Praying for a miracle…Part 1

Last night I went with our elders to pray for a woman to be healed.  Nancy Sanasack is one of my favorite people in the world.  She is graceful and gracious and generous and grounded.  She has been a true leader in our community for years as the principal at Kolling Elementary School.  In semi-retirement, she and Ken now operate an insurance school and my wife is one of their instructors.  My kids love her.  In the last month, she’s been diagnosed with and entered agressive treatment for ovarian cancer.

As elders, we don’t do go to pray as a group like this often, but we do as it is requested in the most serious of situaitons.  James 5:14-15 talks about the power of this.

It got me thinking about two huge things I’ll post on in the next few days…First,

1.  I sat there with Nancy and had the experience of personally “pastoring” someone at an intensely personal and uncertain time in life.  I love that opportunity and it really stirred some old feelings about why I got into ministry in the first place.  I definitely do a lot less of this now that the church has grown so much.  I think that is both good and bad, which I’ll explain later.

2.  When I prayed for Nancy, I asked God to heal her miraculously.  Some of the other elders did the same.  Some asked God to heal her “if it is His will.”  Others asked God to work through doctors, medicine, etc.  Do you ever pray for miracles?  Do you do it with high expectations or low expectations?  With hesitancy?  I’ll give you my 2 cents on this sometime soon.

Suncrest Update

Most every week, I write a brief email update to the church family.  I’ll post them here when I do them for now.  Probaly before long, I’ll just post them here and let everyone come here to find them.

Our teen band did a great job Sunday, didn’t they? And Jared was right on with his teaching. Our student ministry is stronger than it has ever been at Suncrest thanks to his leadership and some outstanding volunteers! We are starting a new three week message series this Sunday that I’ll be teaching through. We all face temptations (and we all give in to them!). This series has the real potential to help us tackle those struggles. I’ve really resonated with the passage I’m teaching from this week and I think you will too.

PAUSE

6/10 - Resisting the Urge

6/17 - A Victimless Crime?

6/24 - An Honest Assessment

Can I brag on all of you for a moment? I tell everyone I meet how cool it is to serve a church like Suncrest. My favorite parts…Great people…Big Vision…Willingness to try new things…and (best of all) it’s a church that really cares about people far from God. So I came across this report some time ago and thought it would be worth sharing with you. It’s not really good news for churches in general.

Only 22 of the 43,000 (about 0.005%) churches studied (southern baptist in this case):

• Baptized at least 26 people per year for 10 consecutive years
• Experienced overall worship attendance growth during the same 10 years
• Had a membership to baptism ratio of no more than 20 to 1.

On the positive side, Suncrest, you meet that criteria…and put yourself in pretty elite company! It’s an awesome reflection of our staff, ministry and group leaders and everyone who serves to make suncrest what it is! If you are interested in more on the study, you can click here.

The Value of Assessment

 

I got back into town tonight after being out of town for three days as an assessor at CPAC.  Suncrest has used CPAC a number of times to evaluate candidates as we plant new churches, but this was my first experience in person.  I’ll say I’m thankful I was an assessor and not and assessee!!  The process is challenging (I think I heard “brutal” more than once)…in both preparation and for the 60 hours you are there in person.  But I believe it is truly beneficial for everyone there…it is affirming to your giftedness, eye-openieng to blind-spots, and gives the true gift of critical feeback…that we all need to hear, but rarely do in a supportive way.

Doug Gamble (Associate Pastor) and Jared Mehrle (Student Life Pastor) were there being assessed for some unique ministry opportunities Suncrest may have as explore where God is leading us in the future.   I’ll write more on that sometime.  Both of these guys are top-tier as pastors and the roles they fulfill at Suncrest make a difference in people’s lives everyday.

 I’m thinking about having all new ministry staff hires go through the process becasue it is so comprhensive.  It would be so insightful.  Jon Ferguson from host Community Christian Church has a great description of it’s value on his blog.