We're Free
As we celebrated the birthday of the United States this month it got me thinking about the many freedoms we have here that aren't always present everywhere. One of those freedoms is the ability to worship God and to share the message of Jesus. This is a blessing that isn't present everywhere.
With as many freedoms as we have in the United States, it's not a perfect situation, there are many things we can work to improve in our country and what that looks like is going to vary from person to person. The truth is that even with all the freedom we have, it can be taken away in an instant. This is different from the freedom we have in Christ. This isn't a freedom to do whatever we want and God is cool with it. Far from it. What we are freed from is our enslavement to sin, death, and the Devil. You see, God shows us who He is in His Son. We see the very heart of God when we see Jesus live the perfect life that we have no chance of doing in our place, and then suffering and dying on the cross for our sins, and rising in victory over death on the third day. This has bought our freedom, not with gold or silver, but with the holy and precious blood of Jesus. We've been set free. That can never be taken away from us by any power here on earth.
In this freedom we're not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ because it is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. This is the message we get to share with others totally confident that God will work through the Holy Spirit to bring the people we get to talk to into the family of God and the freedom that we've been given as well. Thank you Lord for all the gifts you've given us, most especially your Son who has freed us from the slavery of sin, and won life everlasting for us.
What's Happening
What's happening indeed. The OAFC board has been working hard to go over our policies and procedures, as well as seeking to find and call a full time Executive Director. The board extended a call to Rev. Martin Herzberg in April of this year. Since that time Pastor Herzberg and the board have been working to re-establish existing teams and examining our processes for emergency situations and what we will do when there is an accusation of misconduct. These are important policies to have in place with the world we live in and will be added to the Leaders Manual.
Pastor Herzberg has also been attending various District Pastors conferences, as well as the National LWML Convention, and will be attending the Synodical Convention at the end of July. This has been well received. He is working to get the news out that OAFC is still around and we're still an excellent resource for congregations that are wanting to learn to share their faith in a simple way with the people of their community.
Pastor Herzberg would like to encourage all who have been involved and those who would like to be involved to start talking with your pastors, and encouraging them to check out what we have to offer. If you are a pastor wanting to get things going we are currently beta testing some adjustments to how we do things to see how they may work. We can still do the classic OAFC weekend, and now we're offering some other options that may fit your and your congregation's needs better. We want to focus on the training aspect of our WIT model so that we can have trained Youth and Adults to rebuild and re-energize OAFC. This is the focus of the coming year. May God bless our efforts and help us to grow as we did before if not even better.
Prayer Requests
Personal Witness
By Rev. Martin Herzberg, From South Dakota.
Simple things that we take for granted. How many of us have used the Good News card and just rattled it off. It's easy it's so simple my 9 year old daughter Grace can do it, and my 6 year old, Noelle, is learning it. Have you ever wondered if it really does any good? I have. Frankly I'd heard it criticized as being a bit of a gimmick. And up until 2019 I agreed to a point. Sure it's a bit gimmicky but it's still cool and it's an easy way to share Jesus with people. I had no doubt that this is God's Word and promise to the people I shared it with, but it can't be that easy can it? Surly there has to be more you've got to do, and yes I know I'm starting to sound like a guy at a bus stop thinking he's going to win people for Jesus. But don't we all start to think like that a bit?
As I said something changed in 2019. Up to that point I didn't really mind that people thought the Good News card was a gimmick. Now I'm actually a bit offended. In the last few months with going to Pastor's conferences and the like I've had that question raised. And to that I say, let me tell you about Blu.
