Preachers Meeting: Spiritual Dryness

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Spiritual Dryness

Sean, I am reprinting your comment here to be a help to others:

"I've struggled with spiritual dryness. I think the hardest times to stay close to God is when nothings going on. Its the true test. I would have to say the most obvious time God has shown up big is when I was diagnosed with cancer. I'm glad I'm at a point now that I can look back and see how God can work. I felt close to Him because I was in trouble. But I'm not now, I dont pray to Him like I did then. I was ashamed of this but I believe there's times for that kind of praying and now I pray a little different. I'll find myself thinking about how in the Bible, it gives us stories of some faith heroes. But its not a diary of their everyday life, I'm sure they must have felt spiritual dryness. But when they needed God, He was there. All in all, I'm thankful for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, VBS, Camp Jericho, and Homecoming. These times with church and family help. The other times when trouble comes, I'm resolved with being glad I can go to a God who will be there."

The everyday Christian life is not always on the upswing. Maybe that's partly why we are called disiples--it takes discipline, and dicipline is not always exciting. The fruits, of discipline, however, are very exciting!

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Welcome to Preachers' Meeting

We are glad you have dropped by!

You will notice some posts below that relate to various topics of discussion by our online community of preachers.

One of the purposes of Preachers' Meeting is to provide a place for young ministers or those recently called to preach to interact around the principles in a course of study recommended by our local group of preachers in the Southern Illinois area.

We invite you to look in on our conversations. If you would like to add comments as a guest, you are welcome to do so.
If this looks interesting to you, you may join us as we start a new session. You can look in the side bar (or sometimes it is moved to right below this post) to see the weekly requirements. We start new courses every 8 or 9 weeks. As already mentioned, you are welcome to comment as a guest before that time.

Below these posts, you will see the word, "comments." Just click on it, and you will see a box on the right side of the screen where you may add your comments.

Look around. Enjoy yourself, and come back often!

Weekly Requirements

Here is a review of the general requirements for each week.

You have three assignments each week

(1) Make at least two initial posts in your posting area. The first one will be the name of the course, and the names (or numbers of the DVD's) of the chapters or lectures you will be covering during the week. The second one will be a comment on one of those chapters. You will receive one point for getting the first post in on Tuesday or Wednesday. You will also get a point for getting at least one more initial post in.

(2) Go to your fellow student's posting areas, and ask them a question or make comments about their intial posts. You will recieve one point for completing this assignment before 12:00 a.m. on Friday morning (that would be before midnight on Thursday).

(3) Answer the questions asked.

(4) On Fridays, I will also give directions for making remaining posts during the week. Be sure and read those, and take them into account when making at least one of your remaining posts.

In all, we want to make at least nine posts during the week. You will receive points for that as follows:

9 or more posts - 12 points

6-8 posts - 10 points

3-5 posts - 6 points

1-2 posts - 3 points

You will have the extra points you had accumulated by getting things in on time. Those are bonus points that will be used only to move your grade closer to 100 if you need them. They will be awarded each week if needed to move your grade up to 12 for the week. If you do not need them for that week, they will be carried over to the next week(s). Remember the posts that count for points will be at least three sentences long.

Thoughts on Application

Roger gave some good thoughts on application:

"Chapter 75, titled: 'Apply Within' is a lesson in application. The writer explains why it is sometimes difficult applying a sermon to real life situations. I will list some of the reasons application is not applied to our lives.

"First it is "hard work", it is hard to find application to every situation in the congregation,

"second, is wrong assumptions, assuming the audience is able to apply any and all biblical truths is totally a wrong assumption,

"third, is fear, fear of being to deep or to simplistic in the text and failing at application, and then there is training or lack thereof,

"many preachers know the text, and the history and the order of things but are totally untrained in application. One gentleman said it this way," how can you be a good football player when you can pass the ball, or when you can kick the ball, or when you can run with the ball but you don't know the rules of the game."

Marriage Seminar

If you live in the souther Illinois area, we would like to invite you to a Couples' Marriage Enrichment Seminar on Saturday, February 27. It starts at 6:00 p.m and will run to 9:00 p.m.

After the welcome, there will be a dinner. Then there will be an opening session, followed by two breakout sessions, then a short closing.

The Keynote Speaker is Dr. Randy Carney (That's me :)!) and Roger and Janet Dutton will be speaking during the breakout sessions (That's Roger, who is commenting on this blog during this term!). Randy and Rhonda (my wife!) Carney will also have a breakout session discussing "Keys to Marital Bliss."

The Keynote Address will be on the topic of "The Way to a Successful Marriage: The Shocking and Surprising Truth."

Roger and Janet will be talking about "Hope for Restoring your marriage."

The cost is $15.00 per couple and that includes a dinner and all seminar materials. A nursery and childcare will be available. (Please indicate that you need these services when you register.) A book table with resources from Handfuls on Purpose Christian Bookstore will be available.

The seminar is for couples of all ages, ranging from newlyweds to marriage veterans!

To register, call 618-627-2228 to let the church know how may will be attending. Payment can be made at the event. (Make checks to TFBC.) For more information, call the church at 618-627-2228.

The Greatest Love

Since Valentine's Day falls on Sunday this year, I imagine there will be a ton of sermons going out on the topic of love.

Paul talked about love and respect in marriage (Ephesians 5), but he was really saying that that was an illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church.

Christ
Left Heaven to come to this earth.
He
Overcame adversity while here. He even conquered death!
He
Valued mankind so much that He gave Himself on the cross.
He desires fellowship with us. He reconciled the world to Himself, so that people could have an
Intimate realtionship with Him.
He meets all of our
Needs.
He is the supreme example of
Giving.

Do you see the word, LOVING, there? That is what He is--our LOVING Savior! Because of that, we should love one another.

Connecting with Postmoderns

This is something most preachers do every Sunday. If you have young unchurched visitors in your church, you will be trying to reach postmoderns. Even some of your church youth are more influenced by postmodernism than by their previous Sunday school teaching.

Here is my reply to one of Roger's posts:

"Roger, what tips stand out to you for commecting with postmoderns? I think the term modern referred to an age in history that related to new thoughts in science, etc. (If I am off base, refresh my memory.) Post modern refers to the time following that era. Connecting with postmoderns is something you have to do, whether you realize it or not, almost every time you preach."

I will post some of his answers here if he sees the question in time.

Preaching--Proclamation of God's Word

Preaching, by one definition, is the proclamation of God's Word. As such, a person, can take the Scriptural passage and find some of its main points and emphasize those points.

While I believe we should learn all we can about the grammatical construction of the words of Scripture, and that we should learn all we can about the historical setting for when those words were originally spoken; the nice thing about proclaiming the Word is that you can just take what the text says and emphasize it. Then the Word will not return void.

People with all different types of backgrounds have been called to preach throughout the centuries. Some very "unlearned" (as the world would put it) men have had great results by simply taking the main ideas of Scripture and simply emphasizing them. As long as we do not twist the meaning, this simply shows the amazing power of the Word of God.