Category Archives: Tabernacle of Praise

Please, Take Me Home With You

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For all of you who read my blog, come to Tabernacle of Praise (TOP) on Sundays, subscribe to my posts via email or RSS,

THANK YOU!!

You are why I write, speak, and keep up a continuing presence at the library (Looking for more stuff to bring you! They may let me haunt the place when I’m dead. Who knows?). But I do have a problem.

I can’t get enough of you! 

So, I’ve decided that I want to go home with you. Yup, I’m inviting myself over, and I hope you’ve got plenty of food in the fridge…

Well, it’s not as bad as all that. Our media team (whom we affectionately call “Shock and Awe”) has been recording the teaching series at TOP. I have compressed them to MP3 files and uploaded them to TOP’s public iDisk. Now, you can download these MP3′s to your computer or any MP3 player and take me home with you!

Here’s how. First, go to the iDisk website at https://public.me.com/topinc. Once you’re there, select the audio teaching you wish to download and then click the download button. It’s that simple!

TOP iDisk Public Folder

Here is a screen shot in case a visual will be of assistance. As you can see, we have last year’s Advent series on our Identity in Christ already uploaded and ready for you. Don’t miss out on this landmark teaching! If you don’t understand anything else about God or the Bible, you have to get this. It’s all yours, for FREE!

So, there you have it. You can take me home with you, I can spend more time with you sharing what I’ve gleaned from the Holy Spirit, and you don’t even have to feed me. Pretty cool, huh?

Go to the website today, and discover who you are in our Messiah, Jesus!

Dallas Report 2

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It’s Wednesday, and we’re still here! We are very grateful for God’s faithfulness. We came to Dallas to make connections with leaders who are moving in the miraculous ministry of healings and miracles in order to bring that fire to Tabernacle of Praise (TOP). We received such a warm response that we had to extend our stay in order to meet with all the ones who wish to speak with us. This is the Lord’s favor and timing!

Each time I sit down with a leader here and share what TOP is doing, they get excited and want to be a part. Every one of them encouraged us to continue on because God has great things in store for us just around the corner! The part of it all that I am the most pleased with is that the people we have met and shared with are interested in forming a friendship with us and walking with us in pursuit of our vision to see Crawford County transformed. This is exactly what we came here for.

Here’s a quick list of the some of the one’s we’ve been connecting with:

  • Alta Hatcher – Director at Christ for the Nations Institute
  • Dorothy Peterson – Coordinator for The Healing Place (CFNI)
  • Judith King – Freedom in Christ Ministries
  • Tom Scarborough – Freedom in Christ Ministries
  • Connie McKenzie – Director of Children and Family Ministry Major

Today is our last day of meetings. Tomorrow we will be getting back on the road to come home. The elders and I are going to spend quite a bit of time distilling and praying over the information and encouragement that we received on this trip. God has great plans for us, TOP, and I’m so happy to be a part of it with you all!

Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support on this trip. We are confident that the fruit we see from this venture will be more than worth the investment. God bless you!

Report from Dallas

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Hello from Dallas! Ana, the boys, Grandma and I arrived two days ago, and let me tell you, we hit the ground running!

Yesterday, I was in meetings throughout the Christ for the Nations campus and even got in a meeting with a pastor in Irving, Texas. Our purpose here is to network and gain resources for our School of Ministry at Tabernacle of Praise (TOP). We have a vision of classes of disciples being trained, equipped and mobilized to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 12) in our church, in outreaches and on their jobs.

We have been hard at work for the past two years implementing First Steps and 24toDouble, our first two levels of discipleship at TOP. The School of Ministry would be a new level designed for those who are ready to experience greater freedom in Christ, the baptism in the Holy Spirit and ministry. The elders and I are extremely excited about this new level, and trust that you will join in the vision when we are closer to implementing it.

We all want to thank everyone who supported and prayed for us! Without you, this vision would never become a reality. Thank you for stepping forward with us into the future of Tabernacle of Praise.

Leadership Adventure Getaway

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There are times when you have to get away. These times are necessary for relaxation, rejuvenation and refreshing. More than that, there are simply things that can’t be done well as a team in the same location in which the team works and lives.

You could say thank you to your team in the office, but it’s better to say thank you while gathered in a beautiful lodge. You could say. “Let’s get more unified!” from the pulpit to your volunteers, but it’s better to experience the bonds of unity while passing a hoola hoop through our locked arms. You could say, “You can do it. Be brave!” while in the break room, but it’s better to say it when your teammate is 25 feet in the high on a tight wire. These things just seem to have more meaning when the location and situation are just right.

This past weekend, Tabernacle of Praise took its leaders and volunteers on a getaway adventure to the Heartland Retreat and Conference Center. We had an incredible time expressing our gratitude to our leaders, encouraging them to get to know one another better and cheering them on as they attempted feats of courage on the high ropes course.

I’m really grateful for this time away with our leadership team, and I’m already looking forward to next year!

How and when do you get away with your team? What are some things that you do to refresh and inspire your team?

The Problem of Growing a Church

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…is that it involves loving people. And love is something in scarce supply within my own heart.

Tabernacle of Praise has embraced a vision of preaching the Gospel and discipling believers through a strategy called 24toDouble. This strategy involves several elements:

  1. Identify people’s God-given gifts and place them in ministry roles accordingly.
  2. Using those gifted saints (which is all of them!), assemble 7 major teams, each with a subset of teams. I’ll have to write about this strategy in a later post.
  3. Hold 4 “Big Events” at least in one year. This “big events” don’t have to be big in the sense of numbers or complexity. They just have to be something special in which the people of the church are involved.
  4. Each person in the “big event” lists seven contacts to invite to the event.
  5. Someone else calls that person’s contacts and invites them to church. Oh, and the person in the production also invites them.
  6. After the visitor comes to the “big event,” the follow up team reaches out to them with love and a helping hand.

If you do all of these steps well, your church will grow in 24 months or less. We believe in this vision and are doing all we can to implement it. Sounds like we’ve got everything figured out, right? But there is this problem…

We have to love people! Love is the magic that unlocks people’s heart to truly consider the Gospel’s invitation. Unfortunately, I think my life represents a good portion of believers in Crawford County. I just. Don’t. Care.

Oh sure, I care about the world, in the world kind of sense. But I don’t care enough to push past all of the inconveniences of loving someone personally, specifically. And just what does a life of love that will bring people to Christ look like?

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”    –Matthew 9:10-13

That’s what it looks like! Loving people into the Kingdom of God doesn’t start with large healing crusades, church growth strategies and awesome sermons. It starts with a conversation across the fence, an invitation to a barbecue, or a meal with our neighbors. Yes, I said neighbors. Not people on the other side of world. Our neighbors.

The vision of Tabernacle of Praise will never be realized until each member is daily praying for their neighbors, co-workers and acquaintances; pursuing friendships with these people, and actively sharing their faith while doing so. I understand that “each member of TOP” begins with me. Here’s what I have to do.

I have to clean up my fire pit so I can invite my neighbors to a campfire. I will invite the ones next to my house, then I’ll invite the ones across the street. It’s time to eliminate the problem of growing our church within my heart.

Will you join me?