jeff mikels

Greetings all NWBC friends!

I just wanted to let you all know of something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while and have let slide. However, Paul Witte called me up today and suggested it, and I got really excited. Paul and I are going to spearhead some evangelism outings, and this Sunday is going to be the first.

How do you feel about evangelism?

Whenever people talk about evangelism or even about talking about Jesus with others outside the church, people tend to get a little uncomfortable. Some people are afraid they won’t know what to say. Some people aren’t convinced that it’s really important. But most of us are simply out of practice.

We’re going to make it fun!

So this Sunday, after our worship service, Paul and I are going to head on out to the Lincolnwood mall, have some lunch in the food court, and then go out into the mall to try to strike up one or two spiritual conversations with some people. The whole thing won’t be much longer than 90 minutes, and I think it will be a lot of fun to be able to get back together afterward and share our experiences with each other.

I’m going to teach you some skills.

Also, I’m planning to bring some tools to pass out and I’ll be teaching you three easy methods to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger.

• The “Journey Guide”
• The “Survey”
• The “Common Ground”

I’d love for you to join us!

So, I can’t give a personal invitation to all of you, but I can send out this note. Would you consider taking a few minutes of your Sunday afternoon to join Paul and me in building our skills in sharing our faith?

God bless!

The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina is unbelievable. There is a wide deal of speculation that this may be the worst disaster ever to hit the United States both in terms of human lives and also in terms of property damage. Roughly 20,000 people are missing, and the death toll is already estimated to be in the thousands.

Certainly, in terms of human lives lost, the tsunami that hit southeast Asia last December was a much larger tragedy even than Katrina.

However, I was astounded this morning as I had my Bible Time to read Psalm 29. I was so profoundly impacted by the Psalm, that I’m just going to quote the whole thing here…

1 Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.

3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.

4 The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is majestic.

5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of the LORD strikes with flashes of lightning.

8 The voice of the LORD shakes the desert; the LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh.

9 The voice of the LORD twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

10 The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD is enthroned as King forever.

11 The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.

I have read this passage before, but I have never fully understood it until today. The passage begins with a call to all the mighty ones to give God the glory that he deserves and to worship him with the acknowledgement that his holiness is splendid!

Then, the next major section of the Psalm (vv. 3-9) describe how God’s voice is like thunder that crashes and rolls and breaks trees and makes mountains jump and even shakes the land.

Up until that point, I simply thought that the Psalm was a metaphor for how powerful God is and how much his name is worthy of worship. However, when I got to the end of the Psalm, that all changed!

Verse 10 makes a remarkable shift. It says, “The LORD sits enthroned over the flood.”

I thought that David was writing about God’s voice being like thunder, but if that is the case, then where does the “flood” concept come in? Suddenly it hit me. David must have just experienced a dramatic and powerful thunderstorm before writing this Psalm. It was more than a metaphor, it was something he had experienced. He saw a storm and a flood and is using them to make a point.

I was really shocked at the timing of this verse in my life. Just last night, I allowed myself the time to watch a news broadcast about Katrina and the aftermath of the hurricane and how most of New Orleans is under 10 feet of water! Then, this morning I read how God is “enthroned over the flood.” What an amazing thing to think!

Now, at this time, many people are asking that if God is really in charge of the world and he really is King forever as the Psalm says, then why did he allow such a tragedy to happen. I’ve explained elsewhere that even though that question is so personally powerful and even though that question has been thoroughly explored by myself and others more intelligent than I, it still is an inappropriate question. By that I mean that the question misses the point. The question focuses on the tragedy and not to possibility.

David had just encountered a tragedy, and he uses it to teach three important lessons:

1. God is the power, the force, and the “voice” behind the thunderstorm, and the storm is just a small illustration of his incredible power (vv. 3-10).
2. God’s name is to be worshiped and honored as we acknowledge his incredible power (vv. 1-2).
3. Most importantly of all, “The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.”

These are the lessons to learn from the storm: The God who reigns supreme and has power greater than Hurricane Katrina, is the God we worship and the one who gives us strength. Knowing about God’s strength, knowing that God is our God, and knowing that he will give us his strength… That brings peace.

• Cost of the Tsunami to fisheries in Sri Lanka: > $520 Million
• US Government aid promised to victims of Hurricane Katrina: > $10 Billion
• Knowing that the Almighty will give us strength: Priceless

Another month…

Another month has come and gone, but the departure of August is always an important one and this year, that hasn’t changed…

Just consider the significance of this change of month:

• Summer is on it’s way out and cooler weather is on the way in.
• School is starting for many and has already started for some.
• My sermon series is taking a turn from the theological back to more motivational and practical matters.
• It’s time to refresh our fellowship.

Summer is always a difficult time for us as a church, and I’m never sure why it is. It always seems that more people are missing from our church services than can be accounted for by vacations, but I’m not exactly sure what to think about all that.

At any rate, it’s time, now that Fall is coming, for us to renew and refresh our fellowship. Let me encourage you to make spending time in worship and fellowship with your NWBC family a high priority for yourself each week.

One way you can do that is by making a point to come to our service this week as we will be celebrating Communion and bringing our Firstfruits offering to God. Please join us this week, because as we learned last week, God wants to bring his people together in unity so that they can experience his presence! Click here for last week’s message

Katrina…

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the great amount of devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. (It’s so funny, because I have a friend named Katrina and she is one of the most soft-spoken people I’ve ever met!) Anyway, there are a lot of people without homes and many without hope. Let’s spend some time in prayer for them and thank God for the many blessings he has given us.

UPDATE: AUGUST 24, 2005

Well, we have just finished going through the most difficult set of messages I have yet preached. We’ve covered some really tough ground, but we are now ready to dig into the next steps. What happens after we come through a time of confession and prayer? What next? We’ll find out as we continue through Nehemiah.

FROM MY HEART

How are you doing with the challenge? Have you taken me up on it yet? This is what I am trying to do, and I’ve challenged all the people in our congregation to join me:

• Spend 30 minutes a day with God and “fast” from whatever else you would have done during that time.
• Spend 3 hours a week with God in fellowship with others through Sunday worship and some mid-week small group. If you don’t have a small group you can still join me Wednesdays (TONIGHT) at 7:30 pm.
• Spend 1 day a month with God in fasting and prayer. You don’t have to make it a complete spiritual retreat unless you have the ability to do it, but just pick one thing to fast from on that day, and use the day to focus on God. (I’m fasting from food on the first Tuesdays of the month together with many BGC pastors and church members throughout the nation.)

Grace and peace,
Pastor Jeff