God knows all to well what we are going through, and how much our hearts and bodies can take.  David illustrates through this books in Psalm what we should do while in the midst of our despair. David entreats us to continually praise our way through depressing times.  Let us keep in mind that David didn’t say we wont have depressing times because we will.  Jesus even had depressing times, like when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He asks God to” if it be Thy will remove this bitter cup from me.” Jesus realized that He was not alone and then said, “Nevertheless not My will, but Thy will be done.” If we give God our continual and effectual praise our depression will subside, because God hears our petitions and desires our praise.  Praise God at all times and continually keep yourself and others before the throne of God’s mercy.  Place all of your hope and trust in God for He is able to rebuke the devourer for thy sake. Depression is nothing more than an attempt by the enemy to discount God’s power and greatness.  Don’t let the devil ride, because if you do sooner rather than later he will want to drive.  The Bible states, resist the devil and he will flee.  Resist depression and it will flee in the name of Jesus.  We have to encourage ourselves and speak blessings into our own lives.  We can’t help anyone if we allow our faith to be attacked by the adversary.  Rise up and walk out of depression.  Be blessed!

Dozens of pastors and ministry leaders revealed their “aha!” moments during an entirely online conference on Wednesday.
The speakers, who submitted pre-recorded videos of themselves, had six minutes to tell thousands of viewers the wisdom they gained when they went through a rough patch or when they just had a light-bulb moment during ministry.

“God wants us to express the talents He has given us, not talents He’s given someone else,” said Shawn Lovejoy, lead pastor of Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, Ga., in his short video segment.

Lovejoy recognized that pastors often struggle with insecurity especially when comparing themselves to the more renowned or “successful” pastors.

Once leaders become insecure in their own skin, they begin to question what they’re doing and copy others, borrowing programs, sermons or even personalities. When that doesn’t work, they begin condemning other churches or ministers and when that fails, they start condemning themselves, Lovejoy explained.

“You and I are insecure in our own skin as ministry leaders [and] it’s affecting the church,” he said, noting that there are many “cookie cutter churches.”

“We’re not okay with the fact that most of us will never be megachurch pastors,” he said. “We think if we don’t have someone else’s talent then we’re not successful.”

But by trying to be someone else or not accepting the unique talents God has given, leaders end up “limiting the movement of God,” he cautioned.

Lovejoy’s video kicked off a four-hour Web conference called “Aha! New Voices. Fresh Ideas.” Hosted by Leadership Network, the online event is the second of its kind by the network. Last September, some 20,000 church leaders and others joined Leadership Network’s first online event where speakers had nine minutes each to talk.

Shane Hipps, teaching pastor at Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., said his “aha!” moment came when he was struggling with preaching.

Hipps wanted to make sure his preaching was effective but realized he could never gauge the effectiveness especially with churchgoers often hitting him with the generic “great sermon” comment.

He later learned, through experience, that he had to divest himself of the outcomes of his preaching. That’s when his preaching changed and when people began responding.

“I was not invested in whether or not they did what I said they should do,” Hipps explained. “As a consequence, what comes with that is … an incredible sense [that] my job is to offer my gift fearlessly, freely, independent of whatever the outcomes might be.”

One of the most inspiring six-minute talks (judging from comments on the live Twitter feed) came from Micah Davidson, lead pastor of Real Life Fellowship in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Davidson recounted the time he went to West Africa with his wife to bring home his adopted son. In a village in the northern part of Ghana, people gathered in a circle to celebrate the adoption with singing and dancing. During that time, Davidson got the sense that they wanted him to dance but he was hesitant. His adopted African son then jumped in and danced, bringing the house down. Realizing this was important to his son and the village, Davidson scurried up his courage and pulled out the best dance he could do.

After that experience, the Real Life pastor realized, “My son did not care how many people I had in attendance last weekend, how many people our church baptized last year. … What he wanted to know is will my dad dance? Does my dad love me enough to get into my world?”

Encouraging ministry workers to make family a priority, he said, “Let’s work as hard as getting into our family’s world as we do studying for our sermon.”

