Quarterly Leadership Meeting

While you're getting that, let me mention just some of the things that are coming, let alone the things that the Lord's done in the last three months. Next weekend, now listen to this, this is exciting. Next weekend, I want you to know that there's an arts festival that's now becoming an annual thing right down there where those new office buildings are, at the corner of where Babcock intersects McKnight Road, where TGI Fridays is. There's an arts festival there that they anticipate about 25,000 people will attend next weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. A few months ago, when Gary Beasley was here, he said one of the ways that they are effective in evangelism is going to these kinds of things. The flea market is next on our list. We petitioned to have a booth where we could have the two-question test. Are you going? We thought it was great, and they didn't. Now listen, this is so exciting. This gets us back to prayer, beloved. God, we got the word back, this was less than two weeks ago, that they denied our permit for this booth, saying it wasn't very artsy. That's right, it's a state of the art. We got that word on a Monday, and the Lord impressed us on Tuesday morning just to believe him for that provision. We called back and made contact. We said, now listen, we feel we have every bit as much to offer the community as any of these other corporations or so on that are having booths down there. We feel that it's really very justifiable. We had to make some adjustments in how we would present ourselves, but they changed their mind and said, well, it's okay, we guess. I think there's a little trepidation there. We've arranged to have a display, and we've printed 5,000 little flyers, brochures, that talk about the community ministries that we offer, such as Priority 2 and our counseling ministry and the food bank, all those things. But in the center is Jesus Christ and the work that he's doing with us as a people. We even got permission, Carl made sure, that if someone said, well, what is this really all about? Then we have our two-question test. So we're going to be there. 25,000 people are going to be going in and out of that place. I might just add, there's no reason at all that many of us couldn't just be mingling in that crowd, if you would like, but I know that's hard for most of us. But at the very minimum, you need to see Chuck today, after the meeting, because he needs some people to be there at our booth, just to represent Jesus and the work of God here at North Way and through our ministries, Priority 2 and all the different ministries that we represent. So see Chuck, and I'll just give you, is it an hour slot or a couple hour slot? As many as you want. We're going to hopefully have a couple... You wouldn't want to be there by yourself, would you Chuck? You couldn't handle the crowds. In fact, I think it would be wise if we knew the peak times, because there will be certain times when you'll want to have 15 people. You don't want to just be passing out things, but conversations are where we want to go with this. Okay, all right, so see Chuck, and he has some more information. Also, another opportunity to let our light shine before men is coming up on the 9th of August, when we are one of the participating churches in the Pittsburgh Praise Celebration. And this is going to rock them. If they'll acknowledge us, if they get any coverage of this at all, this is going to be a literal march with banners and flags praising the name of Jesus from the Civic Arena down to Point State Park. And I don't know how many churches are involved, but there's... Do you know, Susan? Two. And... What? There are a lot, yes. Okay, well, so there's... Scott says, by faith, they're expecting 15,000 people to participate. This is going to be glorious. It's going to be a statement. Can you imagine that? I mean, we thought it was big time to get our banners in the church. We're going to go waving them right down there past U.S. Steel and right down into the heart of the city. And you know, if you touch the heart, you can touch the whole city. Yes? Yes? Yes. Yes, well, that's... This is, I think, partially fulfilling that. And this is going to be... I mean, I still see us walking down Route 19, but that's a little bit... And then there's a concert, right, Jeannie? Point State Park with Phil Driscoll and, you know, who knows? We may not even have church on Sunday. We'll never get back here. Okay, the way you can be part of it and you can tell your people to be part of it is just by being there on... That's Saturday the 9th. I think you have to be there at 12. At the Civic Arena. And then you'll march together down to Point State Park and then you send your wife back for the car. No, just kidding. All right, well, I have... We'll have more details. We, you know, that's... For us, that's a long way away. We've got to communicate to all the people, too. So that's the 9th. And one last question. Do they need anything between now and then that we can do? Well, yes, I need some people to help with parking. We're involved in the parking aspect. And Ron Myers is marshalling one platoon. There will be seven or eight platoons. And Ron Myers needs some people to help him coordinate and marshal his platoon section. I need some help and some people to help