Sunday, December 29, 2013

Top 10 Ways to Impact the World Today



Some say Christians are stopped by society and government from reaching out with the good news. Can you see a way past this gate? Here is how to impact the culture for good.

1. Win unbelievers to faith in Christ
2. Equip those new believers to do what Christ did
3. Teach the basics of God's word
4. Emphasize the Fruit of the Spirit as the base for influencing others
5. Encourage everyone to discover his/her gifts and talents
6. Teach everyone how to pray with power
7. Have worship services that encounter God in Spirit and in truth
8. Focus on building great relationships in marriage, parenting and family life
9.  Encourage each person to release his/her talents and gifts in the neighborhood and workplace
10. Be generous to others but especially the sick, poor, widows and orphans

You can find helpful teachings on our web bookstore.


Saturday, December 28, 2013

John Wesley's Vision for the Church








John Wesley was a theological, organizational and motivational genius. Born in 1703 he and brother Charles along with others led a huge revival that brought about major changes in religious practices, church structure, equipping the saints, and missions. He also led Christians to get engaged in changing social structures such as child labor laws, addictions, slavery, etc. His ideas and approaches are still used by groups all over the world.

The church is supposed to be a body of believers  

Compacted together in order, first, to save each his own soul; then to assist each other in working out salvation; and afterwards, as far as in them lies, to save all from present and future misery, to overturn the kingdom of Satan, and to set up the kingdom of Christ.

Wesley and others demonstrated in the 18th and 19th centuries that disciples are made through evangelism coupled with sweeping social transformation.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Impacting Others for Good





The research on the power of a community to touch its members for good or ill is being revealed increasingly each year. People's spiritual commitment is an important factor in mental, emotional and physical health. In fact, research on Professional counseling reinforces the notion that our community has great influence on our healing and growth. Bergin reviewed numerous studies to see what factors most influenced the client in reaching her goal in counseling. He discovered  four major factors.   

 

1.       The techniques and guiding model of the therapist. This is what the helper says and thinks and is what most counselors study in grad school. It includes medicine, confrontation, advice, input, education, quoting scripture, etc. (15% of the total influence.)

2.       The hope and expectation of the client that something good can happen from this relationship. The Seeker must believe that we can help him or her. They need to trust, respect and believe in us. (15%  of the influence)
3.       The caring interactions of Genuineness, Respect, Empathy and Warmth. Does the Seeker think we are caring, warm, understanding and respectful of him? (30%)
4.       The client's context or motivational level and her peer relationships away from counseling and the therapist. The Seeker is with us maybe one of 168 hours so the peer pressure of the other 167 hours is critically important. The family, friends, church support, small group, workers, etc. Secondly, the level of motivation of the Seeker determines a great deal. This makes up about 40% of the total influence.

Several things become immediately apparent.

·       First, the therapist's theory and interventions do not count for much in outcomes
·       Second, the helper's relationship skills are twice as potent as our interventions.
·       Third, the client controls the relationship and the healing/growth process.
·       Fourth, peer support systems are important in bringing or impeding change. We need to understand that system and draw on it.
·       Fifth, having good Personal Process skills is more important than knowledge of psychology or psychotherapy.
·       Sixth anyone can learn the Personal Process skills.
·       Seventh, we can teach Personal Process skills to a congregation and office staff to increase the functional level of peer support.
·       Eighth, Peers are as effectively to most needy people as Professionals.
·       Ninth, broken persons can live with interpersonal health and give life to others.
·       Tenth, EQ is more important than IQ.

Summary: Group discipleship and counseling that draws in the support of the family and community are more effective and efficient than individual mentoring or coaching. If this is true for counselors who are supposed to be trained experts in motivation and change, how much more true is it for pastors and lay leaders? If you are at the place of doing something about impacting others, go to our bookstore and download a PDF of one of our books. Maybe Healing Souls Touching Hearts or How to be Me in My Family Tree.

Conclusion: Developing healthy congregations of prayer, support, love, understanding and truth is the most important thing we can do to positively change society.I further conclude that the best place to begin is marriage and family life. 


Tuesday, December 24, 2013

A Christian Witness that Impacts the World




There has been a lot of recent conflict about how to witness to people outside the Family of God. I have nothing to say about the particulars of that debate. Discussing it is a Lose/Lose situation. I do have a point of view about the best way to communicate about God.  Read on to see what it is. 

Read my post that contains a Christmas Blessing and pass it on while humming this camp song.

