Sunday Stuff-July 4, 2010

To quote LL Cool J, "DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK"!!!

With all of the first semester of seminary out of the way, I can finally get back to writing more consistently as a means of simply putting on paper (computer screen) my thoughts and visions about ministry and my life. This blog has always been a source of therapy for me and I need to get back to it.

Well we are thisclose to beginning the heavy lifting on the renovations for our new location, with an anticipated move in date for the first Sunday in September. GOD BE PRAISED!!!!

Our contractor has begun some preliminary removal of things on the inside of the building, but it appears that this week construction will begin full speed ahead, and I for one cannot wait.

Our church has been in this transitional stage for at least 2 years and we need to get this building up and running so that we can begin to make a greater impact on the kingdom in Newark, NJ.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of preaching for my good friend and adopted Godfather Pastor Aaron N. Gibson and the Second Baptist Church, Long Branch, NJ for their 7:30 service and the Lord really blessed the worship.

Please keep Pastor Gibson in your prayers for God to heal his health issues.

I made it back, albeit a little late, for our 10 AM worship at First Mount Zion and I had no idea what to expect from the attendance. While the attendance was wayyyyy down, those who showed up exhibited a great participation in worshipping the Lord.

Jamaal Goodley blessed us in praise & worship, and our Minister of Music, Kadeem Turner, was in tuned to what the Spirit was doing in worship, which was exemplified in his selection of songs throughout the service, in spite of the logistical issues with the people we share our building with and their equipment. God be praised for commitment to excellence no matter the difficulties.

I began a new summer series entitled the Parables of Jesus, in which we began with the parable in Matthew 20:1-16 on the laborers in the vineyard. I labeled the message "Is God Unfair?" I plan on posting the outline in tomorrow's post.

Sunday Stuff

As I have expressed in an earlier post, holidays are the toughest times to preach in the Christian Church. People start preparing on Sunday for their cookouts on Monday, and as you can expect, on the East Coast, we feel the "numbers" crunch.

But regardless of that, we still had a wonderful worship experience on yesterday. I mean the Lord showed up and the people were ready to bless His name.

Jamal Goodley was at it again, leading the church in worship. We are fortunate to be witnesses to his growth and development into a mighty man of God. Kadeem Turner and our music ministry were on point as usual. I cannot express the importance of a solid and committed music staff. I know of some Pastors who have a revolving door set in their music ministry, but I have been blessed to have the same staff for the last 2 years. To God Be the Glory!!!! And I am not letting them out of my sight!

We began a new sermon series, dealing with 15 wonderful Psalms, 120-134, which is known as the Songs of Ascents, and I have called the series, Marching Up to Zion. These pilgrim songs, were sung by the Children of Israel as they left their homes, left the valleys, headed towards Mount Zion to worship the Lord.

These songs were sung as preparation for their worship period before the Lord and brought about a new attitude towards the things of God.

The aim that the Lord is leading me towards for our church is that as we are getting closer to reaching our own Mt. Zion, there are some things that we must do while we are making this journey towards our new place of worship.

Psalm 120 describes the psalter's feeling of discomfort having to live surrounded by two groups of people, those from Meshech and those from Kedar. They both were powerful people who specialized in flaunting their military strength and economic might, and they were a people of great conflict and chaos who despised peace.

So the psalter writes this song to the Lord seeking his peace while having to dwell among people who hate peace. I labeled this message A Song For Peace. I will post the outline tomorrow.

I am headed for Memphis, TN in the morning to attend the Annual Session of the National Baptist Convention. This is an important year due to the fact that we will elect a new President this week.

The top candidates are Dr. Julius Scruggs of Alabama and the former president, Dr. Henry Lyons of Florida. I have mixed emotions about this as I like the platform of both men, but I think Lyons would be the better president. But there are apprehensions about that fact as well, because right now our convention is INSIGNIFICANT on a national level, and I fear that if Lyons wins we will then become INFAMOUS. The media horde that will befall Memphis will be crazy. Please pray for our convention that God's will be done!

Starting A New Series

It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted a blog entry. On last Sunday, I was blessed to be the guest preacher for the 44th Church Anniversary of the Messiah Temple Baptist Church, Chicago, IL where my good friend Dr. Keith B. McGee serves as the Pastor.

My assignment was to preach the 8 AM worship service, where the Lord led me to preach an exposition that I did at the First Mount Zion Church during our series on the book of Ezra, A Prayer For Revival, found in chapter 9 and verse 9. The Lord really blessed my feeble attempt at biblical exposition and I am so glad that he showed up.

