Jesus is Savior or Server?

Thank you for your prayers for our church. I felt that we had a good spirit of fellowship in our service yesterday.

We spent last week in Kenya relaxing and recharging. It gave me some good time to do some thinking about our church, my preaching and the recent attitudes of jealousy. The Lord laid on my heart the verses in Philippians 2. It was a personal rebuke to me when I considered all that the Lord sacrificed for my sake; how could I not want to serve him regardless of the cost to do so.
While in Kenya Cathy saw a sign that sums up many attitudes in the church today. It read, “Jesus is Servior.” While it was an obvious misspelling of the word “Savior” it correctly defines what many people here think about Jesus. They look to Jesus as their personal server. They have the attitude that they deserve blessings from God because of everything they have done for him. That is exactly contrary to what many people in the Bible faced, Epaphroditus (Phil 2:25-30) being the prime example in my message on Sunday. The people received the message well with many “Amens” scattered throughout.

I have announced to our church that I am adding another day of soul-winning each week. I already have a partner for both times. Hopefully it will prove to be a good teaching time. I also have the Wednesday night discipleship class and the Saturday Bible study times that I hope will build a good core group in our church. Please pray for these efforts. Pray for their success, souls saved and the church strengthened. I also want to start a “bus ministry” very soon. I am not sure if it will be received well but I am willing to try.

This month has begun the harvest season for many people. One man is very anxious to harvest his crops because people are beginning to steal his corn. The crops have not done very well this year and as a result many people have very little in their farms. Neighbors are pillaging those farms that did have a good crop. It is sad to see. Please pray that the Lord will protect this man’s crops and give him a sufficient harvest to live off of for the year.

I have begun looking for a new email delivery program for our prayer letters. Many people have asked me to format my emails in a way that would allow for a better printing. I had a simple solution but something has caused it to suddenly quit working properly. Please be patient as I work through this situation. For now, you can click here for a printable copy of this letter.