Tomorrow, tomorrow...

Tomorrow I will begin a new series of messages I have titled, "Everyone Lives Forever, Somewhere". I think that sometimes we get in the middle of the busyness and stress of life and forget why we are still here, what our purpose is as believers and as a church.

My prayer is that in the next four weeks we can recapture a real sense of urgency for sharing the good news of God's love and forgiveness with those who haven't yet experienced it. I pray that we while see real change in our lives and our church in these next few weeks.

On another note... Our Ukraine mission team will land back in Columbus around 5:30 pm on Monday. Pray for their last Sunday in country. All the reports we have heard are that it has been a great trip.

Pastor Noel

Ready for Sunday!

I'm sitting at an airport in birmingham AL this morning waiting to catch a flight home. I flew down yesterday to spend some time with my mom who is undergoing treatment for cancer. We had a good day yesterday... My sister and her boys from Atlanta were in too so it was good to spend time with them.

It has been a very busy week. Due to the holiday on Monday everything has been compressed, but tomorrow is the beginning of a new week.

I am really looking forward to worship tomorrow. I will be preaching the last message in our series on Joseph in Genesis. We will be focused on the one thing you see throughout Joseph's life that allowed him to handle everything that came his way.

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Sometimes people ask me what I am especially praying for right now. Well, let me share...

... Of course I am praying much for my mother as she goes throughout her treatments.

... I am praying for Edward Rafferty who lost his mother this week.

... I am praying for a very serious community issue that impacts a number of people in our church and also impacts the whole faith family in our area. Just pray that the Lord's will be done.

... I am praying for our missions work in Kenya. I had a good meeting with the Kenya team this week. I am enthused for this ministry right now.

... I am praying for youth camp and vacation Bible school, both of which are just around the corner.

Well, it's time to line up to get on the plane...

Pastor Noel

Wrap Up for the Week

It's been a pretty good week. I began the week praying that the Lord would help me be very productive this week. He has done so. Every item on this week's to-do list has been marked off. (That never happens.) Sermon is ready to go. I was able to make a ton of visits and pastoral phone calls. I was able to do every pending counseling request...

Yesterday was a very good day. I drove over to the Stowe Center in Columbus, a church and community mission our church helps sponsor. There I watched eleven of our church kids serve over 100 people in the soup kitchen. They did an excellent job. It is amazing to see how mature these kids can be when they are engaged in service. All the kids seemed anxious to come back for their assigned serving day in June.

I hope to have a lazy day today. This morning, I need to put together a little bit of lawn furniture Donna wanted, and then I'm going to spend a few hours on my bike. Maybe a family picnic this evening.

I hope to see you tomorrow. We are going to have a great day of worship.

Pastor Noel

Kenya Update...

Here is a part of an email I received from our pastor in Kenya about a meeting with the Muslim guardians of the orphans we feed and sponsor in our Christian School...

Yesterday we had a good time with the guardians to lift you, pastor Noel and all the donors in prayer. I wish you could see how wonderful and amazing it was for the community to see Muslim women dressed with their full Muslim dressing praying the Lord Jesus in this matter.

Isn't it great to hear how the Lord is using us to minister to even Muslim families on the other side of the world!

Pastor Noel

Chafisi Orphan Ministry in Kenya

Well, we had another early morning Kenya meeting today... nobody should have to have a meeting at 5:00 a.m. The next time we partner with an international mission effort, we will partner with one west of us so that the meetings can be later in the day ;)...

So everyone wants to know... how are things going?

Good news! We have 42 orphans who all have uniforms, shoes, food, transportation, and paid tuition to school! We received a good report this morning concerning this ministry. I am thankful for all of you who make this ministry possible by your sacrificial giving, and I am thankful for the work of our four church members who have been in Kenya the past six months helping to facilitate this ministry. (By the way, if you would like to help us maintain this ministry or even help us minister to more orphans, contact the church and ask to speak with Carla. It costs us about $40 per month per orphan to provide this ministry. When you contact us, we can give you further details.)