with parking. Okay. We'll organize a little more effectively in the next couple of weeks. But plan to be there. A great opportunity to, you know, to show forth the love of God. The whole family? Oh, yeah. This can be... Children are more than welcome, I'm sure. And, in fact, that's who they'd expect. They'd expect the children, but they won't expect us. And that's what's going to be exciting. Praise the Lord. We just... Bless God for... By the way, that's a beautiful illustration of perseverance. Because the people that had the vision for this were just... They were denied permits, and they were kind of laughed at, and they were sent out of City Hall several times. They just didn't give up. They didn't give up. And they finally came back and got this date. And we're looking forward to it. It's going to be great. Wendy asked to see anyone who's on David and Betsy Hunter's prayer list. If you're a prayer supporter, see Wendy in the main office right afterwards, and she'll give you their prayer letter, and that'll save us some money from sending it out to you today. Okay. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I want to share with you just a little bit today because where we are, beloved, is by God's ordination and timing in a place of, in my estimation, an unparalleled opportunity and excitement. God's really establishing some things in us. And He's opening doors and making ways for us that we hadn't really anticipated in many respects. And yet I find that the more we go on, the more He seems to do. The more we're faithful just to hear the word that He's saying to us and go through that door, He opens up another one. And just in the last three months, I'd like maybe one or two of you to stand and share a specific, but in the last three months since we met, which was I think the first Saturday in April, we had the Glad Tidings School of Evangelism. We had over 400 people receive that training. And I don't know, did you get a specific word from Carl last night? Go ahead and tell us what's happening in evangelism as a result of that training. What's going on? We're just seeing the truth just now beginning to come in. What the Lord is teaching us through all this, it's like heavy-duty stuff. I mean, we've got homework to do every week, which is not making me rejoice. I mean, the thing is we're being held accountable to answer questions and to get Scriptures just for every excuse that comes off the pipe, basically. And we're seeing the truth finally come in because God starts to persist through all this. It wasn't easy. And we had a midterm test like last week. I'm thinking, I just don't want to do this, Lord. I mean, He's really blessing that faithfulness that we've been going through this every week. And He's turning us... I just see in my own life, the Bible says He's going to turn the hearts of children back to their fathers. And a lot of us are just giving our families. He's teaching us how to pray consistently for our families to start with because that's where it's got to start in Jerusalem first, He said. And I know my family's coming around like crazy in the last few months. And not just that. Beyond that, we've been going door to door. We've been going out to the North Way Mall, just in the streets, wherever. The Lord just leads us to take His Word and share it with His people. And we're just amazed at how open people are. You find both. You find a lot of frustrations and failures. Doug and Ron went out a couple weeks ago and they were praying all week long specifically that they would see some fruit that week. And the Lord just laid it on their hearts that that was going to happen. They said they had like 10 failures first. They went to like 10 different houses. Get out of here. We don't want to hear it. They're cursing at them and everything. But they finally met a paper boy on the street which is as open as can be. And he just accepted the Lord right there. Praise Him. Yeah, I want that. He's following Him up. So the bottom line is we're seeing fruit as God's teaching us to persist. You know, it's not easy. There's been a lot of struggles. And it's not always fun. But He's teaching us to be instant and be ready in season and out of season. We're going to welcome you all to come on board in a couple weeks once we've finished the first basic course. God's changing the hearts of people everywhere. Praise the Lord. Let's give the Lord praise for that. In evangelism, one of the most freeing things is to see yourself just simply as obedient and let God bear the fruit. Mark Etsy and I were talking yesterday morning. Over a year ago when we were still at the open door, I had called a group together for evangelistic focus. And we had written down names of people. Just anyone that we thought that we touched bases with during the week. And Mark had this little, just like the size of a business card with about a dozen names on it or 15 names on it or so. People he was praying for. He was carrying it around in his wallet. And that's a neat way to, you know, when you don't have any money, you can pull that out. I just keep praying for these people. And he pulled out and he pointed this one name. A man by the name of Mike Willey. He'd been praying for 15 months. Mark said, this guy was so far from God he was the last person on earth he thought would receive a look. Last