Describing an even bigger “aha!” moment, Davidson reminded pastors and ministry workers that God loves them.

“Jesus came to this world to adopt me,” he said. “I’m so glad God didn’t look down from heaven and said ‘I’m going to send you a little bit of change every month.’ … He came to this world.”

“I’m so thankful I’ve got a Savior that can really relate to me. … He knows what it’s like to be tired … to share vision and your staff doesn’t even get it, to go through painful circumstances,” he added. “God put skin on and He moved into the neighborhood … so I can be adopted into His family.”

“There’s a father who gave everything He had to adopt you and I … just because He loves us.”

Notably, Davidson’s dancing also opened up relations between his church and the village chief. Real Life was able to start medical missions and bring food and water to the indigenous people as well as start churches in the area.

“Let me give you a few seconds to dance,” Davidson said.

Other notable quotes from the online conference include:

“I have a theory why so many pastors burn out: They start out walking with Jesus but they end up working for Jesus.” (Pete Briscoe of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrolton, Texas, recalled hearing from someone at a time when he was depressed)

“You’re going to have this proliferation of all these can-do’s in your life and every one of these opportunities is going to be a distraction in disguise because rather than getting stuck with all these things you can do for God you need to pursue the one thing that you must do for God.” (Clarity evangelist Will Mancini)

“[God] gives His people a heart. The eyes of the Lord are constantly ranging the earth looking for a heart, not for talent or resource or sexiness, just for a heart – a heart for the lost and the poor.” (Andy Hawthorne, CEO of The Message in Manchester, U.K.)

LONDON – A Church of Scotland minister has planned a “Chocolate Sunday” this weekend to encourage his flock to think about sacrificing something greater than the usual chocolate during Lent.

While the Rev. Albert Bogle of Bo’ness St Andrew’s suspects that a chocolate fountain and chocolate sweets for parishioners may entice some non-churchgoers, he insists he is holding Chocolate Sunday to remind his congregation about the true meaning of Lent.

“We’re inviting people to debunk the secularity of Lent – too often we give up the things that cost us very little,” he said.

“We won’t change the world by giving up chocolate but we can if we take up a cause that’s worth dying for,” he noted. “Although it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, people can eat the chocolate, but what we really want to do is take up our crosses and start serving others.”

His message echoes that of the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Rt. Rev. Bill Hewitt, who encouraged Christians to use the period of Lent to serve others rather than give up their usual indulgences.

In his message for Lent, Hewitt criticized the “selfish pursuit” of money and urged people to reject the hedonistic lifestyles of some celebrities.

“Many people use the discipline of these weeks to give up chocolate or fish suppers or the likes, but I prefer the idea of Lent being a time of giving of ourselves in service to others,” he said.

“This runs contrary to a culture that suggests that the only thing that motivates people is money.”

South of the border, people are being invited to submit their prayer requests to the Church of England’s Web-based service SayOneForMe.org.

The website, which will stay live during Lent, is a Web version of public prayer boards in churches where members of the public can leave their prayer requests.

The prayers submitted to the website will be later offered on their behalf by bishops during their own prayer times.

The Bishop of Dudley, the Rt. Rev. David Walker, said, “Of course, nobody needs a dog collar to be heard by God, but for many people, knowing that someone else is praying for us gives us the confidence to make our own prayers, and prayer is often the gateway to hope.”

Former inmates were applauded Sunday morning at T.D. Jakes’ renowned Dallas megachurch as they graduated from a program designed to help them succeed and keep them out of jail
“I feel like I’m accomplishing something when everyone told me I wouldn’t have anything,” said Lakitha Dardin, 31, who was in prison for nearly four years after getting involved with drugs.

Dardin was among 150 graduates who completed the Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative, a yearlong program that seeks to maximize the potential of former inmates for successful reintegration into society.

Thousands at The Potter’s House witnessed the graduation.

“I’d like to see us stop the propensity that we have today to make a big business out of incarceration,” Bishop Jakes said Sunday, according to The Associated Press. “I’m trying to show the benefits of rehabilitation.”