The second piece of news is... our team in Kenya will be returning to Heath on July 22. They are coming back for a breather and to make preparations for a probable return in December. Pray for them as they travel and as they seek to get re-adjusted to living here.

Stay tuned for more updates in the days to come...

Pastor Noel

Pastor Fredrick Update III

I received an email a little after midnight last night that said pastor Fredrick had surgery at 10:00 pm Kenya time and is doing well. It didn't give any further details. I'm guessing that is good news.

Pastor Noel

Pastor Fredrick Update II

There has been a lot of confusion today about Pastor Fredrick's situation. He waited all day and they were unable to operate. It isn't clear why. Continue to pray...

Pastor Noel

Pastor Fredrick Update

Here is an email I received early this morning from our team on the ground in Kenya...

Pastor Fredrick is in surgery for appendix @ Kalifi Hop. @ 8 AM this morning. He was taken to Kalifi (was taken to Mombasa first for a good ct scan, then they sent him to Kalifi) the trip to Mombasa started between 10 and 11 pm last night, it was late before they got to Kalifi Hospital.
Mombasa is about one and half hours from here and Kalifi is 45 minutes from here. Mwatete said he will be in the hospital for five days. We will send updates.

Thank you for your prayers.
Your in Christ
John, Sandy, Lisa, and Greg

Missions Teams Update

A quick update of the status of our Missions Teams...

• Yesterday our Stowe Center team served in the soup kitchen of the mission we support in inner-city Columbus. Reports are that things went well.

• I spoke with our missions team in Mississippi yesterday. They are helping to rebuild churches destroyed by hurricane Katrina. They told me that they are working this week on the church where Adrian Rogers got his start as a pastor. They will return to Ohio this weekend.

• Our Kenya team is doing well. I hope to be able to speak with them by phone again this week. We will call them during our worship service this Sunday morning. Of course, Greg & Lisa are now there long term... John and Sandy were going to come back a few weeks ago but have now decided to stay on until mid August. I am contemplating going back in August myself. Let me know if you might be interested in going with me.

• If you would like to help support Greg and Lisa while they are in Kenya, visit Greg's website: www.GregsGarageOfArt.com. There you can view and purchase some of his great art work.

Pastor Noel

It's A Small World Today

Yesterday I wrote a post about our friends heading to Ethiopia next week and then to Bolivia in a few months... This morning I got a phone call from Hui Chi Williams. She had gotten as far as Chicago in her mission trip to Korea. She just called to ask if everyone would continue to pray... This morning, I've also tried, unsuccessfully so far, to call our mission team in Kenya to go over arrangements for them to share with our church via a phone call in our Sunday morning worship time... I met with Henry Zigan this morning, and he was telling me that everything was a go for our mission trip to Mississippi next week... And later today, I will be talking with an old friend from Alabama who now leads some mission efforts in New Mexico about our church sending some families down there to minister with some of the Native American tribes he is working with...

It seems like a small world today.

Isn't it exciting to hear how the Lord is working through our church around the country and around the world! In one morning, I've now talked or emailed with people ministering in Ethiopia, Bolivia, Kenya, Korea, Mississippi, and New Mexico.

Our next mission celebration is May 3. We have some exciting things to announce then about how you can be a part of all of this in 2009-2010!

Pastor Noel

Mozombite Family

Those of you in our church here in Ohio may remember David and Amy Mozombite and their two kids. They were with us in a missions conference a few years ago and have since become friends.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

They have an amazing story and have had an interesting 'addition' in the last few days. They have been pursuing adoption for some time and have recently been approved to adopt a little boy from Ethiopia. Here you can see a video of their new son...

They will be leaving soon to go to Ethiopia to get Asher. They hope to be leaving sometime in the next few months to serve as missionaries in Bolivia.

If you would like to read more of their story, check out these blogs...

http://mozosonmission.blogspot.com/

http://shenamedhimasher.blogspot.com/

Pastor Noel

Prayer Requests...

Last week was a challenging week. It wasn't a bad week, just a challenging one. I had two very long days that I don't think I really ever recovered from, several counseling appointments a few of which were heart rending, one day trip to St. Louis, and a few distractions. Sunday was a good day. We had a good service in the morning; the deacons and I did our last day of one-at-a-time Lord's Suppers; and we had two good services in the evening.