Sunday morning, sitting right here. One of those nine that responded came to his home group this week getting in touch with Jesus. And you see, you don't know. You just don't know when that person, and maybe you're the 10th one in the line that God's been sending them. And you're going to be the one that they're going to respond to. Or you might be the second one and there's five more to go. But you're just obedient. That's what evangelism is. That's what God's doing in us. The Lord is giving us so many opportunities. Let me tell you another thing that's been happening in the last, just really a number of weeks, a month or so, since the building has been opened and been dedicated. We've seen a pretty substantial increase in visitors. I don't know if you know this, but whereas before we were getting maybe 12 to 15 visitors per Sunday in the spring, now it's more like 18 to 20 family units. Which means that there's probably 30 to 40 people. So almost double the number of visitors. Actually, it is double the number of visitors that have been coming in the last month or so. And now we have organized ourselves so that, and this is now moving under Scott's oversight, that every one of those visitors is going to be contacted in some fashion. If we don't know anything about them, then we send out an evangelistic team who calls on them and shares the gospel with them within three days. That's our goal. If they go to another church, a sister church of some kind or a local evangelical church, then we do a different thing with them. We're careful not to encroach. But we believe God has given us a plan for those people. So that's an exciting thing that the Lord is doing. What else? Can someone else just stand up where you are? Bill? I've been blessed. I went to pray there. So here, about a week ago, his wife called me up. Of course, since that time, he's been discharged from the hospital. But about a week ago, his wife called me up to come and see him. And he's in the hospital again. He couldn't go. I prayed with him. And that was a real blessing. Amen. That's right. Deposit. Yes. Love. Can I just hear, if I could, for a moment, for a minute, a moment, what happened that made you do that? Well, I don't know where to start. It's a long ride to the food bank. And I, you know, I walked away. Let's sit them up here. Let them sit. Go ahead. Thank you. I was by myself that day, riding. I spent the whole time down, just focusing on the Lord, His Son, and His Spirit. And first, as I walked to the food bank, the Lord spoke to me very clearly. He said, this is the day I want you to lay hands on everyone today for the blessing of God on them. And I said, okay. And I brought my food. And on the way home, I was crying about that. But the time I got back here, I was so in awe of God's power. I've never in my whole life been a person that has been so filled with the power of God and what that would mean. And so the people came. I was so excited. I could hardly wait because it was going to be Monday, Sunday, getting all this food ready. And they came, and we started to pray for them. And the next day, I said, I'm going to be sure you're in part, I was telling them a little bit, I said, I'm going to be sure you're in part the blessing of God. The strangest thing happened. When I would lay my hands on these people, I would just feel the power of God on them at this time. I was sort of shook by it. And I went out in the hall and God said to me, He said, I want you to know because I've given you power, I want you to lay your hands on them because this blessing is why the patriarchs laid their hands on their children before they died and gave them family blessings. I want you to give them my blessing. So I came back, and I could hardly wait for the people to come. And we did 25 of them, and I never lost that sense of the power of God when I laid my hands on them. Sometimes she would tell us to pray other things. It was the most, I just can't describe what kind of a day that was. One girl who had a lot of demonic problems, I laid hands on her and just started to pray in tongues over her. The power of God came on her, and I found myself standing back at the bar and standing in the presence of God. And another girl came, and I told them all, I said, I don't leave before we pray. And several non-Christians came, and I said, I explained to them about this, and they let us pray for them. The one girl started to cry. She said, last night, that was a windy night, I don't want my food because I want you to lay hands on me right now. And we did. And I'm just praying that the enemy will not come. I don't know what God's going to do. Several people, he said, don't pray another thing for them because they have the blessing of God. They don't need another thing. And one time, God said to me, he said, how would you like me to shut this place down because there'll be no need for me to bother. And I said, do it, God. I don't know what, I just, I'm still sort of shook by it. I went home, usually I go home and I'm just whipped. And I went home so refreshed and excited about God. Hallelujah. You know, trust He's going to do it for you, I don't know. Thank you. John, go ahead, let's do one more and then we need to move on. Yes. