Tim Harlow

Kids Rule At Parkview

Our church is in for a big week. It’s VBS around here and we treat VBS like churches used to treat a “revival.” We already have 750 kids signed up and we will have a ton of walk ins. But the best part is what it does for our people. We have a million volunteers for this thing. People take vacation time so they can be a part of it. It’s such a blast to see all those kids praising Jesus. Be praying for it all as we begin tonight in our weekend service. All the weekend services will be VBSish this weekend. It’s a blast.

One of my girls is home from the Czech republic where they taught at an “English Camp” which is just a front for evangelism in a mostly atheist Country. They saw 7 kids out of the 30 they worked with come to faith in Christ. The stories from Lauren already are amazing. I’m so thankful to Sean and our great church for making crazy God-things like this happen. My youngest daughter, Becca, is coming back tonight with the teens who were in Mexico building a house.

How blessed am I that while most parents are struggling to get their kids to think about anyone but themselves – we have kids who have the opportunity to go out into the rest of the world and realize that we can’t think about only ourselves. What a great church – what a great youth department. Thank you Sean and Jason and Adam and Teri and our interns, Dawn and Corbin, and all our sponsors who went on these trips. PCC gives our kids all the priority that Jesus told us to have.

By the way, here is a picture of a stained glass piece I found in an old shop in Kansas City. We’re having it shipped here to put somewhere in our building because it’s just perfect. Jesus blessing the children. God showed it to me in KC and we’re going to put it somewhere. I know we’re not a big stained glass church – but this is cool.

A Psalm for your day…

Psalm 33:20-22 (NIV)

²⁰ We wait in hope for the Lord;
He is our help and our shield.
²¹ In Him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in His holy name.
²² May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in You

Tim

How Rich are You?

In light of Haydn's sermon last weekend, I know what many of you are thinking.

Check out www.globalrichlist.com to find out where you rank in the world when it comes to wealth.

You will be surprised.

Tim

Blessings from the Czech Republic

Hey, I wanted to let you hear from my 17 year old daughter in the Czech Republic with the youth group.

Sounds like God is really treating them to a great experience.

Tim

I am sitting right now in Laura and Radeck's home (the pastor couple who live here and organized almost everything - they are so awesome) and English camp is officially over.

Europe is everything it’s said to be. The first full day we were here we toured Prague - one of the best cities in the world, and did spiritual prep for the next week. The city is magical! AND we went in a castle! The history is rich; the people are cultured and more reserved because of communist's oppression. There were guitar players all throughout the city and I just loved every minute!

Sunday we traveled (hottest day of the year so far in Czech) two hours out in the middle of the country. I was just in awe of the hills and the castles.

We moved into this camp on the side of a beautiful hill away from civilization and got to prepare for a day with just us and the other Czech leaders from the church here- all ages 17- 25ish and let me tell you, I love these people! Their English is so much better than I expected and we have prayed together, served together, laughed nonstop together, worked our calve muscles together climbing the hill, played uno, and worshiped together!

Good Soil

A follow up to the last post and to last week’s sermon.

We talked about the kind of soil we are giving God. Is it good soil, or is it choked with weeds (Mark 4) like worry, money, or pleasure? Or is it full of rocks and not very deep? Or is it just plain hard soil that God can’t do anything with.

Well, today, my wife came up with a great scripture that would have worked well for last week’s sermon, but at least we can keep talking about it.

James 1:19-25 (NIV)
19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

Again, it’s about our soil. It’s about what we do with the Word and the Word.

Yard Work

Why is the voice of the Lord so loud but it’s hard for me to hear it? This is my question for the day. In my personal reading, I was in Psalm 29.

⁸ The voice of the Lord shakes the desert; the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh. ⁹ The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, “Glory!” Psalm 29:8-9 (NIV)

And then I’m thinking – what? I can’t ever hear God like that.

The sermon for the weekend is the answer, I know it is.

