© JavierArtPhotography/stock.adobe.com
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a fireman or a policeman.
With many in my generation, I spent hours watching Johnny Gage on Emergency! and officers Malloy and Reed in Adam-12. Fifty years later, I’m still watching weekly dramas about these community servants.
What do you do when you hear a siren and see flashing red-and-blue lights and perhaps a super loud horn?
Likely, your first response is: “What did I do?” Or maybe: “Dang, I got caught!”
Once you realize the attention is not directed at you and you breathe a sigh of relief, then what do you do?
A few years ago, I developed this short prayer I try to pray every time I see an emergency vehicle: “Lord, you know what happened. Help those who need help right now and help those who are going to help them.”
That’s one of my “pocket prayers,” to borrow a phrase from Max Lucado.
Listen
I learn mostly by listening.
I’m an audible learner, so audiobooks, podcasts, and other broadcasts are a preferred way of acquiring information and knowledge for me.
Full disclosure: We started our own podcast at Denison Forum in January called The Denison Forum Podcast. Please check it out and let us know if it’s useful to you. If it is, recommend it to other servant believers and leaders. You can also send us topics to discuss and questions at [email protected].
Recently, my friend Jason Hodges in Boston pointed me to a podcast he likes called Stuff You Should Know. That’s a broad umbrella for a podcast. Today’s APV newsletter has two things. It’s like a siren to get your attention and “stuff you should know” that I hope you’ll find helpful.
Look
As Easter draws near, you will likely see new ads coming across your TV during the NCAA March Madness tournament or other favorite program. The ads are coming from a nationwide $150 million dollar campaign called “He Gets Us” sponsored by the Servant Foundation.
You can learn about this effort at their website, hegetsus.com. You can also get the context and background for this effort from this presentation done last week by Dr. Ed Stetzer.
I love the objectives of this campaign: to restore respect for Jesus, to help Christians to love well, and to equip believers to understand the current culture better.
Those goals are all in alignment with what we are about at Denison Forum, and I hope in your church too. Encourage your members to watch for these ads. Encourage them to offer a “pocket prayer” for their impact locally and nationally whenever they see one.
Help
The world is rightly fixated on the conflict and crisis in Ukraine. More than three million citizens have evacuated the country in the wake of the Russian invasion. Further estimates are that 25 percent of the Ukraine people have been displaced and disrupted in some significant way.
We need to be praying for the people of Ukraine, especially the children, and for this war to end now. Lord, hear our prayer!
Several people have contacted us at Denison Ministries asking for recommendations on how to tangibly help people in Ukraine. The ministries listed below have proven track records for humanitarian relief and support for people in crisis.
In several cases, members of the Denison Ministries team have personal relationships with people serving in these ministries. Based on what we know from the past and right now, we encourage you and your church to send donations to one or more of these ministries who are actively involved on the ground in and near Ukraine:
As we prayerfully, personally, and congregationally think about what we should give or do—including the possibility of going—let the Macedonian Christians inspire us from two thousand years ago:
“And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us” (2 Corinthians 8:1–5 NIV).
Search