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. I think what the Lord wants us to hear in these testimonies, beloved, is that's our field. That's where we've got to be. We've got to be out there touching. Now, I did an overhead and this is kind of getting things out of the order I planned and that's, way to go, God. Let's see if I can keep this. See, we know that Matthew 28, 19 is the focal point of our commission. We're to make disciples of all nations. the only limitation we have is this globe. But we also know that there is, even in the book of Acts in chapter 1, verse 8, there is a sort of a growing expression, almost concentric circle idea that you get. You've got to win where you are. You don't start going out and exporting something that hasn't been firmly planted. And I think over the years, the brief five years we've been here, God's been establishing, planting us down. But he's now showing us, beloved, and I have to say, as Ray was praying and sharing the word earlier, you can't help but grieve when you see the lostness of people. I mean, if you really see them with the eyes of Jesus. Because they're so lost. They're so lost that they don't know they're lost. That's how lost they are. And there's nothing more pathetic than someone who doesn't know they're sick. Do you know what I'm saying? It's that kind of a thing. But the Lord is showing us that the North Hills, we've got to one sign on the top of the road. Let's see. But how much more do we need to be getting our word, the word of the gospel, out where we are? Raising the light, letting it so shine before men, as Matthew 5, 16 says. Then in the city of Pittsburgh, I might in a little bit just tell you how God's giving us opportunity to link with some other churches. But I'm praying right now for a specific strategy for this church to reach this city. Not that we'd be independent of others, but that we would know what we're to do. That's a big thing. It sounds presumptuous. Who do you think you are? You're just out here in this one little region. I have to believe that God wants us to have an impact on the whole city. Part of that is represented by the fact that here's Ted and Pam. You live where? Over in Irwin. Do you know where that is? What time did you get up this morning? Five o'clock. That's a long way east. Over here we have Propelkus somewhere. Over near the airport. The South Hills people. Anyone here from South Hills today? I don't think we do. We have a few from the South Hills. Linsell RC is down there. We have the Smalls down there. Now we have a home group that's getting underway in Butler. I think that's God's word saying don't limit me right here to Wexford Flats and just to North Hills. See me moving the city through your hands. If you'll pray, I just believe God's going to give a specific vision before our next meeting time that I'll be able to share with you. The elders will have confirmed and we'll be underway with that. Then the region. The tri-state area. What I see the Lord doing is because we've been here now long enough to begin to be known, other churches are interested in what's happening. Whereas it used to be pastors didn't really care too much. God's opening doors. In fact, a couple of weeks I was invited to speak at a conference of the Churches of God of the Western Pennsylvania Conference. There's a significant number of churches. Not a big denomination or anything, but churches, they have a church planting philosophy. They want to get churches and congregations started. They want to know what God did here as encouragement to them. We have a voice to the region. As you know, in God's timing, this isn't something I'm going to design or anyone's going to design. I believe the Lord's going to give us impact in some way in this nation. Part of that whole unfolding in God's timing is the fact that, as you know, Fred and his family and those that God will send with him are going to Bakersfield and sort of in God's way tying that long knot early on so that we can think in terms of a nation. I think that's exciting. We see that vision expanding all the way across the land. Of course, in the world, I praise the Lord for just the increasing awareness. Mission Group, we thank you today for just being faithful to keep that mission vision in front of us. Are they doing a good job with that and reminding us of that? Are we getting reports in frequently from different ones that are out there? It's exciting. It's really exciting. God has given us this. What I want to share with you, you see, something is happening in how we view ourselves. I guess I want to share this with you very briefly and let you begin to prayerfully ask God to lead us in this. The size of the circles don't mean anything. That's just to get them all on there. The CM is Children's Ministry. You see, much of what you're here to do, most of you, is to support the ministry that's here in the church. Do you understand that? You're here to equip saints and do ministry within the church, within what's happening here, to care for the people that are here. Beloved, that's necessary. This is Ephesians 4, 11 through 13 in a fashion. The worship team people put hours and hours and hours of time into helping us come before the throne of grace and seek the face of Jesus. This praise celebration is probably the first expression outward of worship ministry apart from the tapes. Of course, I'm going to remind you about the tape and I'll talk