"Men At The Cross"

Greetings,

I wanted to share with you what I feel that the Lord is guiding me to do as we have been praying for the last 3 months and asking, “Lord, what is it that you want me to do at this time and this place to touch people with the love of Jesus.”

The second part of the prayer was that we are certain that the Lord will show us the center of His will. I am certain that the Lord wants me to go to Men at the Cross at the Toyota Center on Aug 22 in the eve and Aug 23 in the morning. The speakers, including Max Lucado, Steve Farrar, Tony Evans, and Joe White are truly great, and the musicians including Michael Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Brandon Heath are great Christian artists. Would you please pray that the Lord opens the way for you to be able to go there with me and be touched by the message of Men at the Cross? You can go to the website to view 2 videos and to register for your ticket at www.menatthecross.org. The theme is: “Lord, lead me to mentor and love one man to Jesus till he is ready to love another man to Jesus.”

I feel this is such a tremendous opportunity for us as elders to let the Lord take us to Men At The Cross, and then watch how he will use us. Let's please pray for each other that the Lord touches our hearts with a passion to go. Please also start to pray for the night of the 22nd and 23rd for the Lord

• to truly bless this weekend,


• for men's hearts to be open as they are there,


• for people to be brought to faith there that do not know Jesus,


• for Jesus to share the center of His will for us as we are there, and


• for all the glory to be given to God.

I am excited how the Lord has given us this opportunity right in the center of the time that we, as the congregation of St Mark have been praying for the center of God’s will.

Blessings, Joy, and Excitement,
Fred Tonn

Questions re:1829 Club

Pastor Scott,

After all this time in prayer, I must confess that I have not received a definitive answers to the “what do you want your people to do…” query. The LORD has, however, repeatedly confronted me with two questions.

The first question is whether, in fact, the whole premise of 28:19 is an appropriate one to ask this particular congregation at this particular time. This notion came from the LORD challenging me with the difference between the hearts of this congregation (myself included) for, say, putting together a pageant, with its heart for outreach. Whether it was Met, Lisa, Jessica, Kathy, or John it seemed that all it took was a phone call and hordes would volunteer countless hours to produce pageant and all without complaint. I wonder if we would have the same Spirit-filled effort for planting a church? Or, does the motivation for participation in pageant come from somewhere else? Don’t get me wrong. I love pageant. I just don’t think it is the direct method of outreach contemplated by 28:19.

Of course, this question begs a larger one: is this congregation properly educated about the fundamental importance of witness to the Christian faith? There are certainly many individuals at St Mark that have devoted themselves to the practice of witness. But, for the congregation as a whole, the answer to this question comes back, “probably not”. If that is the answer in the current life of this congregation, wouldn’t this knowledge gap be the first thing to rectify? It seems obvious that we should know about this; maybe it isn’t…

I don’t know much about one of our potential partners in this effort, Cross Point Church, but it seems that their congregational culture is different in this regard, that they have something of this knowledge…

The second question is: as a congregation, once we get motivated, to “whom” do we witness? In prayer, I keep picturing some anonymous face like Paul saw in Acts 16:9 saying, “come over to Macedonia and help us”. If I remember correctly, it would have been Paul’s will to head north and east from where he was in Asia Minor and not into Europe (v.6,7) but the Spirit “would not allow” it. His obedience to this vision changed the whole history of the Christian Church; so, it seems that paying close attention to the leading of the Spirit is critically important here. The man in Paul’s vision said “Macedonia”, but I can’t help but believe that Paul would have known him by dress or speech otherwise. I personally can’t distinguish this man, but he’s out there. By that I mean “they’re out there” as in an ethnic group or geographical location relative to St Mark. I live ten miles southeast of St Mark, so my familiarity with areas north and west that have been mentioned in context with 28:19 are very limited.

Forgive, again the fact that I do not have a glimmer of an answer to this question; but, I am willing to follow someone who does.

In Christ,
Steve Grosmann

Funeral Annoucement for LENA HEWITT

Hi. This is Pastor Heitshusen of St. Mark Lutheran with an important announcement.

Last Wednesday, August 5, the Lord called to Himself longtime St. Mark member, Lena Hewitt. Lena passed away just after her 99th birthday.

Visitation will be at St. Mark on Monday, August 11, beginning at 9:30am with a funeral service following at 11:00am. Internment will follow at South Park Funeral Home in Pearland.

Please keep Lena’s family in your prayers during this difficult time.

A "Campaign of Commitment"

Gentlemen,

First let me say what a pleasure it was to work with you during this process. It was an experience that pushed me outside of my “box”.

I never saw a singular direction for our church. With so many people with so many talents certainly God wouldn’t limit us to one goal. When I prayed, “Lord, what do you want your people at St. Mark to do to touch people with the love of Christ?” I saw individuals, families and groups of families Committed to doing that which God has lead them to do. If you would, think of a family working with a mission to help the people there, a group of families coming together to help start a satellite church or 50 men joining with Fred and the Men at the Cross. There are too many possibilities to see them all. The common thread through all this is the commitment, the commitment to do as God would have you to do and follow through with it. I see the church leading a “campaign of commitment” where our members commit to doing something to touch someone with the love of Christ, to do as Christ has commissioned us to do. I realize this is late in the process, but I have struggled with the question “is this meant for me or the church”. I have come to the conclusion that it is me and my family and it is something we will do. Whether this is God’s vision for our church, I don’t know, but I thought I’d put it in to the forum to see where it leads.

Again, Thanks
Frank Radtke

2819 Club -- Raw Data Results

From May through July several people met for 19 minutes on Sunday morning to ask what the Lord wanted the people of St. Mark to do to touch people with the love of Jesus Christ.

That question was also asked in worship at both services on Sunday, July 27.

The following links to a rather large document which contains the raw answers that basic question. The only editing that has taken place is for style, mistypes, and spelling, and other minor aspects. The responses themselves remain unchanged.

From here, we will go through these results in more detail, categorizing and summarizing them into like areas and fields. Following that, we will prioritizes the goals and the means by which we will reach them by God's grace.

In His service and yours,
Pastor Scott

http://stmarkhouston.org/documents/20080728--2819_Club--RESPONSES--COMPLETED.pdf

Nick Moss Declines Call to St. Mark

Last Wednesday, after prayerful deliberation, DCE Nick Moss declined St. Mark's call to be our Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries. He feels the Lord still has work for him to do at St. Paul Lutheran in Lakeland, FL.

We praise God for His steadfast faithfulness as we continue to find the person the Lord has chosen for us.

In Christ's service and yours,
Pastor Scott

Wednesday Noon Services Discontinued

It is always difficult to discontinue a ministry option when some still receive benefit from it. However, at this time we are unable to continue offering the noon service time on Wednesdays, effective immediately.

The Wednesday evening service time will remain and is unaffected by this decision.

In Christ,
Pastor Scott