Intentional Encouragement

     I just finished a great article on the measuring of "success" in the church.  I think we all struggle with what to measure and how to know if we are accomplishing what we set out to accomplish.  How do you put a person's progress in discipleship on a scale that shows how they are doing?      Nothing grows (or even maintains) it's effectiveness without regular evaluation, but how do we apply that to the local church?      The article is longer than my usual posts, but it's worth the read. Measuring What Matters | Leadership Journal      What do you think?  Can we measure our spiritual successes?  How do you track what is going on in your own life?

     The young people of our church are participating in the "30 Hour Famine" this weekend sponsored by World Vision. It is a great experience for teens to get a brief glimpse of what life is like for far too many people in the world. I've been asked to offer a challenge from the Scriptures about what they will experience.       There is so much to say about God's heart for those who are hurting and the responsibility of his people to care for the needy.       I decided to spend the first few minutes talking about what makes a person "wealthy" and thus responsible to care for the needy. I'm confident that all of the kids involved would fit into a reasonable definition of wealthy once they think about it for a few minutes. The majority of us who live in America have more than we need. I plan to use this video from the "miniature earth project" to help them get some perspective on how much they have compared with so many others:     

            It all seemed so small; a brown outline with little dots of blue and one larger empty brown area.   What am I talking about?   Why, the Grand Canyon , or course.   For many of you who have flown over it at 30,000 feet as you traversed the US for some reason, you may remember the first time the pilot said “now out on the left side of the plane, you will notice the Grand Canyon …”   Somehow, since you were so far removed from it; it didn’t seem so grand.             There are a lot of times in life when this is true.   Even the events that are important to us seem to be reduced in magnitude as time moves us further and further away from them.   That time I got knocked down and took a licking from a bully in 3 rd grade…the first girl I liked, but wasn’t sure she liked me…those stitches that came from jumping on hay bales on the back of a pick-up truck…all of these circumstances seemed huge at the time.   The further I am from them, the smaller they seem in significance.

     I want to challenge your Biblical memory about the story of Easter as it is found in the Bible.      We have all seen movies about people who find some means of going back in time to change something about the future.   The basic story line is always that if you change any one thing in the past, it inevitably changes the future.      Try on these “what-ifs” with the story of the Passion of Jesus and see what you think would change: What if Jesus had not ridden into Jerusalem (Matthew 21) but had stayed in Bethpage and Bethany ? What if Jesus had accepted the applause of the people on Palm Sunday and had taken over as the long awaited King? What if Jesus had not gone to Gethsemane (Matthew 26)?   He could have gone somewhere else.   Then that legion of soldiers would have had the wrong address and Judas would have looked like a fool. What if Jesus had resisted arrest there?   He could have. What if Jesus ha