about that at the end. It's coming next weekend. You understand what I'm saying? These ministries basically undergird. We need these ministries and I probably left some off there. There's nothing personal about this. It was either finish the charter or eat some fruit this morning. There's one great danger in this. Those ministries do not exist just to cause things here to all feel good. You know that. What God wants to do is he wants to be able then having healed and encouraged and restored the church and put the church in a firm foundation. He wants the church then to be going out. Did somebody say something there? He wants the church to be going out. He wants the church to be reaching and God is stirring us beloved to be faithful to this. Now in some fashion I don't know how to do this because I need somebody like Rick here or someone but you see in my spirit I yearn for the home group ministry home group ministry I'll just put HG down here. Could you see the home group ministry reaching all nations so that people are coming in this way see if you want to mark their steps they come in this way because right now for the most part not exclusively but I'd say for the very high percentage of people kind of come through the front door of the church and then find their way into a ministry. Are you with me? Most everybody that joins North Way comes to visit and only a few people are being affected by some of these ministries. But how I yearn for TGIF to be reaching all nations. And if you could just see missions group is setting out to reach all nations but it isn't just those folks. Now some of us some of us for example children's ministry your vision is of God and it's for who's here from children's ministry? I don't see Robbie this morning but ok many of you are here good. If you don't do the job here it's going to limit what God can do through us. You know that. Because families won't come to a church where the kids aren't cared for. And I want you to know children's ministry for those of you who don't get an opportunity to get back there that's a tremendous undertaking. It's limited space really we don't have that much space. And it's very difficult and yet they're really getting a beat on that. If you don't have kids you can't relate to how important this is. But it blesses me when I'll talk to a family every once in a while and they'll say well we came and we thought it was a little wild but our kids really loved it. Now we're really wild and our kids are... Okay, so that's what happens. Now all this is just to say we're asking God Lord more and more and more equip your saints via these means to go on out there and do the work of the ministry. Anyone have any comments about this? You want to embellish this a little bit? On Monday I'll be taking a trial of billboard that has to do with her destiny as a teenager. I hope that your way of doing this is to be able to have your heart soft when you talk to God about something like this. We're praying that he responds to your cries in these prayers and he's going to do it. And we know we have more than 30 kids. I see that the church has a lot of names that affect the size of the church. Sure. Absolutely. And God uses a lot of those as bridges. A lot of those changes. As we were gathering this morning my heart was so blessed to look around and see the quality as well as quantity of people that God has given himself. Do you realize that we consider more in numbers here in leadership than many churches have? And they have been given the same call to go to all nations. What the Lord is saying to me goes to who much is given much is expected. We have a home group in our house and I have been so challenged and Jay's exhortation today is just challenging me more and I know this is so right. And I have not been able to reach out to non-believers and invite them to my home group because I find that it's a challenge and I'm still growing that. But I'm excited about that and I appreciate hearing this message that I can do that because I know that's a God and I'm just waiting for him to grow us up and even just sitting here some ideas have turned and I know I have to get before the Lord and ask for courage and boldness in that that we can be reaching out and inviting non-believers in to see it. And there's two things one to reach them but two I think of what that would do to our home group because we can sit and get a little stultified you know and we need to be showing Jesus coming out of us to people that need to see him. So I'm excited. Hallelujah. Why don't you stand? It's a little hard to hear. Anyhow the class for the new believers and there's only been five or six attending and you know at first you could get well you know look what Jay is getting here and so you're going to minister only to five or six but the Lord has been encouraging me that it's not in the numbers it's in the quality of time that you spend with people in caring. One young woman Gary Sabora put an ad in the paper she answers that ad he witnesses to her she comes to the meeting because she was so hungry and she's going to only be I don't know how long she's going to be here but God has turned this woman around she's from North Carolina she says I know that God sent me here to get my life straightened up and she said I know that when I'm not going to leave until I get