The 11 AM worship preacher was another good friend, Pastor Romell Williams of the Lilydale Progressive Baptist Church of Chicago, in which he preached a great exposition out of Acts 5:17-42, which he labeled the message, The Confirmation of Opposition. He presented an outstanding look at Gamaliel, whom we have always given a good review, but Pastor Williams said that his wisdom was really foolish. Great look by a great preacher!

I am beginning a new series this week on our commitment as children of God, in which I have called the series, Commitment Is Not An Option. I do believe that the one of the key issues that have plagued the Christian Church is our inability to be totally committed to the Lord Jesus. We go to church when we feel like it, we tithe when we feel like it, we serve whenever we feel like it. All the while, we ask the Lord to keep us safe, to wake us up every morning, to give us gainful employment, to pay our bills, yet we won't give him what we owe him. I would suggest that God is tired of our non-commitment, but is challenging us in this day and time, to sell out for the Master. Bishop Hezekiah Walker sings a song that says, I am souled out...my heart is fixed and my minds made up, no room, no vacancies, I'm all filled up...the Spirit lives in me and that's the reason I'm souled out!

Please pray for our church's time together in our worship of the Word. Have a safe Independence Day!

Sunday Stuff

We had a pretty interesting day at FMZBC. First of all I have been sick for the last four days, so much so that I could not get any sleep Saturday night, my nose was completely stopped up, my ears were popping, and I had a cough that I thought was going end up with one of my lungs in my lap. Needless to say I was very concerned about my energy level during our worship service, and to top it off, I had to preach at an afternoon service, I had no idea how the day would turn out.

I want to report that the Lord showed up yesterday during worship, and he made an exchange, he took my physical weakness and gave me his strength, and I was able to make it through the day. God Be Praised!!!

The Lord led us to begin a new preaching series on yesterday on the Beatitudes housed in Matthew 5:1-12, which I have tagged the series, Developing Christian Character. This was Jesus' famous message known as the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus sets out to provide keys on how to live as a believer ought to live. And as our church is inching closer and closer to our new location, this series is designed to show us that a new building does not a new church make. We cannot expect to do the same things, be the same way, and get different results. I am so excited about this series. Please pray for the series.

Yesterday, I introduced the series with a topical message (something I rarely do) on the word that opens each lesson in the Beatitudes, the word blessed, in which I labeled the message, The Pursuit of Happiness. This word blessed has multiple meanings in the original language. Firstly, it means to bless, or to consecrate and set aside for the service of the Lord. It is where we get our custom of blessing our food before we eat it, to ask the Lord to consecrate both us and our food to be used for his service. Secondly, it is defined as words that we get our English derivatives benediction and eulogy, which means to speak well of. Later on in this sermon, Jesus says bless them that curse you, which suggests that when people put their mouth on you, don't fire back, speak well of them and watch the Lord take care of them. Thirdly, it means to be spiritually happy, which suggests to us that while we as humans seek happiness in many places, the only way to experience true happiness is to find it in Jesus.

I had the pleasure of preaching for the 55th Pastoral Anniversary of Bishop B.F. Jackson, pastor of the St. John's Methodist Episcopal Reformed Church of Elizabeth, NJ in the afternoon, and it was a joy and and honor to stand and deliver my convictions about Jesus Christ during this grand celebration. The St. John's Church did a marvelous job in the celebration, and I ask that you would keep them in your prayers as a transition is soon to take place there.

A New Series

First of all, let me express to this great blogging community my prayer to the Lord that each and every one of you as well as your ministries and the churches that you Pastor, have a prosperous New Year. You all have been rich blessings to my life during this past year as we have become just like a family that helps each other through our rough periods and celebrate through our times of joy. What's really so amazing about the closeness of our family is the fact that we have become close despite never having actually met in person. I consider it an honor and a privilege to have you all call me brother (and son Momma V), you all have been a blessing to me and I pray that we will continue this fellowship, and hopefully one day real soon, have a down home family reunion.

As our church begins our transition of parting ways with Newark, our home for the entire 130 year history of our church, and head towards our new location in Montclair, I sought the face and voice of the Lord in prayer, asking him to direct me as to what to say to the congregation during this period of transition. The Lord led me to put an emphasis on the first half of 2009 on two words: Evangelism and Worship. And God led us to teach on evangelism and to preach on worship, in which the Lord directed me to begin a new series on the Old Testament book of Ezra, which I labeled the series: Restoration and Rededication.

This book is a wonderful narrative that chronicles the journey of the children of Israel from exile back into the holy city of Jerusalem, to restore the temple of God. The first 6 chapters tells of the call from God to the Persian King Cyrus to allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem and build God a house. Chapters 7-10 begins after a period of 50 years between chapters 6-7, when Ezra shows up to lead the Jews in rededicating their lives back to the worship of Yahweh.