I am looking forward to this week. It is starting off well. I got some very good news this morning that I believe is the Lord saying that this is going to be a good week of ministry, full steam ahead...

Here are some things to keep in your prayers...

• I have prospect visits lined up for Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Pray for these families.
  
• Donna and the girls and I are praying about doing our first big family mission trip this Summer. We are going to try to make a decision in the next couple of weeks. Donna is working on passports right now, just in case.
• So far this morning, we've had seven people sign up for our April 1 New Member's class! Pray that we will be able to make connections with all of those God is sending our way.
• We have a leadership meeting (council) this Wednesday where we will be considering some upgrades to our youth ministry.
• VBS meetings this week...
• We are making the last preparations for publicizing our Easter services this year. We have a very special presentation the Friday before Easter, and then we will offer our Easter worship service three times on Sunday.

Thanks for the Prayers!
Pastor Noel

Quick Update & Surprise

I just heard from our Mission team in Kenya... all is going well...

Interesting thing happened today...

I am going to be at a conference in Washington D.C. in May, so today I called the offices of Congressman Tiberi, Congressman Space, Senator Brown, and Senator Voinovich and asked if, as a representative of our church, I could have a brief time to sit with each legislator in his office to pray with him and for him. All four said, "Yes".

I am surprised and excited!

Pastor Noel

Kenya Team Update

I received this email from our team in Kenya about 10:00 this morning...

We have arrived safe and sound. We did have some interesting experiences along the way which we will explain later.

Pass this message on to Fritz and the kids.

Pastor Fredrick, John and Sandy, Toni, Greg and Lisa say Hi! It's in the mid 90's here and very dry.

We will correspond as soon as we get situated.

In Christ,
The team


I hope you will keep the team in your prayers. I will post updates as I get them.

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I am really looking forward to tomorrow. I am preaching on a subject I've preached on many times, but I believe the Lord has given me a new insight and a new understanding to share tomorrow.

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As some of you may know, Dave Smith, a very active member of our church died on Friday morning. Please keep his wife Linda in your prayers. It has been a very difficult week for her and the family.

Pastor Noel

Is Adoption Missional?

Below is an article written by a friend of mine, Johnny Carr, and published on another blog. I think you will enjoy this post. We are trying to work out a time that Johnny can come speak to our church in January. Johnny and wife Beth in addition to their two children, have adopted two hearing impaired children from China and are now in the process of adopting a third child from here in America. Johnny speaks at some of the largest churches in America as he shares his story of what God has done through adoption in his family and the families of those he works with.

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Johnny Carr, National Director of Church Partnerships for Bethany Christian Services, explores the intentionality and service of adoption. Johnny adopted his first son, James, a deaf child from China, in 2005.

I guess the first thing is to define missional. "Missional" is one of those junk drawer buzzwords that has become common in our Christian vocabulary with several definitions floating around. Wikipedia says that "missional" is a missionary-term that describes a missionary lifestyle, and I guess that is as good a definition as any. To live "missionally" is to express the Gospel holistically in the way you live - every day and in every thing. It is a way of life, not a program. It means living like Jesus lived. If you know much about Jesus you know that includes helping to meet the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of others. Living missionally means making a conscious decision to live each day with others in mind, rather than yourself.

In other words, YES - adoption is missional.

Recently, I was speaking with a lady who had asked her church for financial help for their adoption. The church leader responded that the church did not help with "optional" things like adoption. The pastor's perspective seemingly saw adoption more like consumption than ministry. He saw adoption as a want - much like I want an iPhone. He was not viewing adoption from the perspective of the child.

When I meet with Pastors to discuss adoption ministries, I will often ask them, "Who does adoption help?" The typical response is "infertile couples." That is when I lovingly explain that adoption primarily helps children. Whether the child is an orphan from war, genocide or disease in Africa; whether the child is an orphan due to abuse and neglect and the state has severed the rights of his/her birth parents, or whether it is a new born baby that was born due to an unplanned pregnancy - adoption is (or, at least, should be) always about the health and best interest of the child. Unfortunately, many Christians are focusing on adults (us) rather than the child (them).

