Due to a population explosion in Southern California in the early 1920s, plans were made to create a large reservoir to help meet the region’s growing water needs. Engineer William Mulholland had achieved a great deal of recognition and respect among members of the engineering community when he supervised the design and construction of the longest aqueduct in the world at that time—the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and he was chosen as the chief engineer for the new project.
Do you ever feel forgotten by God? Do you wonder if He still knows your address? If He has a plan for your life? If He is able to help with your needs?
Do you ever feel discouraged while looking at the state of our nation? Do you wonder where the speedily declining moral degradation will end?
In short, do you wonder if God is in control?
One of the highlights to me of World Impact Missions Conference at Lancaster Baptist Church is seeing missionaries who grew up at Lancaster Baptist and/or graduated from West Coast Baptist College and and are now serving the Lord on mission fields around the world. (The picture above is of WCBC alumni who were here for Missions Conference ’23 earlier this week and are now planting churches around the world.)
From the early moments of church history, we see glimpses of the kind of leaders the Lord desires to be present within His church.
Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. (Acts 6:3)
That phrase “look ye out among you” is significant because it shows that these qualities are not to be present in pastors only but also among godly Christians within a local church family.
Patience! Does any Christian not need to grow in this area? We want our questions answered immediately, our trials resolved quickly, and every irritation removed yesterday. It doesn’t matter if we are at Costco trying to figure out which checkout line will be the fastest or at a restaurant wanting our food at lightning speed. We have an agenda.
When I was in junior high, I had a fervent desire to become a great basketball player and one day possibly be drafted into the NBA. Now that never became a reality (not even close), but my love for the game was sincere.
Forty years ago today, I was ordained into the gospel ministry. As I look back over the past four decades, I say with the apostle Paul, “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry” (1 Timothy 1:12).
Aside from my salvation and my family, there has been no greater joy in life than to serve Christ as a preacher of the gospel.
This month I will celebrate my fortieth year being ordained as a Baptist pastor. No one could have prepared me for the changes that were ahead in the church and ministerial landscape over this forty-year period.
When most of us think of ministry work, we think of shepherding people, leading souls to Jesus, and teaching and preaching God’s Word. Yet for these essential roles to be successfully fulfilled, there is an unglamorous, easily-neglected side of local church ministry—the administrative side of managing projects and processes. It’s the daily grind, and, frankly, it doesn’t come naturally for many ministry leaders. But local church ministry benefits from intentional strategies and processes.
