Berean Journeymen

John Pound has been transferred to Cleveland and is currently undergoing aggressive chemotherapy treatment. Please continue to keep him and the Pound family in your prayers. Also the wedding reception that was going to be held for his brother, Matt and his wife Audrey has been cancelled due to the family crisis.

Men Of Berean,

We normally meet every Friday for prayer in the Chapel on Friday's at 6:30 am. This Friday with it being a holiday, we are not going to meet, but instead we will meet at 8:00 am Saturday Morning in the Chapel. We had planned on increasing the focus and boldness of our prayers this coming year, and feel now the time is all the more appropriate.

This Saturday Morning at 8:00 am we will meet in the chapel to lift up the Pound Family, our church leadership and our church body in prayer. All men are welcome, please come even if you can only be there for a few minutes.

If you know of men who are not included on this email list, please invite them also.

In him we trust,


Tim Campbell

Men of Berean,

Please be in prayer for Jonathan Pound, Pastor Dave and Sher Pound's son, who has been diagnosed with cancer. We will be having special prayer times in the Chapel the following times this week:

6:30-7:30 pm Tuesday evening

6:30-7:30 pm Wednesday evening

6:30-7:30 pm Thursday evening at the New Year's Eve Service

Also, the Chapel will be open for people to drop by and pray on Wednesday from 9-4 and New Year's Eve from 9-12.

Please keep the Pound family in your prayers. Pastor Dave and Sher Pound's son, John, has been taken to MedCentral Mansfield. During an MRI for an injury, they found an aggressive cancer mass and they are currently performing more tests at this time. The family is respectfully requesting that there not be any visitation at the hospital due to the testing and the rest that John needs. If you would like to provide family meals or other assistance please contact the church office at 419-756-3300.

You used to have to wait for a high-school reunion to meet up with an old flame, but now people are doing it on a daily basis on Facebook. According to Time magazine, recycling a past relationship is the hottest trend on social networking sites. Why? Sites like Facebook make it so EASY to find people again, and you can try to rekindle a romance without the fear of a face-to-face rejection or an awkward call to their parents.

Nancy Kalish is a psychologist who’s studied these recycled relationships. Her research shows that, for many people, their first relationship is just as fresh in their minds 20 or 30 years down the road, as it was when it first happened. In fact, 25% of people on social networking sites say they’d love to get back together with their high school sweetheart, and about 39% have actually tried! Elise Garber is one person who did. When she was 15 years old she dated a boy she met at summer camp, but like most summer romances, it ended when school started. Twenty-two years later she looked him up on Facebook. They met up for drinks and something just clicked. Next thing you know, Elise quit her job and moved 2,000 miles to be with him, and earlier this month they got married!

Kalish says that’s not unusual. First loves make a huge emotional impact on us, and we develop our concept of relationships based on that first one. However, finding an old love isn’t all hearts and flowers, especially if there are current marriages involved. Kalish interviewed a thousand people who had met up with an ex while they were married. Of these people, a whopping 82% of them had extramarital affairs, and about half went so far as to divorce their current spouse for their former love! If you’re single, looking up an old flame might be a recipe for true love. Kalish says marriages between two people who rekindled an old relationship have a lower than average divorce rate. If you’re married, avoid the ex at all costs! Even if your motives are pure, the lure of a lost love might be too strong to fight!

Do we feel the weight of the Holy Spirit pressing upon us? Do we feel that prompting of God to be drawn to him, to be obedient to his commands, to be obedient to his will? Do we hear God saying we must make a choice; we cannot serve self, and Him.

As I reflect back over the last year or so and contemplate where I am personally, and where we are corporately in our relationship with God, our wives, our families, and our brothers and sisters in Christ. Are we where God wants us? Are we completely surrendered to God and His will for our lives, or are we just using God as a "Life Insurance Policy” or are we truly repentant? Are we submitting under God in our marriages, and under the authority of our government and our employers, or supervisors?

Are we transparent and real with God? Do we truly confess our sins to God, and to others? Or, do we believe Satan's lie that our sins are worse and more sinful than those around us? Are we are so paralyzed by fear of being found out that we do not build those relationships for fear of being found out? Do we believe that our sins are unforgivable or unshareable? Are we embarrassed by our struggles in our marriages, or finances, or with your children? Are we so embarrassed that we pretend in church that everything is okay, but refuse to get close to people for fear of them seeing right through us?

Yet, while all this is going on, we long to share these burdens. We long have someone to be honest with. We long to be forgiven and accepted for our sins, and our failures. We long for that personal relationship with God that is unhindered by the sin that separates us from HIM. We long for those personal relationships that are unhindered by the sin in our lives. We long to be open and transparent and real.

God longs for us to have that kind of relationship with him, and with his body. He waits patiently for us as we navigate through an empty life trying to fill that desire which can only be filled with him and relationships with his body.
Is it easy to turn to God, and repent? Is it easy to repent in front of others and be honest with our sin and baggage which drags us down every day? Is it easy to kneel before the Altar, and allow the church to see you are not perfect?
We all know it is not easy. It is very difficult, and we have been warned by God’s word how difficult it is. We must give up our pride, and humble ourselves. We must give up our idols. We must take the narrow path. We must submit. We must pray for our enemies. We must be in the world, but not of the world. Do those sound like easy things?

The question is not is it easy, but is it worth it? If I give up all these things, is what I get in return worth it? We go through all of life evaluating decisions on risk verses reward? Should we get married? Should we have kids? Should I go to college? Should I take this job? Should I invest in this company? Should I buy this? In every single one of those decisions, there are no guarantees. If we chose to turn from the world and follow Jesus Christ and his Word, the rewards are guaranteed and eternal, promising benefits in this life and the life yet to come.
Talk is cheap, so how do we get what we are talking about? It begins with us! We must make the first steps. We must openly and honestly confess our sins to God, and to other brothers and sisters in Christ. We aren't talking about saying to God or to a Christian brother or sister, that "Forgive me for my sins God” or "I've got sin in my life, please pray for me” We are talking about openly and honestly coming before God, and saying "God, I'm struggling in pornography or sexual addictions" "God my life, finances and marriage are a mess" "God I'm having an affair?" "God I'm addicted to drugs and alcohol” and most importantly... "... God I cannot do life anymore without you"

After we openly confess our sins to God, then we must ask God to show us, or give us people in our lives to share these sins with. Some of you may feel that is impossible, but it is not. There are many sins that have and are being shared among brothers and sisters in Christ, and people are receiving true freedom from the bondages of sin, freedoms which cannot come from keeping it in. Relationships are being built and growing deeper because of this.

If someone comes to you and confesses a sin in their life, embrace them, encourage them, pray with them and listen to them, go with them to the Altar. Do not be judgmental, in thought, word or deed; because we all know that we all have sins in our lives that are just as embarrassing and just as difficult for us. You may even take the opportunity to confess the sins that you have been struggling with. If you do, your friendship and relationship will go to a new level. There will be a bond that sin has lost the power to separate.

We as a body need to repent. Repentance begins with confessing our sins to God and one another. I encourage you all to examine your life today and start your first step towards repentance. As you do confess and repent, then be ready to see God in a whole new way.

Your Brother In Christ,

Tim