TORI, founded in 2005, is a reentry mentoring program of The Potter’s House, which reportedly draws some 30,000 weekly worshippers. It focuses on ex-offenders that may be experiencing hopelessness, lack of support, unemployment, psychological, social, mental, medical and/or substance abuse issues that might hinder them from succeeding and from becoming productive citizens. Comprehensive services in several areas including employment coaching, housing, financial literacy, substance abuse counseling, family reunification and spiritual chaplaincy are offered through TORI.

Nearly 1,000 people have completed the program.

“Through the redemptive doors of the Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative, we are breaking the cycle of prison reentry and restoring hope by providing ex-offenders with the necessary tools to help them successfully change their lives,” Jakes said in a statement.

With nearly one-third of former inmates in Texas going back to jail within three years, the program is intended to reduce recidivism. Plus, it costs less to rehabilitate ex-offenders than to incarcerate them, Jakes said, as reported by AP.

“When an inmate comes back from being incarcerated and can’t get a job or a place to stay, they’re almost destined to recycle back into the criminal justice system,” the pastor and entrepreneur said. “The church can play a role uniquely apart from the social services that are done in the secular system. It’s very important that we put faith into this process because faith becomes the fuel that makes people have the power to change their lives.”

The TORI program currently operates in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. About 40 percent of former inmates who start the program successfully complete it.

LONDON – The Kingdom of God is not about me but about transforming the world and everything in it, says Brian McLaren.
Speaking on day two of the Faithworks conference on Saturday, the popular emerging church leader asserted that Christians tend to put themselves and their entry to Heaven at the center of their faith, while neglecting to consider the significance of their faith for the world around them.

Christians, he said, have become “consumers of religious goods and services” who view the church as something that exists to fulfill their needs and house their soul until they went to Heaven.

“Our theology is perfectly designed to produce the results we are now getting. If you want a change in results you need a change in theology,” he said.

“The world exists so we can extract people and money to come into the church. The idea of what church is about is producing a lot of the results we’ve been getting.”

He said that although Christians were not of the world, they were still in the world and called to be agents of transformation by bringing God’s Kingdom to Earth.

“We are not passive players conforming to the world but with transformed and renewed minds, we are agents of transformation,” he said.

“The Kingdom of God is about God’s Kingdom being done on Earth. It’s not a plan of upward mobility and how we get to Heaven but about how God’s Kingdom comes down to Earth … it’s a downward movement.”

McLaren urged Christians to realize that they had a part to play in the Kingdom of God coming on Earth by being Jesus’ arms, hands, feet, and smile in the world.

He said that while the average churchgoer spends only around two percent of their lives in church, the church has spent most of its energy trying to make the two percent more enjoyable. He encouraged the church to think beyond the two percent and realize that the Kingdom embraced every part of life.

“We ought to pay more attention to the Christ thing,” he said. “It’s not an argument about the two percent thing but I’m saying that the Kingdom of God is 360 degrees. It’s about where, how, what.”

He called upon churches to effect change by seeing themselves as deeply interconnected to all sectors of society.

“Church has a relationship to government. Church, like it or not, has a relationship to the youth gang,” he said. “All different parts of society are interconnected and one part has an effect on all the other parts.

“When we change one part of the system it affects all parts, because it is all interconnected.”

The Faithworks 360 degrees conference is taking place in Enfield, North London, over the weekend to explore a vision for the church that embraces all aspects of life.

Earlier in the conference, Faithworks founder Steve Chalke told Christians to rediscover the meaning and purpose of their lives by going out of the church and serving their communities.

Recalling that Jesus had broken His body as an act of service, he said service was not an “add-on” or only for those Christians who had the time but something that every believer was called by Jesus to do.

“Find God in the ordinary, in the service. His body was broken for community. In doing that you’ll find yourself and the sense of meaning,” he said.

“So often in life, work is debilitating and draining, but Jesus said ‘My work is my food.’ This is what we’ve lost and this is where we find it: in committed service.”

The murder of two young street preachers in Florida by a teenager whom they shared the Gospel with is “alarming,” said a spokesperson for a religious freedom watchdog group.
Eighteen-year-old Jeriah Woody, whose street name is “Plug,” is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Woody allegedly shot and killed Tite Sufra, 24, and Stephen Ocean, 23, on Jan. 30 after they shared about Christ with him during the 15 minutes they talked.