everything settled in my mind and heart what I'm supposed to do and what I'm supposed to be then I'll go back home. And I thought my Lord if that is all that we've accomplished out of that meeting it's been worthwhile. So we're reaching nations that way. Amen. Praise the Lord. See one caring for one one seeing another and before this happened last time and I don't want to let it happen this time if it's possible I want to look at the word here because this is what God wants us to receive from his word. Let's look at Luke chapter 10 because this is so simple this is what's exciting to me beloved you don't need a degree to do what I'm going to share with you today. You don't need to have 25 years of ministry experience. You don't need to have been an elder in 16 churches. You can do what I'm going to share with you now. Let's just in our spirit ask God to not let a very familiar story become trite to us. Follow with me I'm going to read Luke 10 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. Teacher he asked what must I do to inherit eternal life? What is written in the law? He replied. How do you read it? He answered love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. He answered correctly. Jesus replied do this and you will live. But he wanted to justify himself so he asked Jesus who is my neighbor? In reply Jesus said a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes and beat him and went away leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man he passed by on the other side. So too a Levite when he came to the place and saw him passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan as he traveled came where the man was and when he saw him he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him he said and when I return I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The expert in the law replied the one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him go and do likewise. Beloved the way in which an army is formed is for each participant to know what they are there to do. And if there is one thing I'm asking God that's the word in my vocabulary don't simplify it Lord. Make it easy for me. If there is one thing that you can do in this matter of reaching out to all nations it's right here in this passage it's learning to care. Learning to care. Learning to care. If you have a caring heart God will do everything else to bring about the transformation. If your people the ones that you are overseeing and working with if they have a caring heart in the children's ministry a caring heart in the deacons a caring heart in the home group they are going to multiply their life. And I want to there are four basic steps to caring and here they are. This is how you can build this in your life. At TJF this will work Al. It's going to work in evangelism. It's going to work in every ministry. In every personal life. If you're not even in a ministry it will work. First thing that you need is revelation. You need to see through the eyes of Jesus. Last night we had a wedding here. Wasn't it wonderful to just be together and launch another couple and God brought several scores of people that were friends of the family who were not believers. And it is so easy to look at the refinement and the you know the style of the people of the world. We're not talking about people who look gutterish here. We're talking about you know nicely dressed and sophisticated and all that stuff. And look at them and say what do they need? What do they need? But beloved how many of you know underneath so much of that there's an insecurity. There's a fear. There's a hurt. And even if there's an arrogant exterior what does that arrogance represent generally? Insecurity doesn't it? It's a fear of really being found out. You see when you see through the eyes of Jesus you see their real needs. What do you see down there when you see those people angry at you? Do you see someone to get angry at or do you see someone that's hurting deep inside because they know that they've offended God? What do you see Lois when you look at those people in the food bank? Beloved the first thing we need is to have the eyes of Jesus. Look at the Levite and the Pharisee. It's interesting. What kind of people were they? Religious people. Religious people. Church people. God deliver us from church eanity. That we feel that just because we have a place and some chairs and everything's kind of fitting together that we've got it. Because this spirit here tells us beloved that the cream of the crop of the religious system was missing what it was all about. And don't ever think that we couldn't let that same thing happen right here. You see they were too busy probably on their way to a meeting. Yes, yes. You know that happened to me just the other day. I'll confess this before you. I was coming to prayer on Tuesday morning. It's easy to move along at that time in the morning. Right up there by the CPC I think it was Michael Acasio was walking out and had his bag and I guess he's going to work. He works up here at the Boron Station. But I didn't understand this. I didn't see him from a distance. No, it's not the kid with the bad knee. My little digital clock was reading 629. I said, Mike listen, it's only a few hundred yards up there to the Boron Station. You'll make it up there. I didn't get ten feet pa