Ministry update from Moldova

This has been a busy week on the mission field. I absolutely love serving the Lord day in and day out in the country of Moldova. It is not easy and is quite exhausting most of the time but also so fulfilling.

The week began on Sunday at Good News. The medical team that was to work in a village arrived at church and I was their translator. It was a great service. They shared and encouraged us and then we all prayed for the upcoming week’s activities. They were about to go and work in a village that has a long history of animosity toward the Gospel. God answered our prayers and worked in a mighty way among the people of the village.

How to have a winning year in 2013

As I prepare to teach this Friday night at our youth group’s first meeting of the New Year, 2013, I want to encourage the youth to prepare themselves to have a winning year. What I mean by winning year is, when you look back over 2013, you can say that you accomplished many things for the Lord by serving the people around you. Many people just live their lives day by day with an attitude of mediocrity. They are satisfied with the “status quo”.

Can one man really make a difference?

As a pastor, I enjoy sharing the Good News of the Gospel with the people around me as well as counseling believers and nonbelievers alike. As I speak with people about the difference one person can make in this world I usually end up hearing something like, “what can one person really do to make a difference in this big world of ours.”. I leave it as a statement instead of a question because from the tone of voice and body language, it is obvious that the person in making a statement instead of asking a question. I want to share about the impact that two people have had on this world by impacting the lives of many, many people.

Standing strong in the face of temptation and sin

I am preparing to teach lesson 5 from the Bible study “How to make choices you won’t regret” produced by Precept Ministries International. In order to catch us up to speed on the manual, I would like to give a quick review/overview of the previous 4 lessons.

1. The bad choices that King David made.
2. The consequences that those bad choices caused.
3. How David repented when he was confronted because of his sin.
4. The good choices that King Josiah made.

For the better part of King David’s life, he made great choices. He made a few mistakes but repented of them when he was confronted. He turned away from his sin and allowed God to work in his life. He was called “a man after My own heart” by God, Himself. If a man like David could fall in the face of temptation and sin then we need to realize that any of us may fall at any time. We need to be ready to recognize the attacks of the enemy and defeat him. Sometimes the enemy is the evil one, Satan while others times (most of the time) we are the enemy because of our sin nature. The question is, “what do I do when I am tempted?”. That is what we want to find out.

Principles of Leadership from II Corinthians (6)

I have really enjoyed looking at II Timothy and discipleship together with II Corinthians and Biblical leadership. The two go hand in hand. If we would follow God’s Word, we would learn how to disciple others and be good leaders as we do it. You can read article number 5 here. As a recap, here is what we learned in the last article on leadership.

1. A good leader is able to forgive and he teaches his followers to do the same.
2. A good leader cares for the well being of his followers.
3. A good leader is an aroma of the knowledge of Christ everywhere he goes.
4. A good leader does not manipulate people with the Word of God.

Discipleship and Second Timothy

Having spent several years in a foreign country under the leadership of a mentor has caused me to see the value of Biblical discipleship, being mentored and mentoring others. Because of this experience I believe that living in another country for a significant period of time is almost a necessity for every American Christian living in the United States, especially if he or she has the opportunity to sit under the teaching of a mentor. I say this because I feel that many Christians living in Western society have lost the understanding of the meaning of discipleship, for the most part. Because the Bible was written in and to the Eastern-world with a non-Western world perspective so the idea of discipleship was more easily understood by the readers and writers during the first century. There are a few indicators of this trend that one can see by talking with Christians in average American churches about such things as sitting under the teaching of a mentor, being discipled, suffering for the Gospel, and building one’s life around the propagation of the Gospel. The Apostle Paul taught the importance of discipleship and he also foresaw the loss of significance on discipleship in the lives of future Christians. For that reason, he wrote his last epistle, just before his death. He wrote to his best disciple to pass the torch of discipleship on to the next generation. Paul writes II Timothy to Timothy in order to instruct him on “guarding the treasure” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and “retaining the standard” that goes along with the Gospel.

Upon the death of my grandfather, Berkley Brewer

Last year in December we lost my father. This year in October we lost his father. In less than one year two great men have gone and we are left to cope. God gives new life to remind us that life is precious and that we are to appreciate and value it. I write this as we await the birth of our 3rd child. God also allows death as a reminder to us of how we are living day by day knowing that one day we will all pass away (unless Christ returns during our lifetime) and have to stand before Him to give an account for how we appreciated this precious gift of life that He has given us. God reminds us of this in His Word over and over and then gives us specific times in life when we are to reflect on “how we are living”.

We need trustworthy Christians

Last night I attended a Bible study and church member meeting led by our senior pastor, Vasile Filat. It was nice to see everyone mid-week. As a church, we usually do not have Wednesday night meetings because we do not have a building. Last night we met to plan this weekend’s activities since we are celebrating the Fall Harvest (Thanksgiving). Before we had the planning session we had a short Bible study on what the Bible says about being people who are trustworthy. I would like to share this study because it really spoke to me and I believe that it is a good lesson for all believers. It is good to examine ourselves at all times as believers.

Be a grateful teenager (Matthew 11:25-30)

I am preparing to teach at the youth group this week. Since this Sunday we are celebrating the fall harvest with a service of thanksgiving, I would like to use the youth message to teach about being grateful/thankful. The title of the message is the title of this article. The Gospel teaches us how to be thankful/grateful no matter what our age is but I really believe that teens need to be taught how to be grateful so that they can remain that way the rest of their lives. Many times, we assume that children will just inherit common sense. They will not. They must be taught. There is a passage in the Gospel of Matthew that teaches about an encounter with Jesus and His Father, God. Jesus shows us a picture of gratefulness, specifically, what a grateful child looks like.

Knowing Christ changes your life (Colossians 1)

I just taught lesson 2 from Colossians on Sunday night. It was a great study. I was glad to have good students who do their homework so that they can participate in the lesson. It is nice to see how people are being transformed by God’s Word. I was touched by the lesson once again so I would like to share it with you here. Also, I will be teaching this Saturday night on “be a grateful teenager” from Matthew 11:25-30 so I will have an article about that coming soon.