Tag Archive - Influence

Consistent Giving

November 13, 2006 in Uncategorized with 2 Comments


In the sermon yesterday by our pastor, Pat Hood, he made a statement that I have been thinking about, “Consistent giving, leads to consistent living”. I personally agree with that statement. I have noticed in my own life how my feelings, my attitudes, and my living patterns are different when I am consciously living in a state of giving. I have many personal anecdotes to support this realization. Some of these I have discovered on my own others have been observed by others and relayed to me

Here’s the question: Are you a giving person? How do you know? Would the people who surround you the most often classify you as a giver or a taker?

Idol Worship

October 13, 2006 in Influence, Mission with 2 Comments


While we were in India I had the opportunity to see some very unique forms of idol worship. It is not the first time I had seen this type of display and probably will not be the last. We happened to be there during one of their biggest festivals. In the city we were working there were 300 temporary “official” worship sites erected out of bamboo and colored cloth. The temples were very elaborate and if you didn’t realize it you would think they were real. They were really a veiled attempted at a building. Inside each of these temples were around 5-6 newly made replicas of gods the Hindu people worship.

We arrived on the final night of the festival, by design. We hurriedly drove to the Ganges River to watch the people bring their idols to the river to dump. This is not a “getting rid” of the idols forever, just “baptizing” them into the holiest river in the country. All day, all night and into the next day thousands of people would gather at the Ganges to “baptize” the nearly 3000 idols into the river.

I have often thought about how the Hindus literally have figurine idols they worship and offer sacrifices to each day and in many instances by the hour. We in the USA think we are exempt from idol worship, because we may not have figurines on our mantles or shelves. I know there are some pagan religions that do have these “gods” in America, but by in large that is not the majority of us. But, we do have little “gods” all around us that vie for our attention daily. They drag us away or distract us from worshipping the one, true, living God. What are some of those potential “idols” that you see around us in the USA?

Servant Leadership

October 10, 2006 in Influence with 0 Comments


During our recent trip to S. Asia our team was teaching on Spiritual Leadership. We were teaching on the area of servant leadership and one of the leaders from our group wanted to utilize Jesus’ example of foot washing in the Scripture as a teaching illustration. I was a little skeptical and concerned about attempting to wash feet in the Indian culture. I wasn’t sure of the cultural ramifications and whether it would be offensive to the participants. We asked our host about leading the group in this illustration of scripture and he told us everything would be fine.

After one of the team members had taught on Jesus’ example we then began to wash the feet of the participants. The men we were teaching were very overwhelmed by this act. As we washed the feet of the men we prayed that God would empower them to teach and preach boldly and to serve their villages and families as Jesus would want. They began to cry and to express prayers to the Lord. When we had finished washing the feet of the men they immediately had us to sit and then clamored to wash our feet and pray for us as fellow believers.

The next day the Indian ladies involved in the women’s seminar asked to participate in the washing of feet. Their husbands had shared with them what had happened during our time of teaching and ministering and the ladies wanted to experience this also. While our ladies were demonstrating the servant aspect of foot washing the Indian ladies began to feel the weight of someone serving them. This was extraordinarily humbling for the ladies of the seminar. This is a culture where the women have no position other than what the men allow. The women of the culture in many cases are the servants to the men. So to have an American lady stoop to serve them was very overwhelming at that moment. They began to cry uncontrollably as their feet were washed individually. Some even illustrating Peter in the scripture, “you can not wash my feet.”

Finally, when all of the ladies had experienced this as individuals they rushed to wash the feet of our ladies. Each Indian lady wanted to wash the feet of our 2 American ladies. After washing their feet, many of the Indian ladies would kiss the feet of the women team members. This was a very overwhelming experience needless to say for our ladies. We talked and began to digest what had happened and realized another scripture had been illustrated. When the woman who had been forgiven much, anointed Jesus’ feet with ointment, kissed his feet and dried them with her hair.

This servant act of Jesus with His disciples was a powerful teaching moment in the day that Jesus first demonstrated it to His followers and still is today as we participated with the Indians of S. Asia. I am praying for a movement of servant leaders in S. Asia and in Smyrna, TN.

There are many more exciting and memorable moments from our trip that hopefully I will be able to post about in the coming days.

Pictures will be up in a few days on my Flikr site.
Page 3 of3«123