Emerging Conservative

At our church, The Shepherd’s Fellowship, we are in a 30 day period of prayer and fasting to humble ourselves and seek God’s will for our church. One of the things we are doing daily during this time is a daily devotional on-line that I have been putting together. Below is the first day’s blog to give you an idea…..

However, in an attempt to not overtake this board, if you would like to keep up with the rest of them, you can here …. 

Blessings! 

We have seen a lot of change in our church over the last year. People leaving, plans coming and going, and it seems that many of us have excited hearts about what God is about to do and some of us struggle with what all this means. Some of us are holding onto hope and others of us struggling with what we think should or should not happen. Some may be on pins and needles waiting for the next step God provides and some of us may just want to be done hearing about all this and move on. Some of us are excited about being in a church where a pastor calls for a period of time of humility, prayer, and fasting and some may just wonder what he’s up to. There are a large variety of emotions we can be feeling at any given moment while we enter this together.
For me, I’m excited and, as I mentioned before, weary. I am convinced that God is doing something really cool in our church in spite of the things we could focus on. I can focus on declining numbers or focus on the growth of those who choose to stay with our little fellowship. I can focus on the plans I had of what the church would look like or submit to God whatever He has planned and how He wants things to be. I think the toughest part is when things really start moving forward and you see big things (baptisms, dedications, youth group growing, one on one experiences where people have great discipleship growth, ect.) and then the enemy comes in and gets something caught up in the muck and mire with petty attacks. It can get you down. I admit this to you as your pastor but also to acknowledge that I really don’t think I’m the only one in the church that gets to feeling a little weary about all this from time to time. Maybe you do too….

Yet, we wait upon the Lord. With faith, with expectation, and with a little encouragement to one another…..we wait upon the Lord. And He will answer!
“In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” Psalm 5: 3

I told many of you that last night I would be seeing the premiere of Karen Kingsbury’s new movie based off her book “Like Dandelion Dust”. I was wrong =)
Instead, it was the new movie “Fireproof” from the makers of “Flywheel” and “Facing the Giants”. The movie stars Kirk Cameron and I will tell you more about it some other day since it is not the focus of this devotion (well, more of a blog than a devotion today).

Before they started the film, Christian music artist, John Waller came out to perform his song “While I’m Waiting” off his debut CD and also the soundtrack for “Fireproof”. As I listened to the words, I was greatly encouraged during this time we enter into of prayer and fasting.
Tomorrow’s devotions will start being more of a normal format (I think) but for today, I wanted to share these lyrics with you in the light of the Scripture above.
 

While I’m Waiting – John Waller
 

I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience
While I’m waiting
I will serve You
While I’m waiting
I will worship
While I’m waiting
I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait

I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am peaceful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it’s not easy
But faithfully, I will wait
Yes, I will wait
I will serve You while I’m waiting
I will worship while I’m waiting
I will serve You while I’m waiting
I will worship while I’m waiting
I will serve you while I’m waiting
I will worship while I’m waiting on You, Lord