Every Man Needs to Read This
Greg Morse is one of my favorite writers. I’ve googled and searched for his articles and they are all golden. Here is one of his best.
Valentine’s Day in Liberia, and an American Spiritual
February 14 in Liberia is the same as in the U.S. – Valentine’s Day. It also marks Vickie’s and my 40th wedding anniversary. We will celebrate in April when I return. GraceLife Church hosted a Valentine’s Day dinner party for couples at a member’s home. Couples were instructed to arrive hand in hand and the men served their wives dinner. I did a short devotional: re-read the marriage vows that are customary in Liberia and reminded them that marriage is for keeps and it only gets better. All the men got a kick out of serving their wives and most of them ended up with a take-home plate.
Last Friday I finished another week of teaching – Pastoral Theology. We met every afternoon from 12:45-4:30. Those are tough hours to be in class, especially during the dry season in Liberia, so we kept things moving. We spent an entire day talking about the Health and Prosperity/Deliverance gospel and the entailments that go with it in Liberia. We simply read dozen’s of passages that spoke of our inheritance in heaven, the necessity of suffering for the sake of the gospel, the fact that God sometimes heals in this life but never permanently, and Christ’s call to follow him.
What is a Church?
Teaching an eager group of pastors. We spent two days defining what a church is so that they will know how to be effective pastors. That’s a great question for all of us, “What is a local church?” Here’s my definition that we took apart piece by piece in class.
“A local church is a community of true believers in Jesus Christ, established by God as His holy dwelling place, knit together in love by the Holy Spirit, who gather together regularly in order to make the glory of God known through the Gospel, using every biblical means possible (preaching, praying, serving, singing, giving, Lord’s Supper, baptism, encouragement, etc), under recognized spiritual leadership, who care for and affirm each other’s salvation, and then are trained and sent into the world to preach and practice the Gospel and multiply churches everywhere.” 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; Hebrews 10:24-25; Exodus 33; 1 Timothy 3; Titus 1; Matthew 28:19-20; 2 Timothy 2:2; 1 Peter 1:10
Today’s quiz will ask the students to list five means of sustaining grace that are best received in the local church.
Ernest is cataloguing the 1500+ books that were given to the college and seminary. Great books, mostly new, from generous Christian publishers and other donors.
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He built those cabinets with a hand saw, plane, chisel, hammer, square, tape measure, screwdriver, glue, nails, sand-paper, and wood putty. All fit into a small backpack. Amazing!!
Coconut water from a street vendor.
Training Pastors Worldwide 