Boxes

Now it really feels like we are moving. The majority of our possessions are either given away or packed up in boxes. It's still a bit surreal; one of these days it's going to hit me that we're leaving this house in less than two weeks. I realized earlier that I've lived in this house for 6 years, which is longer than any other house I've ever lived in (my father was in the Air Force, so we moved every 3 years or so). Still, we're looking forward to moving in with Dad for a couple months and then moving on to seminary. The best is yet to come!

Accountability

In my class on evangelism, Dr. Reid gave some advice on finding accountability partners. He said we need to find three types of people to be accountable with:

1) A Paul - someone who is more spiritual and mature than we are, so we have someone to answer to

2) A Barnabus - someone who is an encourager, so we have someone who will believe in us

3) A Timothy - someone who who looks up to us, so we have someone to pour our life into

I like this! Guys especially, let me encourage you to find an accountability group.

Koinonia

Thought #1: Last year our Pastor, Danny Forshee, preached a message wherein he said Baptists are known more for what we're against than what we're for. We're against homosexuality, against premarital sex, against abortion, and so on. Now he's not saying it's wrong to be against those things, for the Bible says that each is sin against a holy God. But he saying that we should be for things, particularly for loving people. Sometimes we should love on people just because we can.

Thought #2: In Philippians 1:3-5, Paul said:

I thank my God...for your fellowship in the gospel...

Fellowship is the Greek word "koinonia," and it means working together to do something; in this case, the church at Philippi was working together with Paul to share the Good News.

Put them together: So our class created a Koinonia Team, whose job it is to love on people and share the Gospel at the same time. Last night we went to a local neighborhood and gave out 50 bags of bean soup mix. They contained instructions for making the soup and a Gospel tract. How different would it be if the people who are our church were known for how we simply loved people?

John 3:16  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.