Lead Worship

Here are some of the best free software and web applications that many people don’t know about.

1. dropbox - Remember those days when you use to stick things are a USB jumpdrive. I once had a 2 gig jumpdrive. How archaic is that? Just create an account, download the software on any computer you want, then just drag and drop things into this folder and it loads it on to your highly secured web account and loads it on all the other computers you installed your dropbox on. No more jumpdrives (except maybe those really really large files)!
2. Google Docs - This has Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all online for you. So you can open up a new word document through this site, type, edit, save, and print then open it back up at your work and continue there. Okay, it doesn’t look just like the Microsoft office suite, but it’s close enough. But all your files are online safely on your account so you can access them anywhere. And share a doc with a few more people and all of you can access the files and edit them together.
3. Google Calendar - Rachel has her own calendar. I have mine. But we sync them together so I don’t plan anything that conflicts with anything else.
4. AVG - The best antivirus software is actually free.
5. OpenOffice - Its like Microsoft Home Office 2003, but its totally free and legal. This is for those who don’t want to get on the internet to use Google docs and who don’t want to spend the $150 buying Microsoft.
6. Google Reader - This is a one stop shop for all my webpages. I started an account, linked all my favorite websites I go to and it pulls all the new information they put on their website. Then I just go to my google reader and check all my websites at once. It even lets me save their content so I can easily archive an article that they wrote. I have put the Faith community blog in my reader so that I don’t have to keep checking the website to monitor it. Very handy.

What is your favorite free software or web application?

The Church of Sardis

A brief history of Sardis
Sardis was once a vital and thriving town for the entire nation. It had 5 different roads (or interstates) that ran through the town so it was very important politically, militarily, and finacially. Because of the roads, most of the goods in the nation came through Sardis. Sardis was a great place to open your own business. Also, when nations would attack this west Asia nation, they would follow these roads. This meant that the nation had to keep Sardis well fortified.

But as time went on, the less important Sardis  became. Wealth remained but this once-important little town became very unimportant during the Roman empire. And this town and the church remained on their past glory. They were so proud of the past that they wanted to live in it. They never wanted to change.

“The problem with the Christians at Sardis was not one of false doctrine like the believers at Thyatira, or opposition and persecution like the believers at Smyrna. Instead, the Sardis church was living on its past reputation. There loyalty and service to Christ was all in the past. They were nothing more than a corpse that looked alive from the outside but within was filled with hypocracy and iniquity”

Vrs. 1 says “You have a reputation for being alive but you are dead.”

“You know how to impress others but not God.”

“You have a great Sunday Show, but what about My commission?”

“Your reputation is based on what you were in the past. But what are you right now?”

Its human nature to look back at the success that we have in the past. I have learned that if you repeat what was successful in the past, very rarely will it be successful again. Why? Because if we knew what to do that would make God bless what we are doing, then we wouldn’t need Him to tell us what to do. The past ended yesterday. What are we doing individually to make sure we have a great reputation in the future?

Usually it seems that depression hits us around the beginning of winter. The nights are longer and you stay cooped up inside substituting a social life with a television. Here recently I have had more people come to me and descuss a season of depression that they are in. So how does depression start, and how can I make it end? I am not going to cover any major areas of issues that might be causing depression. You might have a serious case. But for the rest of us who are just going through a season, here’s what you should know.

Imagine your body working like a car. A car has an engine, fuel system, heating and cooling system, hydrolic system, and an electrical system (and a few others that I am missing). Hydrolics do not go into the fuel system or the engine, and the cooling system does not go into the electrical system. Each system remains totally seperate but affects all other systems of the car.

All people have 5 basic needs:

1. Physical – You must take care of your body. Exercise (I know that makes me a hypocrite), eating right, staying STRESS FREE is very very important to your overall health.
2. Emotional – This side is usually what is looked at in depression. The emotions also includes long-term and short-term planning, having intelligent conversations (seldom happens with stay-at-home-mothers), learning, and your imagination. Have you ever given your imagination over to God?
3. Spiritual – We need God to help us with all 5 of our needs and not just this one. This one would include encouragement, respect, and being loved, and a hope for the future.
4. Financial – Try living without this one and you will soon see the huge necessity of it.
5. Social – You need friends.

