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Romans 10:17 – Where faith and life connect! By Pastor Lee Hemen June 26, 2011 AM There are those who actually think that Vacation Bible School is old fashioned. Some in fact have tried to kind of “lie” about it and rename it “Summer Day Camp,” or “Children’s Week.” Vacation Bible School is still VBS, no matter how you try to repackage it. Nevertheless, is it still important for a church to continue to do? After all, it does take a lot of time, effort, and money. I believe it is extremely important for any church to do VBS because it is where faith and life connect! In our modern world, we have become disconnected because of the advent of electronics and the use of things like E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, or Skype. We can stay kind of connected by these means, but they tend to be impersonal, fragmented, and an excuse not to know one another face-to-face. While some of these things can be used to keep loved ones connected, they are poor substitutes for the real thing. The same ...

Nehemiah 6:15-16 - Building the Church -- Doing the work of God! By Pastor Lee Hemen June 19, 2011 AM Just when we thought we would be getting ready to be empty nesters, God had other plans. It may not have been the way we would have planned out our lives, but I am honored and willing to be used of the Lord in helping my grandson grow and mature in him. The spiritual and physical maturation of a family is never completed. It is an ongoing process and a parent can see it either as drudgery or as a blessing. I have discovered that God’s task in the Church is never completed either, why is that? I believe it is because we are to be about the Master’s business until he returns. However, have you noticed that for some Christians they never get involved in their church, for others it has become drudgery, and yet for still others it remains a joy? Now, why is that? I believe that it all depends on how you view doing God’s task! After Nehemiah’s wall rebuilding was finished, he did ...

Nehemiah 6:1-14 - Building the Church -- How Satan’s snares work! By Pastor Lee Hemen June 12, 2011 AM When you’re ten years old, there is nothing better than trapping and catching your own wild animals! Now I am not advocating hurting God’s little creatures for fun, but when you’re 10 being a “big” game hunter is an adventure! My brother and I went after the wily chipmunk. Actually, it was my father’s fault. He was the one who showed us how to make the traps! We caught and released dozens of chipmunks that summer. The little guys never figured out the traps we prepared for them! In our spiritual lives there are snares set for the unsuspecting as well and those that have no relationship with Christ fall easily into them. Sometimes, the strongest believer can be snared. Satan sets his snares well. In Nehemiah, we see several different types of these snares that were used to discourage God’s man and make him ineffective. The same snares are used on us today. When we know how S...

Nehemiah 5:1-13 - Building the Church -- Responding to the challenges! By Pastor Lee Hemen June 5, 2011 AM Up to this time, the spiritual challenges that Nehemiah had to face were mainly from the outside of Judah. Nevertheless, before the walls were rebuilt, he encountered the most difficult and intense problem that most spiritual leaders have to face--problems from within. He faced problems from his own people! How would he meet these challenges? When an individual decides to be the spiritual leader in their home or life, they will immediately face challenges from within! The challenges will come from within yourself in remaining steadfast in your faith, from within your family, friendships, or sometimes even by fellow church members! Nehemiah teaches us how to break down the challenges into bite-sized pieces, and to respond in an appropriate way as a believer. As we build our church or our lives, we can respond to the challenges that we face! READ: Nehemiah 5:1-13 Shari ha...

Nehemiah 4:1-23 - Building the Church -- Learning how to trust God! By Pastor Lee Hemen May 29, 2011 AM Why is it that some of us seem to face more opposition in life than others? Perhaps it is because of our circumstances, the results of our choices, or could there be another dynamic at work in our lives that we have not understood before? When children are little, they often love to be thrown high into the air and caught by their father. However, as they get older the rules for the game became different. As the child is tossed into the air, as has happened so many times before, they now become frightened. Why? (No, it is not because they have been dropped so many times before!) They began to trust their head more than their faith in their father to catch them! When trying to build our lives in Christ we can go through the same kind of fears. We start out trusting Jesus, but as we face physical and spiritual obstacles, we begin to trust our head more than we trust Christ. ...

Building a strong church--accomplishing the impossible! Nehemiah 3:1-32 By Pastor Lee Hemen May 22, 2011 AM Has anyone ever told you that you cannot do something and so to prove him or her wrong, you went ahead and did it anyway? That attitude can be seen as being headstrong, if it is motivated by pride. I remember when I was in High School I told a young lady I could ski. I had not been on skis since I was a very young boy and I knew nothing of getting on or off a ski lift! This fact was embarrassingly revealed when I agreed to take her skiing at Crystal Mountain near Mt. Rainer. The first time down the slope, I nearly killed several others and myself all because I wanted to impress a girl. However, if your attitude is motivated by what God has shown is possible in your life, then, there is a whole new dynamic at work! The Apostle Paul wrote that he could “...do everything through Him (Jesus) who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13) We discover that Nehemiah had the same...

Nehemiah 2:11-20 - Building a Church through F. A. I. T. H. By Pastor Lee Hemen May 15, 2011 AM We have all heard the old adage that states, “Heaven helps those who help themselves!” However, many might be surprised to learn that it is not found anywhere in the Bible. In fact, it comes from an Aesop’s fable! The story does give out some good advice. It seems that a teamster got his heavy wagon stuck deep in the mud. As he stood there, helpless, and crying out for help, Hercules shows up! Hercules looks disgustingly at the man and tells him, “Put your shoulder to the wheel and goad your horses. Then, call on Hercules to assist you. If you won’t lift a finger to help yourself, you can’t expect Hercules or anyone else to come to your aid.” Some mistakenly think that faith works that way that they have to be good before God loves them. They have to “help” themselves before God will. This simply is not true. God already loves us, if he did not, he would not have sent Jesus to di...

Building the Church--Allowing Time for Proper Preparation Nehemiah 2:1-10 By Pastor Lee Hemen May 7, 2011 AM I had received one of those plastic model airplanes! This was going to be great stuff! With eager anticipation I opened the box and out fell hundreds of pieces of tiny little plastic parts, decals, and plans. What had started out as eager anticipation was reduced to utter disappointment. How was I going to build this thing with all of its hundreds of parts and pieces? My mother happened to come into my bedroom delivering a pile of clean clothes, she inquired why I was so depressed looking. I showed her the hundreds of plastic pieces and she responded, “You’ve just got to allow time for proper preparation. Read the directions and take it one piece at a time.” Now a ten-year-old kid doesn’t have a lot of patience with details, but I learned that spring that if I planned properly I could build a pretty detailed plastic model airplane! A church can be a lot like a ten-ye...

2 Chronicles 7:13-15 - Building a Strong Church -- How to Pray With Power ! By Pastor Lee Hemen April 17, 2011 AM We live in a day and age where the church has become pretty much irrelevant, why is that? I believe it has become irrelevant because the church has immersed itself and adopted the ways of the world instead of changing society. When Jesus came, he did so to bring the kingdom of God back into creation. Jesus established his body in the world, the church, in order to change the world one individual at a time. When an individual gives their life to Christ, they then can experience and know the power of God in their lives on a daily basis! How? It’s simple--through prayer. Sadly, most people do not experience a powerful prayer life and then they begin to look for outside experiences to satisfy the spiritual void they have. There are reasons why so many have never experienced powerful prayer, one is the simple fact that they never learned how to pray with power! When S...