Best Practices for Ministry 2016!

    Greetings to you in the name of our Lord Jesus.  I am safely home once again.  Five of us went to Phoenix, Arizona for the church conference Best Practices.  It was such an awesome trip.  If you remember the details of my life, which I completely understand if you do not, I went to this conference last year as well.  Last year my friend Buck and I drove down from the seminary, attended the conference, and then continued on our tour of the south with a 4,000 mile road trip.  This year, five of us from Peace in Christ flew down for four days.  Ruth, our DCE, and her eight month old daughter Chloe, our two preschool teachers Miss Brittany and Miss Kari, and myself all attended the conference.  We all learned a lot, were encouraged, ate a ton of unhealthy food, and enjoyed the sun and warm weather.  The best joke of the conference came from a vicar at the closing service.  He was giving the details of trying to explain the conference to other people.  

     So as you are telling someone about this awesome conference, they ask, "How many people were there?"

     You say, "2000!"

     "Wow, 2000?!," they respond. "How many did you know?"

     "About half."  

    I laughed very hard at that joke, because I did know so many people there.  The Lutheran world is a very small one.  However, that is also an exciting part of our church, is that some how some way we are always all connected.  There were a ton of my classmates from the seminary there.  I hadn't seen most of them since graduation, so it was so good to catch up, hear how their ministries are going, and just to see them again.  

    We got back to Duluth around 2 A.M. on Sunday morning.  Then I had to be at church for services and Bible Study.  I was tired, but got through it all alright.  I am still trying to catch up on sleep.  This week is super busy as I preach both Wednesday night and this weekend.  Also, I have the home inspection tomorrow on the new house.  I am also teaching confirmation classes on Mormonism.  I am super excited for that though.  

    The best part of the conference is always the encouragement of being reminded what ministry is all about.  It is not about getting bogged down with all the details, it is not about preaching the perfect sermon every Sunday, or making sure every service has zero mistakes, or teaching the most brilliant insights never heard before in Bible studies.  Rather, it is about loving lost, broken, sinful people.  It is about reminding those sinful people, including yourself, that Jesus has done all the hard work already.  He has accomplished the perfection part of ministry.  Now we have the opportunity to live every day in His grace, and to remind all those around us that if God has forgiven and redeemed a sinful person like me, He can and has most certainly done it for them too.  Jesus doesn't hand out grace once a day!  It's not like a new dose of grace is delivered at 6 A.M. and then as soon as you sin that day, now you have to wait until 6 A.M. the next day to receive that next dose.  Jesus showers His grace upon us all day, every day.  The moment we fail to live in that grace, we can immediately turn back to Him, confess and plead for His forgiveness, and know He hears us, He forgives us, and He continues to pour out that grace upon us in that very moment.  What an awesome way to go about your day knowing He is with you, His grace is raining down upon you, and you are forgiven!  You are a child of God.  You live in His grace.  He gives you the abundance of His kingdom now.  Go share that abundance and that grace with those in your life who don't yet know Christ and what He has done for them.