Blu was a Hell's Angels enforcer. He was one of the original Hells Angels and he looked every inch the tough old biker. And he was. Blu lived in Lahoma Oklahoma, which was where my first call out of seminary was located. Blu and I had talked a lot, as the church secretary had been working on him for years telling him about how much Jesus loved him and she introduced the two of us. I showed him respect and wasn't scared of him which won me a little bit of credibility with him. We'd known each other for about 3 years at this point. One day he came into my office and said "Pastor, I've got ghosts at my house and they're causing trouble, is there anything you can do about it?" Well, here's where the formal training comes in handy. We do have a house blessing we can do which asks Jesus to come and dwell in this place and bless the people who live there. Which I did do. After which Blu kind of looked sad and said, "You're really only delaying the inevitable." To which I responded, "Really Blu, we've talked about this. How many sins did Jesus die for?" "All of them": he responded. "But what about..." and he listed some pretty horrible stuff. I said: "For God so loved Blu that he gave his only Son, Jesus Christ to suffer and die and rise in victory for Blu, that believing in Jesus as the Savior from sin Blu shall not perish, but Blu shall have everlasting life. This is God's promise to you Blu." Now is God a liar? He said "No." And what happened next still gets me choked up. There is a 70 year old man in tears in his living room because up to now he never understood, this is for me. That God loves me enough to die for me.
The Good News method is dynamite. This is the POWER of God's Word in action. Blu asked how he could be sure of all of this. I told him that this is as sure and certain the fact that I'm standing here talking to you. I also told him that God makes a promise to us that in Baptism He claims us as His own dear children. I told him we can do that right now. He said he wanted to come to the church and do a private baptism. I was ok with that. This was summer time when we had this conversation. I received a call to SD that November and accepted it at the beginning of December. Middle of November Blu drives up to my driveway and asked "Pastor, would you baptize me?" And the answer was, yes, of course. That day Blu became a child of God. I got a phone call in October of last year that Blu has gone home to be with His Savior.
I claim no credit for any of this. This is the work of God that was awesome to behold and the key was simply "This is for you." God Loves YOU enough to die for you and has made you His own. Thanks be to God. I'll never forget how much God can do with the simple things. Let this encourage you all to keep telling the Good News to everyone. You never know what God is going to do. And it's always Amazing.
As we celebrated the birthday of the United States this month it got me thinking about the many freedoms we have here that aren't always present everywhere. One of those freedoms is the ability to worship God and to share the message of Jesus. This is a blessing that isn't present everywhere.
With as many freedoms as we have in the United States, it's not a perfect situation, there are many things we can work to improve in our country and what that looks like is going to vary from person to person. The truth is that even with all the freedom we have, it can be taken away in an instant. This is different from the freedom we have in Christ. This isn't a freedom to do whatever we want and God is cool with it. Far from it. What we are freed from is our enslavement to sin, death, and the Devil. You see, God shows us who He is in His Son. We see the very heart of God when we see Jesus live the perfect life that we have no chance of doing in our place, and then suffering and dying on the cross for our sins, and rising in victory over death on the third day. This has bought our freedom, not with gold or silver, but with the holy and precious blood of Jesus. We've been set free. That can never be taken away from us by any power here on earth.
In this freedom we're not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ because it is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. This is the message we get to share with others totally confident that God will work through the Holy Spirit to bring the people we get to talk to into the family of God and the freedom that we've been given as well. Thank you Lord for all the gifts you've given us, most especially your Son who has freed us from the slavery of sin, and won life everlasting for us.
What's Happening
What's happening indeed. The OAFC board has been working hard to go over our policies and procedures, as well as seeking to find and call a full time Executive Director. The board extended a call to Rev. Martin Herzberg in April of this year. Since that time Pastor Herzberg and the board have been working to re-establish existing teams and examining our processes for emergency situations and what we will do when there is an accusation of misconduct. These are important policies to have in place with the world we live in and will be added to the Leaders Manual.
Pastor Herzberg has also been attending various District Pastors conferences, as well as the National LWML Convention, and will be attending the Synodical Convention at the end of July. This has been well received. He is working to get the news out that OAFC is still around and we're still an excellent resource for congregations that are wanting to learn to share their faith in a simple way with the people of their community.