Woody’s phone reportedly rang and he turned and walked away to take the call. But then he turned around again and started walking towards the street preachers. Sufra approached him and Woody allegedly shot him in the head. Ocean tried to run away, but police said Woody allegedly shot him in the back and then walked up to him and shot him again in the head at point-blank range.

The police account is based on the third street preacher that was with Sufra and Ocean when they talked to Woody. The unidentified third minister had escaped by running in the opposite direction.

Woody turned himself in on Feb. 3 and remains in jail without bond.

“We are concerned that the hate crimes against Christians could be increased in the United States,” said Jonathon Racho, regional manager for Africa and South Asia at International Christian Concern, to The Christian Post Monday. “This is very alarming.”

He added, “We hear this kind of thing happening in other countries like India, Nigeria, China, North Korea, where Christians are being killed, imprisoned and so forth. But for Christians to be killed for preaching the Gospel here in the United States, it is very, very alarming.”

Several Christian organizations have wondered out loud why there has been so little media coverage despite the incident occurring more than two weeks ago.

“If this had been two Muslims out sharing the Quran and talking to people about Mohammad and they were shot and killed, there would be marches, there would be protest, there would be 24-hour coverage,” said Todd Nettleton, a spokesperson for the Voice of the Martyrs, to Mission Network News. “As a Christian, that’s a frustrating thing that the media doesn’t seem to want to pay attention to incidents where Christians are targeted.”

Police have not identified Woody’s motive for killing the street preachers.

Every Christian must be a soul winner, declared an African church planter who oversees a fellowship of more than 18,000 local churches.
Target church plants by world region.
Synergize! Attracts 2,100 Christians to Win the Next Billion
1,200 African Church Leaders Attend Billion Soul Summit in Uganda
Synergize 2! Pastors Conference to Attract Over 1,000 Leaders
Alex Mitala, the general overseer of the National Churches of Uganda, pointed to the Bible and said the Scripture says all believers are called to participate in a soul-winning campaign.

“He wants people to believe Him after repenting of our sins, to grow and then after to become disciples,” Mitala told The Christian Post this week after giving a presentation on “Multiplying Soul-Winners in the Local Church” at the Synergize2! Pastors Conference last week. “Every believer must be a soul winner. Every believer is empowered according to the Bible.”

The church planter, who is commonly referred to as Mutame (Apostle) Mitala, has worked with his team to plant more than 145 churches in Uganda and Kenya, and build orphanages, schools and pastor-training facilities. He and his wife Catherine have adopted 11 orphans and have six biological children.

God calls people to serve in different ways, Mitala said. But whether they are a businessman, a farmer or a musician, a believer has to be a soul winner. It is the church pastor’s responsibility to disciple the members of their church so that everyone can go out and share the Gospel.

Fellow African church leader Ademola Ishola, the general secretary of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, which has over 10,000 member churches, called soul winning a “spiritual responsibility” of every believer.

“The need to empower all members of the church is essential,” said Ishola, who also was a key speaker at the Synergize 2! conference.

Ishola noted that on average less than 20 percent of members of a church are active.

“That means 80 percent of the manpower is lost,” said the Nigerian church leader. “Pastors need to train everyone in that (soul winning) aspect.”

Mitala and Ishola were among the dozens of church leaders and pastors that gave presentations at the second biennial Synergize conference last week in Orlando. As the name suggests, the conference is meant to network key leaders around the world in order for them to share and combine resources, or synergize their efforts, to fulfill the Great Commission.

The common goal is to double the size of the church through five million new church plants throughout the world to bring the next billion people to Christ. The Second Billion Network hopes to achieve the goal of a billion new Christians in the next 15 years.

James O. Davis, founder and president of the Second Billion Network, which organized the Synergize 2! Pastors Conference, said the plan for the upcoming two years before Synergize 3!, is to finish all the regional summits and to make all the resources collected through the regional and the international conference available online.