It only takes a spark
To get a fire going
And soon all those around
Are warming to its glowing

Chorus:
That's how it is with God's love, once you've experienced it,
 it's fresh like spring, you want to sing, you want to pass it on.

Verse 2
What a wondrous time is Spring
When all the trees are budding.
The birds begin to sing,
the flowers start their blooming.

Chorus:

Verse 3
I wish for you my friend
this happiness that I've found
You can depend on him
It matters not where your bound.

Last chorus:
I'll shout it from the mountain tops
I want the world to know
The Lord of Life has come to me
I want to pass it on.


By Kurt Kaiser

Go here to watch Evie sing it at a Billy Graham event.

Go to our web page and watch the Vimeo recording Charlie McMahan and I did on blessing people with our speech. It is called Building Others Up. 

Monday, December 23, 2013

Holy Handbells for Heavenly Highs



My friends at Tri County Assembly have developed a wonderful, tear jerking video production for Christmas. For those who have never been uplifted by a Bell Chorus, be prepared. It is awesome.

Have We Been Scrooged Today?







MARLEY was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. 

Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. 

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, his sole mourner. 

Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name, however. There it yet stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door, -- Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge “Scrooge” and sometimes Marley. He answered to both names. It was all the same to him. 

Oh ! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, was Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! 

External heat and cold had little influence on him. No warmth could warm, no cold could chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect, -- they often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did. 

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blindmen's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!" 

But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance.

**This description of Scrooge is the best illustration I have ever seen of a hardened, callous sinner whose heart and mind and spirit are so deadened to human life and nurture that he prefers loneliness and rejection to warm fellowship.

Just imagine for a while the cold, hard, penetrating eyes and the lack of compassion that covered his face like a steel mask. No knight in armor ever had a more forbidding visage than Scrooge.

The Sweeten Life materials are designed to turn people like Scrooge into Mr. Cratchit and Tiny Tim. 

Is There a War on Christmas?



Bill O' Reilly has a problem with people who don't like Christmas. He thinks, it seems, that the secularists are going to make us stop saying terrible things like, "Merry Christmas!" to their friends, neighbors and customers. Bill is at war with such people. I think that Bill is a bit paranoid but I do agree that those who rant against Merry Christmas are modern day Scrooges. We all remember what happened to him.

I don't think we need to take up the war cry from Bill and the Fox News team. After all, his rants are simply a PR campaign to get more viewers. And, I remember that it wasn't the news media or preachers that stopped old Scrooge, it was Marley's Ghost.

So, let's all lighten up a bit and stop the worry about a war on Christians or a war on Christmas. Of course there is a war on Christians in much of the world but not in America. In fact, I wonder if we are too protected and too comfortable. In Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and other Islamic states, being a Christian is risky. Maybe we need to stop focusing on the Christmas Scrooges in America and turn our prayers to where there are real risks for believers.

Pray for our friends in Russia, China and Africa as well as the Middle East all of which are at war with Christians.

Friday, December 20, 2013

A Christmas Blessing For You



May Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace
Continue to share His love and peace with you.

May He bless you with prosperity and perseverance
as we face an uncertain future


May He guide your hearts and hands
to give and receive from God's bounty

May He bless your families with grace,
loving forgiveness and thanksgiving

May His light shine on those
who have yet to receive His grace

May His light shine in the darkness
of our nation's confusion and give us hope

For these gifts, Lord, we praise and glorify you n this
holy season and rejoice in the wonders of your love.

Gary Sweeten
Christmas, 2013



Thursday, December 19, 2013

What is the the Gospel?

Which of these paintings shows the gospel? 





Is this a difficult question for Christians to answer?

Do you have a good definition of the gospel?

Do you have any basic scriptures that succinctly describe the gospel?

How would you describe the gospel and how do you recognize it if you see or hear it?

Do you have some great scriptural examples of the gospel?

Do you have any examples of a false or misguided presentations of the gospel?

Who is the gospel for or who needs to hear the gospel the most?

If you would like my understanding of these matters read my PDF of Healing Release of the Holy Spirit. You can get it, download it and read it. Then send me a letter saying I am a heretic.




Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The Peace of Jesus



Jesus said we would know His followers by their fruit. Although it probably does not mean only the "Fruit of the Spirit" that is the very best way to judge a person's growth in maturity as a Christian. In our book, Listening for Heaven's Sake, we include the chart above that allows us to assign a number on a scale from 1 to 10 to indicate how well we are doing on developing the fruit mentioned in  Galatians 5.