Pastor Herzberg would like to encourage all who have been involved and those who would like to be involved to start talking with your pastors, and encouraging them to check out what we have to offer. If you are a pastor wanting to get things going we are currently beta testing some adjustments to how we do things to see how they may work. We can still do the classic OAFC weekend, and now we're offering some other options that may fit your and your congregation's needs better. We want to focus on the training aspect of our WIT model so that we can have trained Youth and Adults to rebuild and re-energize OAFC. This is the focus of the coming year. May God bless our efforts and help us to grow as we did before if not even better.
Prayer Requests
- Thank God for the work of the Board in calling and Executive Director. That God would bless and keep both the Board and Pastor Herzberg as we work to build OAFC up.
Personal Witness
By Rev. Martin Herzberg, From South Dakota.
Simple things that we take for granted. How many of us have used the Good News card and just rattled it off. It's easy it's so simple my 9 year old daughter Grace can do it, and my 6 year old, Noelle, is learning it. Have you ever wondered if it really does any good? I have. Frankly I'd heard it criticized as being a bit of a gimmick. And up until 2019 I agreed to a point. Sure it's a bit gimmicky but it's still cool and it's an easy way to share Jesus with people. I had no doubt that this is God's Word and promise to the people I shared it with, but it can't be that easy can it? Surly there has to be more you've got to do, and yes I know I'm starting to sound like a guy at a bus stop thinking he's going to win people for Jesus. But don't we all start to think like that a bit?
As I said something changed in 2019. Up to that point I didn't really mind that people thought the Good News card was a gimmick. Now I'm actually a bit offended. In the last few months with going to Pastor's conferences and the like I've had that question raised. And to that I say, let me tell you about Blu.
Blu was a Hell's Angels enforcer. He was one of the original Hells Angels and he looked every inch the tough old biker. And he was. Blu lived in Lahoma Oklahoma, which was where my first call out of seminary was located. Blu and I had talked a lot, as the church secretary had been working on him for years telling him about how much Jesus loved him and she introduced the two of us. I showed him respect and wasn't scared of him which won me a little bit of credibility with him. We'd known each other for about 3 years at this point. One day he came into my office and said "Pastor, I've got ghosts at my house and they're causing trouble, is there anything you can do about it?" Well, here's where the formal training comes in handy. We do have a house blessing we can do which asks Jesus to come and dwell in this place and bless the people who live there. Which I did do. After which Blu kind of looked sad and said, "You're really only delaying the inevitable." To which I responded, "Really Blu, we've talked about this. How many sins did Jesus die for?" "All of them": he responded. "But what about..." and he listed some pretty horrible stuff. I said: "For God so loved Blu that he gave his only Son, Jesus Christ to suffer and die and rise in victory for Blu, that believing in Jesus as the Savior from sin Blu shall not perish, but Blu shall have everlasting life. This is God's promise to you Blu." Now is God a liar? He said "No." And what happened next still gets me choked up. There is a 70 year old man in tears in his living room because up to now he never understood, this is for me. That God loves me enough to die for me.
The Good News method is dynamite. This is the POWER of God's Word in action. Blu asked how he could be sure of all of this. I told him that this is as sure and certain the fact that I'm standing here talking to you. I also told him that God makes a promise to us that in Baptism He claims us as His own dear children. I told him we can do that right now. He said he wanted to come to the church and do a private baptism. I was ok with that. This was summer time when we had this conversation. I received a call to SD that November and accepted it at the beginning of December. Middle of November Blu drives up to my driveway and asked "Pastor, would you baptize me?" And the answer was, yes, of course. That day Blu became a child of God. I got a phone call in October of last year that Blu has gone home to be with His Savior.
I claim no credit for any of this. This is the work of God that was awesome to behold and the key was simply "This is for you." God Loves YOU enough to die for you and has made you His own. Thanks be to God. I'll never forget how much God can do with the simple things. Let this encourage you all to keep telling the Good News to everyone. You never know what God is going to do. And it's always Amazing.
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