When adoption is seen through a child's eyes, it is easy to see the missional nature of adoption. In fact, this may be the ultimate missional decision because adoption is a lifetime commitment. Many people today are adopting children with special needs. Some of these children will never grow up to be independent. The people who are adopting these little ones know that they are making a decision today that will affect the rest of their lives. Instead of raising a couple of healthy kids, sending them off to college, and then sailing off in their motor home into retirement, they will be serving the least of these until one of them "retires" into eternity. That is truly missional.

Someone once said missional living was "religion without all the junk added," I thought that was interesting in light of James 1:27, "Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (NIV)

There are many different perspectives on the best ways to care for orphans, but with 143,000,000 orphans in the world today, something must be done by followers of Jesus Christ. Only 1-2% of these children will be adopted. We need many strategies that will best fit the cultures, values, and environments of the places where these orphans live, and adoption is a one great strategy.

Adoption is not the one-stop cure all for the orphan crisis, but it is a strategic and effective mode to care for the orphans of the world. It's also a commitment of sacrifice, a holistic manifestation of the Gospel, a missional posture and a service to Christ.

Bethany is an international team of nearly 900 people actively involved in ministering to the needs of children, young people, and families. With over 75 offices nationwide and international ministries in 13 other countries, Bethany touches the lives of more than 30,000 people each year. Bethany is supported through fees and gifts received from individuals, churches, corporations, and foundations. Bethany is known by many as an adoption agency, but our family-focused ministries also reach people struggling with unplanned pregnancies, infertility, and a multitude of other human hurts.

This blog originally appeared at http://www.qideas.org/blog/

Pastor Noel

GIC & Worship

I just got back from the St. Louis, MO area where I had the great privilege of speaking at the kick-off service of a Global Impact Celebration. We had a good night.

When I went down for breakfast in my hotel this morning, I ran into author, speaker, missions leader, Walker Moore. Some of you may remember him speaking in our church a year or so ago. It was good to visit with him.

I am looking forward to Worship tomorrow. We will be focusing on Daniel 3, if you are one of my Ohio readers and want to get ahead.

Pastor Noel

Surprise Meeting

The day at the church ended like most Mondays with several meetings... some in person... some on the phone. For the most part it was the usual fair.

But I had one surprise meeting!

A couple from our church (I'll leave their names out so they can make a formal announcement when the time is right) dropped in to say that they are seriously thinking the Lord may be calling them to full-time overseas missions! If the Lord confirms this in their lives, this will be the second family this year. That makes my day!

As a pastor, I talk with a lot of people every week who are struggling to trust the Lord with everyday things like jobs, money, relationships, etc. What a gust of encouragement it is to sit down with a couple who is taking such giant steps of trust and faithfulness.

This was a perfect week for this. I am preparing this week to go and speak at a church on Friday about the importance of missions and how becoming Acts 1:8 focused has changed my life and this church. Now I've got another great story to share!

Pastor Noel

Feeling Better

O.K. I'm feeling better now.

The election didn't go the way I hoped and prayed, but it is over. I will pray often these next four years for President Obama, his wisdom, courage, leadership and humility. At the risk of sounding too trite, Romans 8:28 does promise us that all things will work together for God's good purpose. I will trust in that.

It has been a difficult week, half because of my disappointment with the election and half because of something that was brought to my attention on Tuesday (more on that this Sunday night). But I feel better by the hour.

Well, what is going on?

Last night was 'Party with the Pastor' night at AWANA. The kids are great!

Today is my study day. I love study days! I am shut up in my home office for a day of reading, praying, studying, and preparing for upcoming messages.

I am working on three messages today...

The first message is part II in our Heart2Heart series. The main focus Scripture passage is Malachi 3. The second message is for our Soma-Kristou worship this Sunday evening. I'm taking a week off from the "Calculus of Salvation" in Romans. I'll keep my title and Scripture passage under wraps for that message until then. My FBC Heath readers will see why on Sunday, but I can say I will be preaching from Joshua and Acts. The third is a message for a missions conference I will be kicking off in Illinois next Friday. Projection slides and outlines for that one need to be turned in by Monday. I have been thinking about preaching a 'missions' message from Romans 1:8-15 for a year now. I will see today if that passage will work out as well as I hope.

