Teach What You Know
An Invitation to Inspiration
But she. . .
Bold Moves
1. Visit www.johnsonferry.org
2. Click Mission tab (top)
3. Click “Register for a 2012 Mission Trip” (top right) – this will send you to JF Access
4. View mission trips or Click “Register for a Mission Trip” (top right)
5. If you are not logged into your JF access account, you will be asked to login or create an id/password.
6. Verify personal data (especially Birth Date). If you are traveling internationally, please update passport information. Only Global Ministries staff will have access to view this information for ticketing purposes. Click Submit when verification complete.
7. Select appropriate mission trip from the drop down list and complete registration.
8. Enter payment information for trip deposit.
9. Select Finish to complete registration.
Conspicuous
Join Me On Mission Liberation
This Summer I had the privilege to go to Bratislava, Czech Republic. While there, I came accross this amazing statue. It clearly commemorates the struggle the Czech people endured while subjugated under totalitarian communist rule. The inscriptions loosely translated mean "he who dies in the fight for freedom does not die", and "after the battle, fredom does not die". What a powerful truth the Czech people have embodied over the last few decades. Freedom has prevailed there.
This truth experienced in the political and economic realms by the Czechs is paralelled even more powerfully in the spiritual realm. The freedom the gospel of Jesus Christ gives cannot be stopped. The freedom force of the saving grace of God transforms and liberates oppressed souls everywhere it is proclaimed.
In this sense, every Christian man is a freedom fighter: serving, sacrificing, demonstrating, and speaking the gospel of freedom. The scriptures say, 2 Corinthians 3:17 "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." Galatians 5:1 "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."
I'm leading a special liberation mission October 12-16 to the Dominican Republic. We are going to live and speak the gospel to many people there. The force of freedom will surge powerfully in and through us as we serve alongside Dominican believers reaching those who are today spiritually subjugated by the power of sin. I ask you to join me. The registration deadline for the special current price is tomorrow night, September the 8th. Please click on the below link and register right away. I believe it will be the trip of a lifetime.
Dominican Mission Trip Registration
Our Freedom Matters
I'm sending you a link to a powerful talk about the American spirit. I believe Christ-like character traits lived out extraordinarily through the lives of our citizens, often Christ-following citizens, are most responsible for American Exceptionalsim.
Enjoy this short speech. Listen for important truths about communication. This has application to our marriages, our parenting, our working and out witnessing. Listen for the commitment to the value of every individual human life - a hallmark of the judeo-Christian foundation of the United States in jeopardy today. Listen to the willingness of men to sacrifice themselves for others, also at the core of Christ-likeness.
Enjoy, and may we be inspired to live and influence for Christ and the freedom which honors His creative design lodged deep in every human heart.
Brig. Gen. Steve Ritchie
Call to Me
God invites us in Jeremiah 33:3: "Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know."
C.S. Lewis once wrote, "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Like in Lewis' quote, Jeremiah 33:3 offers us the promise of grandeur. God will show us great and mighty things which we do not know. When God says that, He means "great and mighty things" by His definitions of "great and mighty." He has promised to unleash His supernatural wonder and power in, around and through us, in our day, in our world. When He says, "which you do not know," He means outpourings of His Spirit which will blow our minds. He will answer our prayers with bigger and better answers than we even have the imagination to know to ask for.
The one thing He requires of us to receive these unfathomable blessings from Him is, "Call to Me." The New Testament tells us we have not because we ask not (James 4:2). Why is getting people to pray the hardest thing to pull off in Christianity?
I want to challenge you:
* not to have too weak a desire for the great things of God
* not to be half-hearted creatures
* not to be like ignorant children content to make mud pies
Let's pray! God may indeed grant a great outpouring of His Spirit in our community, in our day. Let us come together and ask Him for revival and awakening!
Here are the details of a great opportunity for us to come together and seek Him. I hope you will join me tomorrow morning.
What? Pancakes & Prayer-Walking or Prayer-Driving (your choice)
When? THIS Saturday, May 14
Where? Room 108 (formerly The Net) just inside north covered drive-under
Time: 8:00 -10:00 a.m.
Eat: Pancake Breakfast and coffee
Cost: No charge
Road assignments with maps and prayer guides will be ready for you. Prayer-walk or prayer-drive it if it's raining. Already on a fire team? Go out with your team. Not on a Fire Team? Come and we'll get you partnered with other guys. Power in numbers. We'll be done by 10:00.
Please join me this Saturday for Pancakes and Prayer, and let's Call to Him on behalf of our community!