Mark 4:14-20 (NIV)

¹⁴ The farmer sows the word. ¹⁵ Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶ Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. ¹⁷ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ¹⁸ Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹ but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²⁰ Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”

Pouring it Out

I met with some church leaders of a church this week that are tired and discouraged. One in particular was just a saint of a guy who had been at this church since 1965. He’s seen the church go through a lot of changes and a lot of effort to reach lost people. There have been some good times, but then it seemed like something would get in the way. Maybe even Satan. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church, but I do believe that Satan attacks local churches and often times gains a stronghold in them.

I felt so bad for this guy. He has a heart for Jesus and for the lost.

I thought of so many people I know or knew that were in that position. God never calls us to have large churches, don’t get me wrong. He calls us to faithfully work where we are. But I’m so hoping that we can partner with this church and help them fulfill the work of Christ in an area with so many people who need Him.

Clean Hands and a Pure Heart

We are back from the convention. http://www.nacctheconnectingplace.org

It was not well attended but it was a great time to hear some inspirational preaching and learn from people who are making things happen in the Kingdom all over the world. It’s a very draining week, but it is a very inspirational week. The focus was on church planting and it is so encouraging to hear about what God is doing in church planting all over North America. And I had strategic meetings with several people that we will be partnering with to plant more churches. We’ve already made a 6 figure commitment over the next few years to plant a church in downtown New York City.

As much as we’ve tried to refocus our hearts at Parkview to the poor and the hurting in the last few months, we are also going to be about the lost in our own country, and church planting is a big part of that. Unfortunately many of the people I talked to at this convention were at churches that were not fulfilling Jesus commissions to “go and make disciples.” I heard recently that 88% of the congregations in the U.S. did not have a single convert last year.

What’s the point, really?

That’s why church planting is so important. It’s difficult work, but a new church has a much higher probability of reaching those outside of the Kingdom.

It’s Saturday, so I want to make sure I give you a devotional thought for the weekend.

Psalm 24:3-6 - Who may ascend the hill of the LORD?
Who may stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false.
5 He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from God his Savior.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, O God of Jacob.

Don’t you hate it when you come across a righteousness scripture in the Bible and realize how unrighteous you really are? Okay, maybe it’s just me. That’s what I love about the Psalms. So I have the “swearing falsely and not lifting up to an idol” part going pretty well. But clean hands and pure heart? I’m trying. I have a good heart and non-filthy hands. I’m just not really close to clean and pure. I know I won’t ever be, but this is a good reminder for the middle of summer.

What’s My Motivation?

I’m heading off again, this time to our national convention in Kansas City. Someone decided that it was a good idea to have a convention over the 4th of July in Kansas City. I can assure you it wasn’t me. It’s a convention for those of us who are a part of the Independent Christian Church movement. There will be 6,000 - 8,000 people there and it will be a great week. They are focusing on church planting, and my friend I was in Africa with is the President this year.

What strikes me as I go is the politics of all of it. I know you’d like to think motivation for ministry has to be completely spiritual, but there is a food chain in every habitat. Even in ministry. Even at a convention with Christian leaders, there is always a bit of competition and pride. Somehow the size of your church makes it into every conversation.

Now I fully believe that God wants us to be successful in ministry. God wants lost people in his kingdom, so every church should be growing. We all want to celebrate the fact that more people are going to be in heaven than would have been if we weren’t doing our jobs. But it’s still weird, isn’t it.

So now I’m at the top of the food chain. In just the past few years Parkview has gone from being an average size church to being one of the largest 25 churches in our movement. So going to a convention like this takes on a different perspective. I’m now one of the guys in charge of it (even though they never asked me my opinion about having it during a holiday). I’m now one of the people that others want to learn from. I suppose that we are a “success” story in some way or another. Which is great. We should be, we’re in one of the fastest growing areas of the country and a lot of people need Jesus.

But if we get down to the bottom of it, there are some questions that all of us have to answer in life. Dr. Wess Stafford asked us these questions a couple of weeks ago while we were in Ecuador. “What are you doing?” “WHO are you doing it for?” and “WHY?”