On my November 29 post I mentioned that peace or anxiety can rise up from the deep heart and leave us with either positive or negative fruit. That fruit is easily discerned by others. The way to fertilize the Fruit of the Spirit is to "Be renewed with the mind of Christ."

My book, Power Christian Thinking tells how.

Take a look at the chart and see how you are doing.

Walt Whitman's Fine Poem

I won the prize for being the first to memorize this Walt Whitman poem when I was in the Seventh Grade at Ina Grade School. Oh Captain, My Captain! As I remember it I also got a warm cookie from the oven when I gave the lunch count and money to Goldie Lee and Della Dunbar.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
    But O heart! heart! heart!
      O the bleeding drops of red,
        Where on the deck my Captain lies,
          Fallen cold and dead.
  
2

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills; 
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
    Here Captain! dear father!
      This arm beneath your head;
        It is some dream that on the deck, 
          You’ve fallen cold and dead.
  
3

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
    Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
      But I, with mournful tread,
        Walk the deck my Captain lies,
          Fallen cold and dead.

Through poetry we learned to feel the pain and gravity of the nation after Lincoln was shot.Whitman uses the image of the ship's captain as the President of the country having taken the ship of state through the very perilous times of the Civil War to its end but he did not live to enjoy the fruit of peace. He write about the feeling of joy yet sorrow.

"From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult oh shores, and ring oh bells,
but I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck the captain lies,
Fallen, cold and dead."

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

IT Geeks Will Love This



Paper is becoming more and more obsolete. This short video tells why it is so difficult for some traditionalists to give paper up. We can only hope that conservatives will stop holding on to the past and get with the 21st Century.

My word to them is:

STOP being Luddites!

Monday, December 16, 2013

Christian Growth and Healing



Another Minister has failed. He got involved in an affair, resigned his church pastorate and got a divorce. He killed himself a few days ago.

All that is tragic enough but the comments of so many who write to papers, blogs and other media are extremely cruel, merciless and callous. It is to be expected of those who hate God and or who hate ministers who represent God and His church, but what can we say about those who claim to be very strong, Bible believing, born again, Spirit-filled Christians?

We could call them bad names and out them as hyper hypocrites and it is tempting. However, I prefer, despite my human inclination, to look at some of the reasons why so many Christians judge failing Believers so harshly.We know the Bible says that "Mercy triumphs over mercy" so why are so many vocal Christians acting with little mercy and lots of justice?

One reason is laid out by an old friend Richard Lovelace. Dr. Lovelace was a Professor of Spiritual history at Gordon Conwell Seminary and very deeply involved in church renewal when I was. He said that Evangelicals have a "Sanctification Gap" or a lack of understanding of Progressive Sanctification. He thinks it comes from our tradition or revivals and the quick establishment of frontier churches with great focus on "Salvation by walking the sawdust trail to the altar" but little emphasis on Christian growth.

This was certainly my experience growing up in that kind of tradition. Every meeting had an evangelistic focus. Even the Wednesday night "Prayer Meetings" had no emphasis on teaching the people how to pray and grow but on sermons with an altar call. This leads to an unconscious idea that maturity is instant and perfection is total at the altar. Sin is only skin deep and can be covered with some effort.

Any sin or failures were evidence of either 1. The sinner was not really saved, or, 2. He/She simply needed to repent because overcoming the habits, hurts and hatreds of our life before rebirth was pretty simple. However, the Bible teaches that sins arising from habits, hurts and hates are BONE DEEP and require the deep work of the Holy Spirit to root them out over years and decades.

The heart is deceitful and wicked and no one can understand it. Jeremiah 17:9


Sunday, December 15, 2013

A Powerful Poem



One of my best memories about elementary school was memorizing poetry. I found it easy to do and I learned how to delve into the meaning of poems a little bit. I am printing one of my favorites from that era. See if you can figure out the reason Whitman wrote it.


O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

    But O heart! heart! heart!
      O the bleeding drops of red,

        Where on the deck my Captain lies,

          Fallen cold and dead.

  

2

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

    Here Captain! dear father!

      This arm beneath your head;

        It is some dream that on the deck,
          You’ve fallen cold and dead.

  

3

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
    Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

      But I, with mournful tread,

        Walk the deck my Captain lies,

          Fallen cold and dead. 
By Walt Whitman