What happens when depression begins is one of these needs begins to become weak. This happens to all of us. Something happens and you have to spend a ton of cash which weakens your financial needs. This can begin the depression. Next that follows is that all the other needs begins to concentrate and collide on the one need that needs help. This is when depression begins to spiral.

Financial burdens cause stress, which hurts the physical body and can make it hard to retain your focus (emotions). It can make you feel like a weak Christian and is very discouraging (spiritual). Plus it limits your social activities. All these things start this depression roller-coaster. And the next thing you know is you are “not talking” to someone because they didn’t shake your hand at church.

To break this cycle, always remember be proactive in your life. Find out which area is weak and plan to get out of it. Don’t let the rest of your needs take the toll just because one needs help. Continue to eat right, use some godly imagination, encourage others, hang out with some friends, or help out somewhere for a couple hours to increase your income for a few weeks. But with all this, depend on God and He will guide you through this.

Looking back at chapter one, John sees a vision of Christ standing in the midst of 7 candlesticks. The 7 candlesticks represent 7 different churches. Each candlestick is given a star which represents a certain messenger.

But John gives 7 descriptions of Jesus.

1. Head and hair are white – maturity, wisdom, and purity.
2. Eyes of fire – All-penetrating, all-knowing, intelegent, power to read secrets and search the hearts of men.
3. Feet as bronze – strength and stability of a judge
4. Voice of a waterfall – when He speaks you will know and won’t have to second guess.
5. Holds 7 stars – He holds closely His messengers. He moves them about by at His command.
6. His mouth has a two-edged sword – The ability to “draw the line in the sand” and force people to either stand with Him or stand against Him.
7. His Face shines light – He shines light on everyone and thing He is near. The closer you come to Him the brighter you become.

Why do I bring this up? Because at the messege concerning the church in Pergamum was addressed from the one who has a sharp two-edged sword. This means that Christ was coming to Pergamum to “draw a line in the sand” and make the church decide who they were going to be for. In fact, all the churches are addressed in one of the 7 descriptions of Christ.

History of Pergamum:
Peramum was a cultural and religous center. It had a large library and university. Their library had over 200 000 books. (Books were hand written so this was a major collection). They also had 4 superior temples made for the gods of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, war, and reason; Ascepius, the god of healing who also had a snake as a part of the healing which is where we get our pharmasucital sign from; Dianysus, the god of wine and merriment; and Zeus. The temple of Zeus was one of the 7 wonders of the world and could be the “great throne of Satan” (verse. 13).

History of Balaam and Balak
Balaam was a prophet of God who was for hire. As the Israelites were making their way across the wilderness, the King Balak asked Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam tried to curse Israel but God told Him that the Israelites were His people and He would not curse them. Balaam returned to Balak and told him that he could not curse Israel. But before leaving, Balaam told Balak a little secret. He said that the men of Israel were weak for lust. And to keep peace with the Israelites all the kind needed to do was convince the women of the city to seduce the Israelite men.

Today, men are being seduced once again. Modesty is no longer being promoted or taught. And the glory of God that has been given to us is no longer being covered. Satan knows this and uses this to weaken God’s men. But a line must be drawn in the sand. Men must give up your lustful appetite.

Are we being weakened by stuff? It might not just be lust (most common towards men). It could be the lust for material things. It could be for things to be different, such as a different husband (most common weakness towards women), or different social status.

Background History of Ephesus:

Ephesus was a very rich and affluent town. It is the closest town to Patmon where John was writing Revelation. In Ephesus, they worshipped Artemis who was the goddess of fertility and financial blessing. Thousands of people who lived hundreds of miles away came to worship Artemis every year. And the people of Ephesus built a huge temple for her. In fact, this temple took over 120 years to build and became one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Ephesis’ whole financial structure was based around this goddess. So when Paul comes to town converting people away from Artemis, the rest of the town begins to riot (Acts 19).

The Christians of Ephesus definitely suffered for what they believed.

But Christ had one complaint. They left their first love. The church was doing all the right things. They were undergoing persecution for the things they were doing. But they got so wrapped up in doing the right thing that they forgot about to whom they were doing them for.

Ephesus, like many churches today, got their eyes off of the Provider and onto the possessions. You need music ministries, children’s ministries, and education ministries in today’s churches. But we must keep first things first. It becomes easy for today’s church leaders to worry more about the growth of these ministries more than the growth of the people in them.

Yes we need a pastor, but more than that, we need a Savior. Keep your eyes on the Provider.