JANUARY 2019 EDITION

On Thursday, February 7, I am having hip replacement surgery.

You can imagine how excited I am! Actually, I am really looking forward to this, as my hip has gotten very painful in the last several weeks. It has hampered my activities and affected my sleep.  For the first time, I have felt all of my seventy-three years! This is very unlike me. I have always answered the question, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” with the response, “Probably in my thirties.” For me, age has been more about attitude than actual years lived.

Now here is the deal about my upcoming surgery. It is my second hip replacement. I had my left hip done in 2005.  I went in the hospital at 5:30 a.m. and left the next day at 10:00 a.m. The hospital staff had me up and walking right after surgery. It was a very easy surgery. I was back playing tennis very rapidly, within about six weeks. Good news! The surgery I am have this time is what I call “Laundry Surgery”, you know, “In by nine, out by five’! Wow!

The only problem with the previous surgery was that I waited too long to have it done. Being a guy, I put it off until I was literally dragging my left leg around. Ten years before an orthopedic doctor told me I should have it done! Reminiscent of the scene from “Monty Python’s Holy Grail”, I would act as if it was “a mere flesh wound.” 

I am pretty good at putting things off. In school, I would always wait until the very last minute to study for a test. I am embarrassed to say that preparation for Young Life club talks would happen the same way. I would say that I worked best under pressure! I do not recommend this way of living.

There is one thing that I would beg you not to put off.

Read what a cautionary thought C.S. Lewis has written               regarding procrastination.

“God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time, it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.”

If you have not started a relationship with Christ or if you have let that relationship slide, I beg you; take care of that, please! “Friends don’t let friends die without Jesus!” I love each of you too much not to have at least passed along these thoughts.

MINISTRY NEWS AND NEEDS

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DECEMBER 2018 EDITION

I am so glad I got my flu shot last fall! So many people are suffering the effects of the flu… chills, fever, muscle aches, deep congestion in chest and sinuses, and constant coughing.

Oh wait... that is exactly what I have been suffering for the last week! I was in bed for more than two days. I haven’t been that sick in a long, long time. If it hadn’t been for bowl week I would have gone berserk! I have no idea where I picked up the flu virus. I have tried to wash my hands a lot. I don’t know anyone in the family who has had the flu recently.  I am told there are basically four different strains of this flu. I guess I had the wrong type of vaccine. Who knows where this “bad infection” came from?

C.S. Lewis talks of another infection. “He (Jesus) came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has—by what I call ‘good infection’. Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.” (Mere Christianity)

I guess there are many ways to spread the “good infection.” There are church sermons, evangelistic revivals, street preachers, and Bible studies etc. What I think Lewis was trying to communicate was the “good infection” is best spread by each one of us living out the life that Christ has put into us by His Spirit. This infection is best spread person-to-person.

The ministry ofYoung Life talks about the best way to share the life of Christ with others is the “process” of personal relationship evangelism. They have the descriptive progressive relationship phrase, “Face-to-face, friend-to-friend- heart-to-heart.” They talk about “winning the right to be heard” through personal friendship “a life on a life.”

Am I becoming a “little Christ” as Lewis challenges us? Am I seeking to allow Christ’s Spirit free reign in my life to mold me into Christ-likeness more and more in order to spread the “good infection” to those within my sphere of influence?

It has taken me almost a week to recover from the flu or “the bad infection.”  I pray I can be an effective “carrier” of the “good infection: and continue its spread for the rest of my life. I only hope that this “good infection” gets more pervasive.

MINISTRY NEWS AND NEEDS:

Please don’t forget! When you purchase something from Amazon, please go to www.smile.amazon.com  and put in: Net Work Ministries, Inc. Amazon contributes a portion of each sale to our ministry!

As I begin our 27^th year of ministry though Net Work Ministries, I would desire your prayers for wisdom, provision, endurance and renewed vision for new and exciting ways that God can use this ministry.

I plan to continue meeting individually with men for counsel and encouragement.

I plan to continue my ministry as volunteer pastor to the staff of Young Life in the Southeast Region.

I remain open to lead new weekly men’s groups and to facilitate men’s retreats.

I am so very grateful to each one of you dear friends who have offered prayer, words of encouragement and financial support over the past year. I pray that I may be found worthy of the same in 2019.