Stepping Outside of Your Comfort Zone

For many of us this week (especially the youth and young adults this week), it will be a week of new experiences in which we must fully place our trust in God. 

• Last week our youth and young adults worked at the local food kitchen.
• On Sunday our youth conducted the entire service from start to finish, selected the text, selected the music, selected the bulletin covers, and finally stood be a crowded congregation and gave God's Word for the week. 
• On Tuesday our youth and young adults will be in Nashville working with "The Bridge" ministry.

Brothers and Sisters, many times God asks us to step out of our comfort zones and to venture into new areas of ministry that many of us would call the "Unknown". We truly understand that true ministry often happens in God's time and not ours, and is often conducted in the unlikeliest of places.

The things that God supplies to us when we leave our comfort zone are:

1. The stress of our everyday existence is taken away from us, if even for just a short time.
2. We actually find the out of the comfort zone moments to be fun, fulfilling, and places in which we can truly see and feel our salvation.
3. God knows us better than we know ourselves and will place us in areas that He needs us, instead of where we need us.
4. As we are able to see hope in action, we are actually given an opportunity to make God's creation a little better, by being the Body of Christ.
5. By stepping out of our comfort zones we are seeing God supplying us with the needed learning and living, that keeps everyone of us fresh and new as a people of God.

My prayer for you this week is that you step out of your comfort zones and place yourself in a "Where the Rubber Meets the Road" ministry.  Because when we leave our comfort zones, we find ourselves in a zone in which the magic truly happens. "If God is for us, who can be against us?"

May you have an out of your comfort zone week

Pastor Tim

Romans 8:29-32

English Standard Version (ESV)

29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

God's Everlasting Love

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be[a] against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Pastor Tim's Benton Blog: Walking Life's Tightrope

Pastor Tim's Benton Blog: Walking Life's Tightrope: 2 Corinthians 5:7  - (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) Last night I watched  Nik Wallenda  walk across the Grand Canyon on a two-in...

Walking Life's Tightrope

2 Corinthians 5:7 - (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

Last night I watched Nik Wallenda walk across the Grand Canyon on a two-inch tightrope suspended over fifteen hundred feet above the canyon floor. Like many others that watched this event on live television, I too expressed that fact that their is know way that I could ever attempt anything close to this accomplishment.

Amazing was the fact that as Nik walked across this small cable,his focus was on what was straight ahead of him,and not what was below him. The entire time that he walked, the listening audience could hear him thanking God and expressing his love, faith and loyalty to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

As Nik got closer to the finish and with his eyes on the prize, we were able to see him go from a slow walk to a sprint as he reached the completion of the walk. Brothers and Sisters this was an extreme act of faith by Mr. Walenda, one that he had trained for and one in which was in true communication with his God.

As we go through our lives, our faith may not have to be in walking across a cable over the Grand Canyon. But there will be times in which we must move forward in faith, looking straight ahead and not behind, above or below us.

What endeavor are you undertaking in your own life, and do you consider it to be your leap of faith(or canyon walk)? My prayer for you is that your walk of faith be taken in direct communication and partnership with God. 

May your journey go from a walk to a sprint with Jesus Christ as your travel partner.

Blessings and Peace
Pastor Tim

Obligations: It's All In The Call!

 Peter 1:10-11 

10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

How many of you have ever been asked to do something at church and have felt as if you have been forced into doing something that you do not want to do? How many of you have felt that you were not prepared for the task that has been presented to you?

Sometimes we all feel that way, but when this occurs we must seriously take it to prayer and ask ourselves if this is God's call to us for ministry. Brothers and Sisters as we go through this week and consider God's call for us, let us consider if God is extending a blessing to us. 

As people of God we must understand that everything that we do for the Kingdom may not be in our comfort zones, but it truly may be in our God given skill set. When God extends a blessing to us that we refuse to take, the blessing disappears and goes into our lives as a missed opportunity.

As people that are the body of Christ we must understand that each and everyone of us has some sort of calling in regards to God's kingdom. God does not extend us gifts just to let them sit and fester, they were given to us to use as the body of Christ for His creation. James 2:26 tells us: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

My prayer for you this week is that you humbly consider the gifts that God has given you, and how they can best be used for the glory of God. Let us all be people of faith in our works and place our trust in the Heavenly Father to place us well. 

It's not about the work! It's about the faith!

Where has God Placed You?

Pastor Tim

A Walk On the Quiet Side!

You care for the land and water it;

    you enrich it abundantly.

The streams of God are filled with water

    to provide the people with grain,

    for so you have ordained it.

You drench its furrows and level its ridges;

    you soften it with showers and bless its crops.

You crown the year with your bounty,

    and your carts overflow with abundance.

The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;

    the hills are clothed with gladness.

The meadows are covered with flocks

    and the valleys are mantled with grain;

    they shout for joy and sing.

Psalm 65: 9-13

Well as I write this weeks blog, our first church youth have gone off to church camp where they will worship God in the majesty of His creation. They will go on hikes, they will go swimming and they fellowship with other youth that are on the same spiritual journey.

As a child and even now in adulthood I relish the walks that God and I share in the beauty of nature. Often in the quietness of the trees and flowers, and the sounds of God's creatures stirring can I truly hear God's voice.
As we go through our daily lives we often look to hear Gods voice screaming to us over the sounds of the world around us. 
My prayer for us all this day is that we don't look for God's voice in the form of a scream, instead let us look for God's whispering voice in the sound of a flowing stream, or the wind blowing through the tree's. God created the world around us as to steward. May we listen to the owner and creator when wanting directions and answers to the many questions that life raises within us.

It's Beautiful Outside

Pastor Tim

Pastor Tim's Benton Blog: Pastor Tim's "We Care" Message

Pastor Tim's Benton Blog: Pastor Tim's "We Care" Message

Pastor Tim's "We Care" Message