Wisdom Books of the Bible

I am meeting with our AWANA kiddos tonight to study the Word of God. I love that I get a chance to impact our future leaders on a weekly basis. They have a hunger for the Word of God and because of that hunger, we meet and study the Bible. We do not study about the Bible. We actually open up the Word of God and dig in to the Biblical text.

Joseph: A type and shadow of Christ

This Sunday, we begin a new quarter in our Connect Groups. As a church, we are walking through the entire Bible over a three year period. In this quarter, we will begin by looking at the life of Joseph, over a three week period. In this first lesson, we are going to begin to see how Joseph is a type and shadow of Jesus Christ. He is a picture of what the Messiah will be like when He comes on the scene.

Baby Dedication

This Sunday I have the honor and privilege of leading a Baby dedication service at Hoffmantown. Other than weddings and baptisms, this is one of my favorite activities as a pastor. I love what Baby dedications represent.

In some denominations, babies are baptized into the “faith”, a practice that has no foundation in Scripture. On the other hand, baby dedications are called for, directly by God. If we open up the Old Testament to the book of Numbers, a book rarely studied these days, we find a command from the Lord to bless babies. 

Jesus and His family

As I have previously written, during the month of March, we are focusing on godly families. We began the month looking at Moses and his family. God teaches us some awesome truths about families based on Moses and his family. Next week, we are going to focus on the importance of the family in society. Our main passage with be Deuteronomy 4. Since I have already written on this passage, I will just link to it. The week after next, we will focus on Ruth and Naomi. There will be a lesson on Elisha and the widow’s family and then we will reach the lesson on Jesus and His family. I would like to write about what I want to teach, even though it is a little down the road, the end of the month will be here before we realize it.

Our passage is Luke 2:41-52. God has much to teach us here about families.

Moses’ family

During the month of March, Big City Clubhouse is focusing on families. We want to encourage all of the children that God knows their situation, that He created the family to be a positive influence in society, and that He can intervene in any familial situation and use it for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. During the month of February, we focused on knowing God and how that impacts our daily lives, especially the way that we treat others. Here are some of the lessons that we covered.

Mentoring your own children

Today, I am preparing to teach my staff the last lesson on mentoring. It has been a great ride. We have learned how to be mentored, the need for it, and how to mentor others. This final lesson covers the most important mentor/disciple relationship, parents and children. The number one influences and teachers in a child’s life are his parents. This is God’s design. The good thing about our God is that when He asks us to do something, He always teaches us how to do it in His Word. Our job is to discover those teachings, learn them, live by them, and apply them. Here are the passages where these teachings come from.

An ideal teacher written by an ideal teacher

The ideal teacher, according to my understanding, is a complex person who consists of several key components. Each and every one of them is important and is a must for every good teacher.

First of all, he must convince the students that they are capable of doing great things. A good teacher must encourage his students in all that he does as well as motivate them to positive change. All students are valuable in the eyes of God and must be valued by the good teacher. The students in your classroom are all talented and you must teach them to develop those talents. A good teacher will constantly tell the students that they can understand the material and do all that he can to help them understand it. The best example that a teacher can use for explaining that students are talented and can do it is his own personal example.

Teaching God’s Word

I spent the weekend at a Bible study seminar with many of the members of our church, Good News. Our senior pastor, Vasile Filat, taught the overview of the book of Ephesians. It is a relevant letter for all time. There were so many applicable truths that each and every person on the planet needs to know. We began Friday night and worked until Sunday afternoon. About 50 of our church members were there. While we were there, we evaluated the ministries of the church and planned activities over the next 6 months or so. I would like to present some of the results of my department, education.

Characteristics of a successful student

Today I am preparing to teach at the youth group tonight. We are beginning our weekly meetings after a summer break. It was an active summer where many of the students were involved in many different ministry activities. Since school has begun and there are many freshmen who are lost on campus, I would like to encourage them to be successful students and show them how, from a Biblical perspective. That is why this article is 6 characteristics of a successful student.

Day camps begin today!

This summer, we have planned to lead 10 day camps in 5 weeks. If you do the math, that means 2 per week. Our desire is to reach close to 1,000 kids with the Gospel over the next 5 weeks. We have 2 teams going out per week. Most of the camps will be in villages. I will be leading one in the city next week. Three of the ten camps will be baseball/softball camps so please pray that God will hold off the rain over the next 3 weeks. I am excited about teaching God and baseball to the next generation. Please pray for us, our teams, and the children who will hear the Gospel. We have already had threats from the Mayor of one of the villages. We know that God is in control and will work all things for our good. Please pray for the Mayor of the village of Bacioi.