By the way, a friend of mine in Alabama had an adoption fall through last night because of some unusual complications. It is a tough day for that family. If you know someone going through the adoption process, pray for them.

Pastor Noel

Heart2Heart & Miscellaneous

This week we will begin a new four week series of messages titled, Heart2Heart. In this series we will take a look at what kind of hearts we really have. Often times we are not the people we imagine ourselves to be. Jeremiah 17:9, says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?"

So we are going hold Scripture up next to our hearts for the next few weeks and see what we can learn about ourselves.

Here is the road map for the series...

· 11/ 2 I have a Caring Heart – Luke 10:25-37
· 11/9 I have a Believing Heart – Malachi 3
· 11/16 I have a Trusting Heart – Daniel 3
· 11/23 I have a Willing Heart – Exodus 35:21

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This Sunday morning, our prayer ministry is hosting a special breakfast. We have a lady from Pittsburgh for whom we have been praying a long time. She wants to share with us how much those prayers have meant to her and her family and what God has done as a result. It will be a special morning. If you haven't RSVP'd by calling the church office, please do so soon.

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Last minute invite... Randy Wagner, Ray & Bernie's son, called and invited our choir to join his choir in singing at the John McCain / Arnold Swarzenagger rally this Friday. Hank Williams Jr. will also be singing. Can't you just imagine Pastor Shawn and Hank singing together. That may be very interesting!

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I just got an email with the estimate from Kenya for the house we want to help the Strausz family build. This will serve as the home for Greg and Lisa as long as they are there and will also serve as the home base for our church's mission work there. Do you want to know how much it is? Are you sitting down? Almost three million dollars... or actually shillings... Kenya shillings... or about thirty-seven thousand US dollars.

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I was talking with a young lady in our church this past Sunday evening. I won't mention her name here on the internet, but many of my Ohio readers will know who I am talking about in another sentence or two. I told her I had used her as an illustration of spiritual growth in a discipleship class I had taught last Saturday morning. She then reminded me that this month, October (I think she said, October 20th) marked the one year anniversary of her profession of faith. She talked about how much her life had changed in one year. She said she had been telling all her friends that October was her birthday month :). So far as I know, she had no church background at all a year ago, and look at her now! Faithful to the Lord... Serving the Lord... In fact, a week or two ago, Donna, my wife, was calling around trying to line up people for our table at the upcoming Heartbeats banquet. Several of the people she called had already been called by this young lady. I think that is GREAT! The grace of God still works pretty well, doesn't it? We should all be that excited about the Lord.

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Donna brought her camera by the church today to take some photo's for me for an upcoming slideshow. We took pictures of all the things the church has been able to do because of the faithfulness of our members in their capital fund giving these last three years. It took an hour to get all of the photos. It was exciting to look back and remember all that has happened. Have you walked through the renovated gym and family life center lately? By the way, can I give a shameless plug for my wife's photography blog? She is really getting pretty good at this photography stuff... MyDearPhotography.blogspot.com.

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I heard from an old friend of mine this week from Montgomery, AL. She and her husband are trying to adopt a child from just over in Pennsylvania. They have faced some real obstacles and complications with this. You can get more details if you have a password to the church's prayer page. Just keep them in your prayers from now through the end of November. Pray that they will have wisdom and receive grace from the Lord.

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Back to the To Do list...

Pastor Noel

Nairobi

I've finally made it to a computer that works decent. We are in the Nairobi airport. We fly from here around midnight tonight, which is 4:00 pm for you.

We've had a great trip. Some incredible things have happened that can only be explained by God's power. We look forward to sharing with you this Sunday.

Pray for our safe return. We fly overnight to London, and then after an all day layover there we fly over night to Chicago, then with a layover and a time change, we should arrive in Columbus around 10:00 p.m. on Tuesday.

Noel