Category: faith

Prayer for Erin

From e-mail:

Dear Friends,

Last Tuesday evening, there was an armed robbery on the compound across the street from where I live. Three single women missionaries were in the apartment and one of them was injured. I have been attending to her, medically, and as her friend.
This has been a traumatic event and we need your prayers.
For me, please pray
– that I will take all thoughts captive – holding only onto Truth
– that I will not be fearful of Nigerians
– that my parents will trust God to protect me
– to be able to fall asleep at night
– my lung is hurting again and my cough has returned – this was to be expected, as my disease will flare up when my immune system weakens (due to stress, this time).
Seven of our boys have been sick this week and it has been a blessing to focus on loving and caring for them. These children are why God brought me here and they are why I will stay.
As I flipped open the Bible a couple nights ago – God opened the pages to this familiar and comforting verse:
‘ For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.’ Isaiah 55:8 & 9

Holding onto Him,
Erin Rigsby
www.webmissions.net/erinrigsby
www.erinrigsby.blogspot.com

There’s just something about His name

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
There’s just something about that name
Master, Savior, Jesus
Like the fragrance after the rain
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
Let all heaven and earth proclaim
Kings and kingdoms shall all pass away
But there’s something about that name.

Words by Bill Gaither

The founding fathers and the battle over church and state

From KERA’s Think:

What role did religion play in the founding of our nation? This highly-debated topic is the subject of Dr. Forrest Church’s new book “So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State” (Harcourt, 2007).

I’m listening to the program now. Sounds very interesting – take 45 minutes or so and give it a listen – then share your comments.

CWF home from Nigeria

Just talked with Rob about the CWF trip to Nigeria. The group returned to Dallas on Friday.
Rob said they did seven shows during their two weeks in Nigeria and they spoke at several school chapels, several churches and did a number of radio and television interviews.
JT sent me a txt on Saturday and said they had an awesome time.
Rob said they had a great time, except for the pretty much complete breakdown of communication the last week they were there.
The Internet Cafe we used daily last year was shut down the last week due to no Internet of phone access.
Rob’s getting together all the photos and video from the trip and we’ll start putting it all together in the next week or so.
Look for it on the CWF website.

Willow Creek says it was wrong

Interesting article about all the many programs Willow Creek offers… and the results of one of their latest studies…

Few would disagree that Willow Creek Community Church has been one of the most influential churches in America over the last thirty years. Willow, through its association, has promoted a vision of church that is big, programmatic, and comprehensive. This vision has been heavily influenced by the methods of secular business. James Twitchell, in his new book Shopping for God, reports that outside Bill Hybel’s office hangs a poster that says: “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?” Directly or indirectly, this philosophy of ministry, that “church should be a big box with programs for people at every level of spiritual maturity to consume and engage” has impacted every evangelical church in the country.

So what happens when leaders of Willow Creek stand up and say, “We made a mistake”?…

“Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for,” Pastor Bill Hybels said.

The txting church

Over the last year or so text messaging has become more prevalent than ever. Luckily I have an unlimited txting plan for my cell phone, because it seems I rarely use any minutes on my monthly plan (thanks to free calls to other AT&T users) but I do lots of txt messaging.
I’ve even become known as the go-to-guy when a prayer requests needs to be shared. I take advantage of text messages first and then normally send a follow-up email with more information.
Brian sent me a link to a story from MondayMorningInsight.com that I apparently overlooked, “How Will The Church Use Text Messaging?”
We’ve been discussing over e-mail the last couple weeks some ways that our church could possibly use text messaging to more effectively communicate with our partners. We’ve had several ideas, including feedback during the services. But I think some of that may take more hardware and software than we’re ready to pay for. But their may be other areas, services we can offer that we haven’t seen yet or tackled.
It could be something as “simple” as using twitter to track what Brian or other leadership folks do during the day, or it could be as complex as responding to the message and then showing the responses on the screen during our Sunday morning Service – kind of like VH1’s Pop-Up Video.
Any ideas? Do you see your church utilizing txt messages? If so, how?