A Rural Pastor Speaks

A Radical Thanksgiving

I recently received this email concerning how we can have a different

thanksgiving this year. Seems like a great idea to me.

 

FOR INDIVIDUALS & FAMILIES

• Fast and pray for those who don't have enough to eat.
• Discover what the Bible says about thankfulness to God.
• Give a secret gift of money to someone you know.
• Invite an international visitor to your Thanksgiving dinner.
• Comfort a hurting brother or sister in Christ.

 

 

OnePrayer 2010

For the third year Valley Fellowship has participated in OnePrayer.

Come join us

www.oneprayer.com

Prison Ministry

This week I will be leading a seminar at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton. Even though I do a study every week there this event is a larger challenge to me. It has been several years since I have done a seminar and it will consist of four sessions on Friday and Saturday. The challenge for me is that I will be leading two new volunteers into prison ministry and the men I will be teaching will for the first time be exposed to this material and seminar format. My prayer is that I will be effective in my teaching, the new volunteers will dig into this ministry and the men at EOCI will be touched by the teaching, worship and deeper relationships that form between each other and God

Sermon Helps

I am always looking for good resources in areas of Sermons or Ministry. I would like to hear from other Pastors on what has worked for you?

I am currently subscribed to Sermon Central, Bible Gateway, LifeChurch.tv Swerve Blog, You Version (Online Bible Software). I use Shift Worship, Worship House, CreativeMYK and Igniter Media for my media needs.

Staff Training for One

Today I received for about the 100th time a new training program for church staff. It seemed very relevant and covered many of the issues that church staff face every day. My issue is with this is that I am the only paid staff at my church and even though there are many volunteers that are doing the staff work they have very little extra time for training.

I am sure that other small church pastors face this same issue. I would like to hear from you and if you have faced this same problem how have you dealt with this.

Using Media

I am a pastor of a small church. We have a weekly Sunday attendance of 75 to 100. We have used video and other media since our start in 1991.We currently have two volunteers that take care of our media needs. We have just installed another video projector to use in worship and we have another video projector in a smaller room that we use for smaller groups. We have Satellite and internet access in all areas of the building. The challenge for us today is that we have a limited budget for media, and people expect that we will have outstanding media in all our events. Where do you draw the line? It put's a strain on our budget and time that we have to devote to media. Is there a process that you have developed to help you deal with this issue?