One of the highlights of our vacation was that we went to see the church location of the first church we pastored in the Cincinnati area (afton). We were thrilled to see not just a new building but also a new educational wing and also they were starting a daycare/preschool. And their attendance in the 70's. Please pray that God will continue to bless the Afton Wesleyan Church.

E mail

Some have wondered where the email to the blog is. Check the profile and you will find or look right here

bkjohn777@aol.com

prison ministry

Kairos prison ministry will be having their weekend retreat the weekend of September 22 in Polk County. Please pray for Bro. Emmett Harrington and others who will be ministering at that time.
Also a big thank you for everyone who brought in cookies to be used (eaten) that weekend

Beatitudes

We have been preaching/teaching on the beatitudes for the last number of weeks. I have been challenged by the fact that if our lives lined up to the beatitudes what would we have?.......

The kingdom of God

Vacation

We are leaving this week to go on vacation. A niece will be getting married this Saturday, in Indiana
My son, Aaron and his wife will be filling in for us this coming Sunday.
We would appreciate your prayers for our traveling

10 Things I Think...OK, 12

This is from church growth and evangelism department of the Wesleyan Church

10 Things I Think…OK, 12

1. The gospel informs the doctrine, not the doctrine the gospel.
2. If we don’t multiply as a denomination we will die.
3. If we can simply agree on where we are going, we’ll be able to figure out how to get there…together!
4. Loyalty does not mean we always agree, but it does mean we will do all we can to get along.
5. A genuine multiplication movement will never happen until it is driven by the local church.
6. Denominational structure must adjust to allow for a movement to be empowered, not endangered.
7. Freedom without responsibility is anarchy.
8. I don’t know everything, but this I do know: I don’t know everything.
9. Church planting and church planters can make denominational leadership uncomfortable, but I’m not sure “comfortable” is a Kingdom value.
10. God is God, we are not. We need to get used to it!
11. When it comes to church planting we just need to “get ‘er done!”
12. If you haven’t thought about planting a church…you ought to!

TV devotion

I was asked to do a 15 minute devotional for the "Good Samaritan Village' yesterday morning. they have their own TV channel which is watched by those who live there. I started with the beatitudes (what we are doing in our services on Sunday). it was a interesting experience, the only problem is trying to get what you want said in exactly 15 minutes. You cannot run short and you cannot go over. What I had planned took about 10 minutes so I had to adlib the next 5 which was kind of hard......Maybe if they have me back I can improve words with time. :)

Mother Teresa

Here is a good article from Time magazine regarding a upcoming book on the letters of Mother Teresa. Is seems she spent much time feeling that God was not near or with her, I cant wait for the book


http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html

Celtic Prayer

I muse on the eternal logos of God,and all creation is lit up.
I muse on the eternal Light,and every person is lit up.
I muse on the eternal Life,and God’s heaven is lit up.
I muse on the beloved disciple at the Last Supperand God’s sacrament is lit up.
I muse on the loved mother and apostle at the Crossand Christ’s church is lit up.
I muse on the risen Christ at Lake Galileeand all our Easter’s are lit up.
I muse on the eternal Lamb of Godand eternity’s tenderness is lit up.
I muse on the radiance of the Eastern lightand pray that it becomes the transforming glory of the West…

from Exploring Celtic Spirituality, 54
found at www.nextreformation.com

While at the hospital visiting yesterday we seen a young man (20 something) who use to live here in the community. He said he had been kicked out of his house, was taking drugs and cutting himself and thus was in the process of admitting himself into Park Place (rehab). We offered to take him over there and while in route tried to encourage him to look to God, he did not seem too interested in looking to God though.....

I have to wonder how low do some people have to go before they begin to think about God? How many more options does this young man have? SAD. Please pray for him

Crime watch meeting

We had our crime watch meeting here in town this past Tuesday (14th). There was a good crowd there, probably the biggest I have seen.
One of the concerns was with the drug selling businesses going on here in town and why they have not been shut down.
We asked what we could do to bring those dealers to justice....the best advice the officers could give us was to keep calling the drug hotline when we see or suspect drug activity. If we all strive to call when we see such activity maybe it will help. We can only pray that it will.
The phone number is 407-348-1174...please use it.

