There is a humorous story in the Bible found in Acts 20. Paul was in Troas and was going to leave the next day so he continued to speak for a long time. Now let’s not compare that to my sermons on Sunday morning. When they say long, it was for many hours. He went all the way up to midnight. A young man named Eutychus was seated in the window where many were gathered listening to Paul. Look what happened next.
9 Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. 10 Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!” 11 Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left. 12 The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted. Acts 20:9-12 That scene could have been on a Sunday morning in many churches today. Once you get relaxed and you sit for a while, your eyes have a tendency to close and you begin to inspect the inside of your eyelids. Not that I have ever seen anyone do that in our church. The good news is that the little boy was not hurt, he was healed. The not so good news is that there were probably others who had fallen asleep but were just not sitting in the window susceptible to fall three stories. Needless to say, the window is off limits for a while, especially to Eutychus. I believe that sometimes you can be involved in a routine for so long that you can “fall asleep.” Sometimes we need to switch ministries up from time to time in order to breathe in new life. I don’t ever want to fall in a rut in any of our ministries. Starting in June, we will be taking a break from our Front Row Ministry on Wednesday mornings for the summer. We will not stop praying and believing, just changing things up a little. Prayer sheets will be available to continue to lift the needs of the church up to the Lord. In no way do we want to diminish our prayer because it is through prayer that makes the church more effective. We will start back up in September. I want to encourage people to pray without ceasing in matters that are eternal in nature. God wants us to pray fervently for the things that matter the most. If you are ever wanting to be more involved in the prayer ministry of the church, please contact me and let’s talk about what that can look like. May God bless you today as you serve others with the same passion Christ served us. Joy in Jesus! Pastor Mike
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Rev. Mike McClurgSenior Pastor, Findlay First Church of the Nazarene Archives
March 2020
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