Yes, it's again been a full week without writing on the blog. My readership is probably not out of single digits but you would think there would at least be something to say here. Most of my week was spent recovering from the previous three weeks. Perhaps this makes me sound a bit weak but it was a draining event. It's also possible that the daily deluges of rain did not aid me in my desire to write. It looked to me like we should start brushing up on our ark building skills. I have not heard a final total on the amount of rain we received but it had to be well over six inches. Tomorrow will be another day for mowing in case more rain moves into our area. Maybe it would be better to describe tomorrow as hay cutting with all the precipitation that fell on the grass. This is Texas weather at its finest as summer grudgingly gives way to fall.

We are just underway with a new series of studies on Sunday mornings. It is yet another topical series rather than one that just moves through a book of the Bible. We are talking about being a successful believer especially as it relates to the church. This may be the first time in my tenure here that we tackled this topic in depth. Sure we made reference to some of the ideas in the past but never have we spent ten weeks just learning what makes a healthy believer or church. Some of the ideas to be presented will be tough to digest for some. Some of the subjects will perhaps even stir controversy. But we need to nail down what goes into being a strong congregation during these days. Let's hope our eyes, ears and hearts are open to what God may say to us.

Today we talked about how the active presence of the Lord changes everything about life or church. Our scripture was the story of a paralytic whose friends lowered him down through a roof in order to be delivered. A vibrant congregation is not dependent on the latest fads to bring authentic life. We must recover the amazing truth that God plus nothing means anything can happen. But we also noted we have to be on guard against temptation to do it our self. We can try to be independent of God in our efforts. What happens is that we work harder without developing a dependence on God. Things may improve but at what cost if we leave Him out? We also noted the temptation of idolatry when it comes to these things. A church may say they want more people, more money and more stuff but it's all for selfish reasons. We also noted that we suffer from the impossible syndrome. That is when we look at circumstances and make a conclusion that we just cannot be better than what we are. People usually practice this in a selective fashion. We tend to forget what God's power can accomplish.

We should expect church to be shaped by the activity of God in our midst. The number one reason for such a truth derives from our prayers. We cannot control every situation to make things get bigger or better. Even Jesus prays often in the midst of a hectic schedule. In fact, it seems that it is His praying that makes the miraculous a possibility. When we pray, we connect our circumstance to God's power. When we do better at prayer we will do better at everything else in church life. My hope is we can have this a given part of our spiritual journey. We cannot do worse than praying for God to change things. We cannot do any better than when we do just that.

Bro. Trey