In this new version of the equation, U (you) empowered by God, (God is expressed in an exponential format because His power is awesome) encourage 2PE (two people) the result is 3PE (three people are encouraged). To read more on the new equation go to the Jesus Moment blog and check it out. Then, get busy in the Ministry of Encouragement yourself. Start everyday by being thankful for five things, and then ask God to show you two people to encourage. You will be encouraged and the equation will be proved true.

The Ministry of Encouragement challenges us to place our hope fully in the Lord and to get involved in the world around us. To be the salt and the light in the world that Jesus called us to be. How can you become a minister of encouragement? For starters, you should begin every day by thinking about at least five things that you are thankful for. This will help you get a better perspective on what really matters in life. The second thing you should do is try and encourage at least two people every day. When you encourage two people, three people are encouraged. We also suggest that you go and watch or listen to the messages on The Ministry of Encouragement which can be found at the Preaching in Shorts website.

I am hoping to chronicle the events of the conference and include some pictures so you can get a feel for what a church pastor goes through at conference.  We flew into Houston airport on Southwest Airlines:

We rented a car:

and we drove to our conference location in Galveston.

Our conference started off with amazing worship lead by Jeremy Riddle:

Then our first speaker at the conference was Berten Wagner who is the national leader on the Vineyard USA.  He spoke passionately about the need for heroic leadership in this time of change.  He said that we need a cause to commit to, we need to be willing to take risks, and we need to have sacrificial love.  It was a great start to our church pastor conference.

The story actually reminds me of a friend who went to be with the Lord recently. While she didn’t pass out tracts, her life was an amazing witness. She had come to the Lord in her thirties and over the five year period that she walked with Jesus she touched a lot of lives. At her memorial service 500 people showed up and when an altar call was given more than twenty received Christ. I was humbled by the impact of this one life on an entire community.

I am encouraged, and I hope you are as well, to continue to look for ways to reach out to people in love and kindness every day. The results of living and loving well can have significant eternal implications! Church Pastor.

Now that is good police work!

Raiding a gun store and finding weapons, who would have thought?

This is just wrong in so many ways.

OK, someone needs to work up a better apology than this! Can you imagine what this poor woman must have been going through? One more:

What a brilliant question and answer!

As I write I will be including things from my past as well as things that I am thinking about and dealing with in the moment.  Together, these thoughts and ideas should help in piecing my story together.  I think that life is found as you live out your story.  BY the way, my story, like yours, will get a little crazy at times.  None of us has a perfect story and each of our stories bear the impact of a fallen world and the marks of relationship with sinful people, just like us.

Today I am still contemplating a situation that happened yesterday.  It is interesting to me that often times when I am thinking about a scripture or a sermon, events will take place that seem to make my thoughts more alive.  It is a constant reminder to me that God is ever present in my life and journey.  I have been thinking for the last few days about the Golden Rule.  Matthew 7:12 says that we need to “do to others as we would have them do to us”.  This is a simple verse and principle that we teach to children and yet it can have a significant impact on all of our relationships if we will practice it in our lives.  The reality, at least for me, is that I do not always treat people the way I want to be treated, and that if I did, life would be a lot simpler.

Anyway, as I am thinking about this verse and really trying to work on making it a part of my life, I have an encounter that makes me see again that I often fall short.  We were having an upgrade in our phone and Internet system at the church done yesterday.  It has been working fine, but trying to be good stewards we had purchased a new bundled plan that would save the church some money.  The technician came and began the process and told us that our system would be down for about an hour while he made the change.  It took a little longer than that, which was fine, but once the upgrade was finished, half of our system didn’t work.  I was still fine, knowing that things like this happen when you are working with technology and change.  Where I started to lose it was when I could feel the technician began to make this problem, my problem.  He wanted to leave, I wanted the phone and Internet system to work.  I was told I would need to bring in a IT person.  It was at this point, even while I as thinking about the Golden Rule, that I failed.  I didn’t yell, but I was trying to make the technician own his part of the process. I was adamant that it wasn’t my problem.  So, he wanted to leave and I pulled the trump card.  I know his boss really well.  I said “do you think your boss, my friend, would want you to leave with my system not working?”

The poor guy didn’t leave all day.  The problem was obviously more than he could handle and he had no idea what to do, but I had just put fear all over him.  I am fairly sure he will not be coming to church anytime soon and even if I had some sort of point to make, it wasn’t worth it.  This is where story comes in.  What is it in me that gets so mad when people try and make something “my problem” when I just really want them to do what they are supposed to do?  It has something to do with injustice but there is a very selfish twist in it.  I want people to close their circles but I am aware that I don’t close all of my own.  There is obviously something deeper that can only be understood in the context of my story.  I am not sure where it comes from yet, but I am thinking about it and hopefully it will rise up to the surface soon.

I thought he did a good job. I liked the way he invoked the name of Jesus and then lead people into the Lord’s prayer. As a church pastor, I was trying to imagine what it must feel like to be put in that position. I would imagine it was both humbling and exciting.