Prayers and Praise for July 15, 2010

Hi prayer partners,

Last Sunday was one of the best days of my life. To get to preach in my home country church with family and childhood friends was a dream come true. I have loved my many travels and have seen the Lord work in a lot of places, BUT there is no place like seeing Him work in your own home community. In the afternoon, we had a baptismal service at the boat dock at the lake. We had about 25 baptisms and 90 people showed up for the event. I loved hearing the testimonies of how the people had come to the Lord. I always want to hear people give their testimony of “When, Where and Why” they invited Jesus into their lives. Then some came out to be baptized and said, “I don’t have a story” so I invited them to repent of their sins and ask Jesus into their hearts and THEN Carl Johnson and I baptized them too. I got to share that baptism doesn’t save anyone, BUT is a great picture of what goes on in salvation of our “death, burial and resurrection” to walk in a newness of life. Ok, I am still excited!!!!! God is SO good. Thanks for your prayers!

This Friday is our NGL board meeting at John Dixon’s house in Makanda. Please remember our meeting as we share about our theme for the coming year and plan for our Annual Men’s Retreat. That will be a great meeting as Jim Murphy will be at the meeting and will share how the Lord has brought him through his bout with cancer.

Thanks for your prayers for my wife, Janie. She is in rehab and is progressing slowly, but surely. We are thankful.

I will be preaching at Shane’s church this Sunday night at 6 pm on “PRAYER” from my point of view in light of the places I have gone and how prayer has worked in those situations. It is good to be in the Methodist Church on this as I can share it from a point of view as “Sanctification” as I believe the “gifts” of the Holy Spirit are the main tools for connecting with God to get to the end of the earth. I would really appreciate your prayers.

Thanks for your love, concern and prayers,

Love ya's,
Fred

Proverbs 16:3, "Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed."

Thinking Ahead to 2011

Hello Great Men of God!

I hope you are all having a GREAT summer! It was great to celebrate the Fourth of July and just be thankful for our country even with all the problems facing us or maybe because of all the problems facing us today. Summers are filled with vacations and ball games, so enjoy yourselves and then let’s get ready for the coming year together.

The last weekend in September is always our “Training Camp” for the next year. We hold it at the Community of Faith Campground in Carterville, Illinois. This gives us a chance to come together, worship, have fellowship and get direction for the coming year. I always appreciate input on which book to use for our theme. Some people like books more on prayer, others like books on leadership and so on. I love it when people have a book that means something to them and they send me a copy. I really like it when they send me one that is underlined as that helps me to see where the “rubber hits the road” for them.

These three books have been suggested in consideration for our book for 2011:

1. “Man in the Mirror” by Patrick Morley

2. “Season of Life” by Jeffrey Marx

3. “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect” by John Maxwell

I know some of you are interested in what we are going to use for the coming year. So, I am appealing to you to look over these books and let me know what you think we should use and why. Our purpose in NGL is to build leaders and believe the Lord to call men forth as better men, husbands, and fathers and for the Lord to lead men forth to the ends of the earth to share the gospel in these last days.

My nephew’s wife Jill Hampleman just sent me the messages her church has been doing and they sure have some good points for all of us to consider and work on this summer:

“We just finished a series of sermons at our church entitled "The Warrior" the sermon spoke directly to men on how to reach younger men. There were 3 main points that dealt with your earthly father and your heavenly father: 1. Forgive your father Colossians 3:13. Stop replaying your parents or your father's shortcomings. 2. Accept your father for who he is. Romans 15:7 Accept his weaknesses. 3. Replace your earthly father with heavenly father. The Lord wants to be the one to believe in you. Find a young boy or man to encourage. Let him know: 1. I believe in you. 2. I am proud of you. 3. No matter what, I'll always love you. Matthew 3:17.”

Love ya’s,

Fred

Isaiah 12:4 (The Message) “Joyfully you'll pull up buckets of water from the wells of salvation. And as you do it, you'll say, “Give thanks to God. Call out his name. Ask him anything! Shout to the nations, tell them what he's done, spread the news of his great reputation!”

Weekly Prayer Message, July 5, 2010

Hi prayer partners,

I was glad to see this past weekend come around to give us a chance to reflect on how privileged we are to live in America. In spite of all the problems, we are still very blessed.

I am not a detailed person and yet I have had to do a lot of those kind of things and it has been a tough process and I have made a lot of mistakes. It is beginning to smooth out and I am learning to go slow and check the details.

This week we will be sending out a mass mailing to get people on board to start looking ahead for a theme and a book for the coming year for the ministry. Pray for the mailing to touch men’s hearts and for us to choose the path for the coming year that would be pleasing to the Lord and benefit the men.

Bernie Kneale will be taking about ten prayer warriors to pray over Mark Jordan, Brad Watkins and Grant Armstrong at their new appointments on Thursday. Pray for them and for these new appointments.

I will be speaking again at my childhood country church again this Sunday and I would appreciate your prayers for that. I really enjoyed getting to speak there two weeks ago. I have gone to many countries, but my home is the place where I most want to share the Lord.

Thanks for your prayers,

Love ya’s,
Fred

PS: This will come out in our mass mailing, but it really struck me today. My nephew’s wife, Jill Hampleman sent me this:

We just finished a series of sermons at our church entitled "The Warrior" the sermon spoke directly to men on how to reach younger men. There were 3 main points that dealt with your earthly father and your heavenly father: 1. Forgive your father Collosians 3:13. Stop replaying your parents or your father's shortcomings. 2. Accept your father for who he is. Romans 15:7.accept his weaknesses. 3. Replace your earthly father with heavenly father.

The Lord wants to be the one to believe in you. Find a young boy or man to encourage. Let him know: 1. I believe in you. 2. I am proud of you. 3. No matter what, I'll always love you. Matthew 3:17.