A Day in the Louisiana Senate

On Tuesday I took a trip to Baton Rouge to the State Capitol to open the afternoon Senate Session in prayer. It was a great honor to be invited and to represent our church. I was introduced by Senator Mike Walsworth who is the State Senator for our district. Senator Walsworth is a fine Christian man whom I first met back in October when he visited our church along with Governor Jindal. Mike is one of many Christians serving in our State Senate & I was pleased to hear of the strong Christian presence in the Senate.



In the Louisiana Senate no official business can take place until after the opening prayer & pledge of allegiance. A group of chaplains who work for PRC Compassion make the arrangements for pastors to come & pray in the Senate. I look forward for more opportunities in the future to be involved in helping pray for & support our state government. I look forward for future opportunities to attend Senate sessions and to get to know better the men & women who serve in our state government.



I was a bit nervous praying in such a formal setting but I hope my ministry was well received. They ask us to limit our prayer to 3 minutes & though many doubted my ability to do so, I concluded my prayer in 1 minute & 7 seconds. I figured most would forget the words I prayed, but I bet they will remember it was brief. You can actually watch the video here. (Click on the "Chamber" video link for part 1 on May 25th).

Journey

Our church purchases a monthly devotional magazine for the women called Journey. It's a great resource we are glad to supply for our women. This most recent issue had special meaning for one lady in our church. Her son recently enlisted in the United States Air Force & is currently attending boot camp. The 1st phone call she got from him (4 days into training) all he could talk about was how much he loved the church & couldn't wait until Sunday to go again.



Inspired by this she began to tear out the devotional pages of her magazine every 0ther day & send them to her son. He started a prayer meeting at his bunk with one other wingman every night at 10:30 P.M. Within only a few days he had 22 wingmen gathering around his bunk every night & he would use the page from the Journey for their devotional (each page had one devotional on front & back).



In less than 2 weeks these wingmen will graduate from basic training & disperse to various areas of training. I shared this story at our "Night of Praise" last night & our church is praying God will use these 22 young men to start devotional times at their locations.



It's amazing how God is using a women's devotional book to challenge & inspire young men training for the Air Force. God is ready & willing to use the most likely & unlikely sources to reveal Himself to others.



You may be the next unlikely source God wants to use to bless someone else!

Death & Life

I was asked a couple of weeks ago to preach the funeral of a man I've never met. A visitor of our church lost her father & he, nor anyone in the family, had a pastor to officiate, so she asked me. My schedule allowed me & I was glad to attempt to give this family the peace of Jesus & personal comfort. It quickly became evident this man was most likely not a Christian, which makes for a tough job, but incredible opportunity for me as a pastor.

I spoke briefly from Matthew 11:28-30 on Jesus calling all who are weary & burdened to come to Him. The service went well & I prayed only to make much of Jesus & let God do the rest. And He did...

The next morning in our worship service the daugther (who's in her early 60's) stepped out on the 1st line of the invitation song & gave her life to Jesus & truly experienced the peace I had spoken of the day before. It was an incredible celebration that morning & I baptized her the following Sunday.

I prayed by faith, as many others were praying as well, that God's Word wouldn't return void (as Scripture promises) but He gave us an almost immediate return on our investment. Many individuals heard a clear presentation of the Gospel at the funeral & my prayer is this is only the beginning of the lives touched by Jesus.

This new Christian is already actively involved in the ministry of our church. Everyday I can't wait to see how God's going to work in His Church. I'm so grateful to be able to be part of such a great move of God as we've already baptized 10 new Christians in 2010.

I'm reminded regularly, as I remind our church family...God's still in the business of changing lives!