In Numbers chapter 16, an interesting thing happened. Some priests rose up against Moses and Aaron. Moses was just being obedient to what the Lord was telling him to do in leading the people. Korah thought that Moses was wrong in taking that leadership even though Moses was God’s chosen. Korah said,

“You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?” (Numbers 16:3)

How often do we see that very thing happening? People who, out of a desire to control others, attack the God-called and God-placed leadership. We are all important and called by God, but the Minister’s calling is to lead, train, equip, and challenge in love! The man of God called to lead as a Minister will place value in the following…

1. God’s Kingdom to be exalted, not the minister.

2. God’s people to be led by the Word, not pushed around by those wielding it.

3. Relationships of love to be built and strengthened within the faith-family, not a sense of lording-over or unavailability.

4. An outward focus of reaching the lost, along with the desire of equipping the saved.

5.  Releasing the saved to serve within the capacity of their spiritual gifts, not being a “Lone Ranger” type staff.

6. An ability to see people for who they can become when surrendered to God rather than who they are living for themselves!

7. An understanding of when to reshape an existing “ministry”, kill the “sacred cow”, and develop new ministries while having a spirit of mercy and restoration for those who struggle with change.

Obviously, making God’s Word a priority and being a Prayerful Leader are BASIC and necessary elements of this Leader’s life.

May God bless us as we, at FBC Weaver, move into God’s future for us under the leadership of our new Pastor, Ron Sweatt! We are excited for what God is going to do in and with us under the leadership of Ron’s ministry!

Ron, we love you and are eager for your arrival in late June! May God bring blessings to your family and the faith-family you leave behind!

Hey Wow!

I can’t begin to tell you my excitement level right now! We are looking our future straight in the face this week at FBC Weaver. We have a prospective Pastor coming in this weekend “in view of a call”. That terminology simply means that our leadership has prayed, searched, prayed some more, and truly believes that this man is God’s man to lead our fellowship into the future. He is coming to meet our people, preach in our morning worship time, and be voted on by our fellowship as Pastor.

In our search (a prayed-through year long process)  for both who we are and who God desires for us to be as a church, we believe God has spoken about what our new Pastor will “look like”. We are a people in need of a leader. That leader must step forward with vision and lead out in fleshing out that vision. He must preach the Word without apology and allow it to be the foundation of His leading and our direction. He must be relational, loving our people and our community to Jesus with grace, mercy, and truth! The ability to work the three of those together (speaking bold truth, showing mercy, and allowing grace to the fallen) is truly a God-given ability. These are big shoes to fill.

Let me now say that we also came to some realizations about ourselves. We must be a body who follows this Pastor’s leadership because God will be placing His man here as the under-shepherd of our fellowship. He will be prayerfully leading, which means we must be prayerfully following. We also must be deep in the Word and prayer every day. We have to have our hearts turned outward again remembering that our mission in this world is to reach the lost with the love of Jesus! While we are to train and equip ourselves for ministry, we must actually DO ministry. A pond with no outlet becomes stagnant and stinks, much the same as a Christian who takes in and never gives out.

In almost every miracle you see in the gospels, the person healed or delivered has been in their pain or situation for some time and then Jesus steps in and changes that life totally. Our church has been through some rough years! But God is stepping in to change the life of this church!

Will you be ready? Are you prayed up? Will you pray for FBC Weaver?

God bless you! Good things are being birthed already in the hearts of His people in this place!