Free Stuff Fridays (TMAI)
This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by The Master’s Academy International (TMAI), who also sponsored the blog this week with the article “Your Invite to TMAI’s International Symposium.” They are giving away the e-book “How to Build an Effective Missions Program.”
Free E-Book Giveaway
This free giveaway is a succinct and important e-book titled “How to Build an Effective Missions Program.” It’s designed for pastors, but can be useful for any believer and will be given to everyone who enters.
“The seven steps below are intended to guide your missions leadership team through this process…Our goal is to aid you in making the necessary adjustments in order to ensure that your program is as biblical, God-honoring, and effective as it can be.”
Steps Discussed:
- Understand the Motivation
- Recognize Biblical Principles
- Build Your Leadership Team
- Devise Your Strategy
- Communicate to the Church
- Evaluate Your Current Program
- Adjust Program as Necessary
“Ultimately, with your new missions strategy as a foundation, your congregation will be able to consider, within a biblical framework, what existing or new missions support opportunities best concur with your goals. As such, your church will be better equipped to maximize its efforts to glorify God and reach the world for Christ.”
The Story Behind the Book
“For over a decade, The Master’s Academy International has been helping to strengthen churches around the world by training indigenous church leaders to become approved pastor-teachers. That has been accomplished primarily by churches sending missionaries to establish and operate training centers in other countries. We are also committed to assisting sending churches by producing and collating resources that assist in the global missions endeavor.
As I have interacted with churches across the United States and around the world, I find that many are struggling with how to get involved in missions and sustain the effort through the years. I have spoken with many pastors who have come into a church to find either no missions effort or one that needs to be re-aligned with biblical priorities, but are unsure how to make this happen. I have spoken with elders who sense the need for their church to be less reactive and more proactive in the area of missions, but are not clear about how to go about it. TMAI desires to serve local pastors in asking and answering these questions: What should be our priorities in missions? What principles should govern our investment of time, people and money? How can we participate most effectively and efficiently in serving the church around the world?
This booklet is intended to…help churches to accomplish the task given by Christ in the Great Commission. We pray it will be useful to you as a pastor leading your church in thinking through the motivations and methods for carrying out the Church’s glorious mission.
Mark Tatlock
President, The Master’s Academy International”
TO ENTER:
Giveaway Rules: You enter—you win! You may enter one time only. By submitting your information, you agree to receive regular updates about the ministry of The Master’s Academy International. The giveaway closes on Friday, January 13, 2023, at midnight. Enter your information into the form HERE.
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Free Stuff Fridays (Reformation Heritage Books)
This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Reformation Heritage Books.
For more than 2,000 years, Christ has fulfilled His promise to build His church. Looking back to God’s faithfulness in the past reminds us that He is still faithful today. Reformation Heritage Books is giving away 5 copies of Simonetta Carr’s Church History along with their Coffee Bundle.
5 winners will receive:Simonetta Carr’s best-selling title, Church History
3-pack RHB Tumbler set (Calvin, Spurgeon & Edwards)
3-pack of their signature Bindery House Coffee (Winter Blend, Jonathan Edwards Blend & John Owen Blend)
The Heroes of Church History postcard set[embedded content]
TO ENTER
Fill out the form below for your chance to win one of 5 Church History Promotional Bundles. This will add you to Reformation Heritage Books’ mailing list.
One entry per household. Open to residents of the U.S. and Canada only. The giveaway ends November 18th, 2022. Winners will be notified by email. -
A La Carte (April 5)
The God of love and peace be with you today.
Logos users will want to grab the free book and at least consider the nearly-free ones.
(Yesterday on the blog: Don’t Waste the Days When You Feel Little Need for God)
The Mustard Seed Mum: Pressured to be perfect?
Ruth Clemence: “The start of being a good parent is realising that your performance is not being measured against anyone else. It’s not a competition, even if it feels like it.”
Is There Such Thing As Random?
“We don’t choose our moments of suffering, or the times we are pressed into service; they usually come on suddenly and without warning.” Cara reminds us that God orchestrates perfect timing.
What Is Transgenderism?
Here’s an article from Rosaria Butterfield on transgenderism. “Transgenderism emerged from this feminist political rejection of the creation ordinance that says God made human beings male and female, so their biological sex and not their internal feelings determines their maleness or femaleness. Transgenderism, instead, argues that our internal sense of self is what makes us men or women.”
Speechless
“Deathly pale in light of the vision. No strength. Alone and overwhelmed to the point of exhaustion, Daniel drops. Face to the ground. Powerless. Speechless. Unable to breathe. And the Lord responds to His servant. With tenderness and strength.”
Touch This Tree and You’ll Want to Die
Gene Veith writes about an actual tree that, if you touch, you’ll deeply regret it. He also draws a spiritual lesson from it.
I Remember
Andrea Sanborn reflects on the beauty and necessity of the Lord’s Supper.
Flashback: Why Should We Remember what God Forgets?
Why should we dwell upon the sins we have committed that God himself has forgotten? Why should we live in a shameful past that God has already put out of his faultless mind?Whatever you lack, if God is yours, if you are God’s child, you have all. —Jeremiah Burroughs
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Teaching Others to Sing Sweetly
The story is told of a musician—a particularly skillful musician with a highly-developed ear for pitch, tone, and harmony—who visited a new church for the first time. He arrived a little late and entered the sanctuary just as the congregation was beginning to sing the opening song. To his chagrin, the singing was badly out of tune. It pained him to hear the people attempt to sing one of the great hymns of the Christian faith without the least bit of success.
But as he walked to a pew and took his place, he began to hear one voice that stood apart. Amidst all the dissonance, one woman sang clearly, calmly, and perfectly in tune, her sweet voice rising just above the din around her. She was undistracted by the flat notes and grating tones, undistracted by all the unskilled singers that surrounded her.
As that musician stood and listened, he noticed with fascination that first one voice and then another was drawn to this woman’s. Soon those immediately around her began to follow her lead, to match her melody, to hit the same notes. Then those a little farther away picked up on it as well. Before long the whole congregation was singing the hymn just as its composer had intended. Soon the whole congregation was making a truly joyful, truly lovely, truly beautiful noise to the Lord.
We sometimes wonder what difference one person can make to a church. The man with a heart for evangelism can be discouraged when he observes that the members of his church seem apathetic. The woman who loves to extend hospitality can find it difficult when she sees that so many other people in the church neglect it. The teen with a heart for Bible study can be tempted to move on when the other young folk seem unconcerned with these basic disciplines.
Yet as this woman displayed that morning long ago, one person truly can make all the difference. That woman did not need to stop the congregation and formally instruct them. She did not need to interrupt them to bring a stern reprimand. She did not need to grumble or complain. She simply had to use her gift until one person and then another and finally the whole church had heard her voice, had matched her tone, and had fallen into perfect melody. For “as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”
