How to be used by God

1) Start where you are, with family and with friends whom you already know.

2) Be yourself with them. Don't think you have to be like anyone else to be effective in helping people discover the love of Jesus.

3) Include them in your interests and hobbies, building and deepening your relationship in the process. You are more "alive" when you're doing things you like to do.

4) Do other things together, cultivating intentional friendships with those who haven't yet experienced the personal love and forgiveness of God through Jesus Christ.

5) Pray for those people regularly by name, and look for their needs in terms of transcendence, significance, and community.

6) Find a way to genuinely serve them. Reach them through their hearts more than through their heads.

7) Be especially prayerful and available when they face tough times, knowing that as people face crises they often turn to balanced, spiritually centered, trusted friends.

8) Respond with "I care" statements and actions. Make sure your actions speak louder than words.

9) Ask leading questions rather than telling them answers. Remember that most people prefer to discover the truth themselves.

10) Invite them to make a step toward God. Ask them what God is teaching them. Ask them how they would like you to pray for them.

CRITICAL Monday Morning Letter from John

Sorry about having to use the word critical, but I needed to get your attention. Most of the time critical message means "real" problems. By "real" the world usually means physical or financial, rarely is critical used to speak of spiritual problems. Today I want to invite each one of you to our upcoming Wednesday night classes. Known as F3 (Food, Fellowship and Feasting on the Word). The evening starts with a meal at 5:45 followed by classes for all ages. The following letter describes the series of lessons I will be teaching to the adults. Be sure to not miss this opportunity to get to know your church family and to enjoy a mid-week spiritual lift.

God bless,

John

F3 will be starting on Wednesday, September 2nd! Looking forward to seeing you there! Please read letter below...

Growth Doesn’t Just Happen!

One of the greatest fallacies in Christianity is that growth is automatic. Each one of us probably knows someone who started out their faith on fire only to see them slowly slip back into their old way of life. This phenomenon is not a new one or unfortunately not that unusual. Paul sites many of his own number that “shipwrecked their faith” (I Timothy 1:19-20). He also warns the Ephesian elders to “keep watch over themselves” and “even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth” (Acts 20:28, 30). Paul himself tells us that he battles daily the temptations of sin (Romans 7:14-20).

We would be greatly mistaken to think that, “I’m alright just where I am in my relationship with the Lord.” Everyone one of us has areas of our life that God needs to transform into Christlikeness. Becoming like Christ is Spiritual Maturity. Becoming a mature church is becoming a church full of mature Christians. It doesn’t happen with great programs, music or preaching, but with each one of us admitting our shortcomings and surrendering ourselves daily to God’s will for our lives.

We can begin to list the common areas of struggle in our lives: marriages, parenthood, personal relationships, finances, depression, disappointment with God, church, or even self. These are all symptoms of a greater problem; a lack of connection with God. Overcoming our personal struggles and separation from God isn’t easy and won’t be solved by a class, series of sermons or just old will-power.

However, there is hope! Jesus came to give us life back and life to its fullest; the key ingredient to having a fulfilled life is a personal connection with Him and with a community of believers devoted to fulfilling His will, the church. This is why the leadership has decided to start from ground zero re-establishing Biblical teaching and direction for this body. A series of classes designed to lead us in this direction will begin with Wednesday evening classes, September 2^nd and following a great meal at 5:45pm all adults will meet in the auditorium for a series of classes on:

Discovering Church Membership

What does it really mean to be a biblical Christian?

What does it really mean to be a part of a local church?

Why do we do what we do the way we do?

These classes will be followed by:

Discovering Spiritual Maturity

What is spiritual maturity?

Is there anything I can do to get out of my desert of spiritual dryness?

Can my faith be a dynamic, powerful faith that inspires me to love, serve and follow Christ no matter the cost?

These classes aren’t a guarantee, by they can be a spiritual GPS to get you started this body of believers and you individually on the path God has purposed for you.

*** Come prayed up, fired up, and mainly just show up for this exciting time at BFCC!***

Home from France

It is so great being back with all of you, I really have enjoyed the last two Sundays, especially worshiping and preaching in English. Sometime soon we will have an evening and share many of the events of this summer's mission trip. The trip was a success. Romuald is a young man with a great heart and a great desire to learn. We enjoyed our time in class together and I will continue to work with him via the internet. I also taught the book of Acts to the church this summer, however, we didn't finish the book. I will continue teaching the class on Sunday afternoon via Skype. This morning I connected with the Poitiers church, so we will have live video and audio. The class will be entirely in French, if anyone would like to attend please contact me.

Being in France for the summer also helped me realize how easy it is to forget the simple things in life. Maybe it was because of limited resources, or limited speech (even a fluent speaker is still recognizable as a foreigner). Whatever the case, I really didn't miss much except my family, friends and worshiping with the church here. That is the reason I've been sharing about simplicity. Much of my life is filled with things at the time seem so important, but in reality don't effect the my life that much. God's Word confirms this outlook on life as we saw two weeks ago. This last Sunday I address the simplicity of God's will for His church. I would like to challenge each of you to review the following scriptures and commit yourself to discovering God's role for you in this body of believers. Whether you are a long-time member, new member or just began attending, if you are willing to serve in a ministry to help us fulfill God's commission you are welcome to contact anyone in the leadership. If you don't know where to start email me at bethalto.pastor@gmail.com. Here is a summary of yesterday's sermon's notes.

May God bless and a hope to see you soon,

John

Z thinking is God's ultimate desire for mankind.

I Timothy 2:1-4

2 Peter 3:1-9

Church is the vehicle through which God wants to fulfill His will

Eph. 3:10

Each of us needs to commit ourselves to:

Prayer

Love and Unity

Unity does not come from consensus or compromise but uniquely from connection.

Connection to God and thus connection to one another

John 17:21,23

Vision-Seeing people and the world the way God does.

Evangelism Show and Tell show them transformed lives and tell the who did it.

Luke 6:46 LOOK it up!

Shake the Walls now!

Yesterday was a great Sunday, I want to really send a thanks out
to the worship team for adjusting at the last minute to our typical
Sunday services. I pray that you were as blessed as I was from a
little departure from the "normal" Sunday format. I really believe
that we often miss the blessings of God because of our neglect of
prayer. In James 4:1-3, James writes,

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from
your desires that battle within you?
You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you
cannot have what you want.
You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask
God. When you ask, you do not receive,
because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you
get on your pleasures."

Prayer is not a way of getting what we desire, but a means to
align ourselves with what God desires. As I challenged myself and all
of you yesterday, please set a alarm at noon or some other convenient
time to stop and spend five minutes in prayer with God. It is
necessary for spiritual growth to develop habits that help you
fellowship with God in a very personal way, that is why I suggest a
daily time in His Word, if you don't know where to start try the
gospel of John or the book of James. Some of you might be drawn to
David's prayers in the book of Psalms. I'll be praying that God with
give you the commitment and resolve to develop these healthy habits.

Please drop me a quick email if you would like
(bethalto.pastor@gmail.com) to share how God is working in your life.
(Let me know if it is alright to share your testimony with others).