I began this series today in our worship with an exposition on Ezra chapter 1 which I labeled The Road to Restoration. The bible declares that King Cyrus was stirred in his spirit by the Lord using him to fulfill the prophecy once given to Jeremiah. This is the same Cyrus, that was prophesied about in Isaiah as the one that the Lord would use to deliver the Jews from exile. Here God is using a pagan King to fulfill prophecy that Jeremiah spoke of in Jer. 29:10 which says that, thus saith the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. God is faithful to his word and to his covenant, and since he is faithful, then it is our job to have enough faith to trust that God is still leading his people back down the road to restoration. I will post the sermon outline tomorrow.

New Sermon Series

As we have moved off of our month of unity in October, the Lord has led me to begin a new series on the next Lord's Day that deals with how and why the church was created, which is a series born out of the place in scripture where the church was formulated and put into motion, Acts 2, which I have entitled the entire series Created For A Community. The purpose of this series is that as we are getting ourselves ready to make our transition from Newark to Montclair, there are some things that we as a ministry need to absorb to cultivate a proper atmosphere of worship and service to the Lord Jesus Christ. Too often we as preachers take for granted that when we are called to a church that our predecessor had already laid a good foundation that we can just build on. And until we spend some time with the church, we will never know what they have been taught and what they need to be taught.

Now please understand that I am not hating or being overly critical of my predecessor, I don't know him at all, but what I do know is that I need to reinforce the basic principle of how and why the church was created in the first place. I actually preached this series during my first assignment at Friendship Baptist Church, Asbury Park, NJ about 5 years ago and I am really interested how I have grown as a preacher in the last 5 years as I will need to change a whole lot of the sermon content and maybe even structure of those messages. Please keep our church, this series and me in your prayers during this time of our development.

Before I close this post, please let me explain my feelings about preaching sermon series in the first place. Here in Jersey, not many of us will put forth the time and effort to preach expositional sermons in a series form. What I have discovered is that many of my peers will start a series, but give up after 2-3 sermons with the excuse of becoming bored or their congregation was no longer interested. And I will be the first to admit that preaching in series form takes a whole lot of work and focus, and sometimes it tends to get a little tedious. But the reality is that, I truly believe that preaching in a series will do a couple of things: first of all it will keep the congregation focused on a particular theme, or particular book, or particular chapter all at the same time. It will give the congregation one set diet of spiritual food to make it through the tough times of life. Secondly, it will make the preacher more focused on the task at hand of teaching and encouraging the people that we are placed in charge of. I think the worst thing for a preacher is to have to hunt for something to preach on Friday or Saturday night, only to get to the pulpit on Sunday depending on our GIFTS to get us through, yet the people have not been helped at all. I have to be in a series all the time, because I am a procrastinator who will wait until the last minute to do everything, so if I am in a series, it forces me to get to work on Sunday evening on the message for next week. Just a little glimpse into my thoughts about preaching in a series instead of jumping around the bible.

A New Series

I have a big problem with my preaching. Whenever I am not in a series, I sometimes feel like I playing a game of darts in the dark, aiming at whatever I see and hoping I hit something that will give me a good score. When it comes to preaching, and I am not in a series, I feel handicapped and inadequate to be a blessing to the people that God places me in charge of. So what I usually do is when I get about 1/2 way through a series, I pray and ask God for guidance and leadership towards the next series of sermons that will help our congregation become the church that God is looking for in these evil days.

So as I began consulting the Lord on the next series, the Lord led me to see that we are now in a relocation project that is totally and completely a faith walk by the Pastor, leadership and members of the First Mount Zion Church Family, and in order to relocate in a manner such as the one we are embarking upon, the finances of our church needs to become a whole lot stronger than it is. While it is true that we sold our building for a real good sum of money, it would make no sense to use all of our resources on the move and have nothing left to build on. We need to increase our giving and fast!

So the Lord led me to begin a series on tithing and stewardship, and in doing so, he led me to an awesome book by the man who wrote the 5-Star Church, Stan Toler and Elmer Townes, which I am using as the title of our series, Developing A Giving Church. This book entails certain principles and practices that will encourage your church to become a church that gives.

Tomorrow we will be dealing with the parable of Jesus to his disciples in Matthew 20:1-16 as we deal with the matter of our actions and attitudes towards our lives as stewards. Please pray for the series, our church and me as I seek the guidance of the Lord to be a rich blessing to our congregation.