From the Bishops in Albania

Dear Prayer Partners,
We wanted to bring you up to speed on what’s going on with the Bishop family here in Albania… We have been very busy also here as we continue reaching out to the people here and growing our relationships. We are excited about starting some small group meetings in several peoples’ homes. One of those homes is our landlords, and I have attached a letter about my landlord and friend Mustafa. I hope it helps you pray for him and me as we continue to build a relationship in Christ.

Thank you for all your prayers,
Ken, Dawn, Eva, Joshua and Stephen

I wanted to introduce our landlord and a dear friend, Mustafa Dëlehu to you. We have been growing to love he and his family and wanted to introduce him to you so you can pray for him.

Mustafa was a merchant marine for 28 years under the communist system. Wow, the stories he can tell about traveling around the world during the cold war. He has shared many with me and I find it hard to imagine some of the conditions he has been in. Once, he was interrogated for over 9 hours by the communist government for suspicion of talking against the communist system.

He is a hard working man and built the house where we occupy the 2nd floor all by himself. He continues to get up, although retired, at 5:00 in the morning and put his mind to work on finding something to do on the house everyday. Usually repairing or working on the unfinished portions of the house in the first floor.

He loves to drink coffee at least twice a day and I am often found joining him as he invites me to sit and talk with him. During these conversations I often share with him about God and His son Jesus. We often discuss the many differences between the Muslim religion and our faith.
He was able to travel to Italy for a few months to visit his son, so I gave him a stack of books to read during his rest time there. Over the period of three months he read the entire bible and about 6 other Christian books I gave to him. He has a lot of questions and is now reading through the Bible a second time. He is also now attending church service along with his wife (Shpresa) and sometimes his adult daughter (Dora). Please pray for him (them) as we continue to share the Love of Christ and the need for a savior in his life. We have a desire to study the bible together with his family and are praying about actually inviting others to join us. Pray with us as we continue to reveal God’s word to him and His plan for their lives

good story

Willamette Valley Wesleyan Church is located in Wilsonville, Oregon. They were sensing they needed to repurpose themselves for greater effectiveness. It was believed that replanting themselves in a new ministry field would be a great contributor to this. As God was prompting this in the hearts of the leaders, Pastor Jim Winters received a phone call from the City of Wilsonville. It seems they wanted to purchase the church property for over four million dollars. This was a confirmation of the stirring leaders were receiving. They are in process of selling!

An exciting sidebar is that this church wants to invest in church planting around the district. They will invest these dollars into a Wesleyan Investment Foundation account as they search for their new ministry field. During this time 50% of their interest income will be given to the district to help fund new churches. This is a church that is moving toward fitness!

Crime Watch

There was a murder in town a week ago today. Following on the heels of that there will be a crime watch meeting in the civic center at 7:00pm Tuesday August 14th...Everyone in town needs to be there to express their concern to the authorities.

great quote

“If men and women today began by the thousands experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ in a transforming way, there would simply be no place for their expression of experience to fit into the present-day straitjackets of Christianity. Protestant or Catholic, neither one is structured to contain a mass of devoted people who long for spiritual depth. We are structured towards infancy.”
Gordon Cosby, Church of the Savior

wedding vow renewal

We held the ceremony for the Wedding Vow renewal of Neil and Diane Simmons yesterday. They have been married 40 years. I enjoy doing these renewals more than the initial weddings, with divorce rate at about 50% it is always encouraging to see those who have been married 25, 40, 50 yrs. or more.....Commitment is still a virtue.

If you would like to have your vows renewed and in need of a minister to do the ceremony. I would love to oblige :)

Conference Films

The website where you can view the films of the conference are at

www.buzzconference.com/films

THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE

Starting the Wednesday, July 16 at 7:00pm We will be starting and doing a new seris entitled, “The Ultimate Adventure: Discovering the Joy of a Life in Christ” it will run for aprox. 6 weeks

Conference

While we were in Washington DC I went to a conference called 'Buzz conference'.
The church that held the conference has made the messages and even the films available on line at www.buzzconference.com/media
The conference was great and it is great that this church has made the talks available FREE.

Washington DC

We just came back from our vacation to DC. My take on DC is that it represents both the best and the worse of America. You see the memorials etc. and patriotism, loyal and sacrifice rise within your heart. You are glad and proud to be an American.

You see the homeless and the hungry wondering the streets and all the money and space used for musuems (musuems that are to represent art and it looks like a bunch of garbage) and you are ashamed to be an American.

Great trip with the family none the less and everyone needs to make the pilgrimage at least once in their life.