would be interested to know if that book talked about some facts concerning national debt, TARP, bailouts, etc. I wonder if it had a fact in there about being responsible in the little things – like getting a book back to the library on time.
I was thinking about some things in life that can easily be overdue.
- Overdue on making a phone call to check on someone’s emotional, spiritual, or physical health
- Overdue on a visit to spend a few minutes with someone who has made a difference in my life
- Overdue on writing a letter to thank someone for doing something significant or insignificant for me
- Overdue on giving a gift to some organization that I believe in
- Overdue on offering a word of encouragement to somebody who is going through a tough time
- Overdue in telling someone how much I appreciate them and their influence in my life
- Overdue on saying I love you
- Overdue on being more consistent with my spiritual and physical exercise.
I don’t know how much all of those overdue things would add up to – but I need to take them as seriously as I did getting books back to the library on time. Regardless of how overdue anything is, the best time to correct it is now!
Don’t start 2010 with anything overdue!
