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05 Aug

August 5, 2009 |

Dick Raab, a retired minister in Michigan, has been diagnosed with sarcoma cancer. He begins radiation treatments around August 24, and chemotherapy will come after that. On Monday, August 4, we received this message from Dick’s wife, Donelle.

“We went to the oncologist this morning. He said without treatment Dick wouldn’t make it past 5 months. With treatment he could live several more months, even years, there is just no way to know at this point. There are some extra spots, too, on the outside of his lung. It is too hard to know if those spots will take off and grow or not. They could stay dormant for a long time and then grow quickly. Or, they could be the same kind as his tumor and grow very fast right away. There is no way to tell.

“We do know that things were slowed down, at least temporarily, by the removal of the large tumor. The rest of the tumor that the surgeon couldn’t get and ‘still have a live patient’ needs to be treated as soon as healing takes place enough that he can be treated. We have an appointment next Monday with the radiation oncologist to go over radiation treatment possibilities and the possible date to start up treatment. The extra spots on his lung will be treated with chemo after the radiation is done. It all doesn’t sound like a pleasant fall even in the best case scenario.”

You can send a note to Dick by email.

04 Aug

August 4, 2009 |

Jeff Bleijerveld and Donna Hollopeter returned from China, and were in the office today until jet-lag got the best of them (about mid-afternoon). The trip went very well.

Darlene Burkett, administrative assistant in Global Ministries, and her husband Phil took off for two weeks to celebrate their 30th anniversary. They’ll be in California visiting their daughter Carissa, and at a lodge somewhere in Colorado. Today begins the second week of their vacation.

04 Aug

August 4, 2009 |

Denny Miller, pastor of Emmanuel Community Church (Fort Wayne, Ind.), is leading a Pastor’s Familiarity Tour to Israel February 19-26, 2010. It is designed to train other pastors to lead groups to Israel (something Denny has done many times). There are 17 slots for pastors, and 11 of those slots have been filled. That leaves room for six more to get aboard.

The criteria: that you are a pastor who has not been to Israel before, and that you will make a serious effort to take a group from your church during the next two years. Follow the link below for complete information about the trip.

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03 Aug

August 3, 2009 |

I just received a letter from Mike Turner, a layperson at the Liberty UB church of Stockport, Ohio, down in the beautiful hills of southern Ohio. He reports that on July 12, they baptized, in Wolf Creek, 13 people who had been saved in the past month and six who had been saved earlier in 2009. A nearby Nazarene Church learned of the upcoming baptism, and they baptized one more person, for a total of 20. Mike reports that 68 persons were present to witness the power of God, sing songs, and pray. Mike said it was a grand and glorious day.

Over the past four years, I had tried to be consistent in calling our churches to become healthy. I think some people thought I was saying all churches had to become large. But that was and is not the point. I believe that healthy churches do grow, but size isn’t the issue. The issue is one of being effective in seeing people come to Christ.

Liberty UB is a small church that is healthy because they are reaching people in their community. We have many of our churches who haven’t seen a conversion for a long time. The baptismal fount is dry! Oh that many of our churches might become involved once again in the harvest fields.

Way to go Liberty! The angels in heaven rejoiced on that day!

31 Jul

July 31, 2009 |

Greg Atkinson wrote a good blog item called “Digital Real Estate.” He admonishes churches and pastors to be proactive in reserving names for themselves on key social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve written about the need for churches to reserve a domain name for themselves, even if they don’t intend to use it right away. Domain names are very cheap real estate. If you find a name you like, I suggest reserving it for 10 years or longer. At NetworkSolutions.com, you can do that for $180, a 48% discount from the one-year rate. Network Solutions is good about bugging you when it’s time to renew. Unfortunately, every year one or two UB churches forget to renew their domain name, and must start over with web and email addresses.

But some real estate is free. We’ve reserved several Twitter accounts which we don’t currently plan to use (ubyouth, ubwomen). I just wanted to get possession of the names. Likewise for Facebook (as Greg Atkinson points out). If blogging interests you, get a Blogger.com account in your name.

Just focus on the most popular sites. You might want to get a Gmail account in your church’s or your personal name, or Flickr. Keep on the lookout, and make sure you write down the login name and password, especially if you don’t plan to use it right away.

30 Jul

July 30, 2009 |

PhilMoving500.jpg

Phil Whipple makes some phone calls in front of the moving truck, which is in front of the UB offices.

It’s moving-in day for Bishop-elect Phil and Sandy Whipple. For now, they are moving into apartments right across the street from the UB offices. Huntington University owns those apartments. They hope to eventually move into the home which Bishop Ron and EJ Ramsey have been renting from Huntington University for the past four years.

The Ramseys, meanwhile, continue having trouble with the house-hunting process. Yesterday, they had to withdraw from an offer they had made when, during the inspection, they learned that the home wasn’t quite what it was advertised to be. So back to square one. They could use your prayers, that God will lead them to the right place.

29 Jul

July 29, 2009 |

We have ministers who are at the strongholds where Satan lives in their city. They know that to break the strongholds hindering their churches, they have to deal with certain issues. And they’ve taken them head on. They would charge hell with a water pistol, because they know that Ron and I stand behind them. Though they’ve been bloodied, they feel they’ve been loved on and they’ve learned some powerful lessons through it.

One pastor has gotten beat up badly, but we stood with him and talked straightforwardly with his people about some issues. Some of our pastors are just as straightforward as we are. I’m proud of them. They’ve learned some powerful lessons about tempering their straightforwardness with care and tenderness, and God is doing things in their churches.

We’ve had people be pretty caustic with us. Most times we find that when we follow the Lord’s agenda and processes, he does the work, moving resistant people out of the way. In some churches, we’ve seen people turn and repent. I had a guy come ask forgiveness for something that happened 12 years. You see that and realize it’s God.

28 Jul

July 28, 2009 |

Over the last four years the subject of healthy churches has been sharp on my radar. I collected a file full of articles trying to describe the characteristics of a healthy church. I finally compiled all the ideas and want to share them with you.

This is not the result of a research project and is not verifiable in that sense. It is just observations I have gleaned from a number of sources.

So, what are the characteristics of a healthy church? I’ll give you the top 5:

  1. Leadership was the top characteristic. (I lumped together a number of things pertaining to leadership under this heading.) This includes leadership in its many varieties–leadership that is biblical, empowering, proficient, fruitful, positive, Great Commission focused, has a God-focused vision, has integirity.
  2. Outward-focused mission.
  3. (tie)  Inspiring worship and discipleship/spiritual formation.
  4. (tie) Relationships/belonging/assimilation and strong biblical focus.
  5. In touch with God/prayer/God-empowering presence.

I don’t know that I would have put them in exactly that same order, but I do agree that they are probably the most significant. One that didn’t make the top 5 or so was the functional structure component, which I believe is also very important.