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Category Archives: Local church

A Year of Change

Yes, 2012 is definitely beginning as a year of change. My body and health continues to improve daily with a new commitment to my diet and regular exercise. I am now down 54 lbs. Every day I feel the best I’ve felt in years.

My bride and I just recently became members of the local church in our town. We are really excited about what God has in store for us there.

Our son Sean and his fiance’ Jessica informed us this past weekend that they are pregnant and will be moving close to home after she graduates from college. With all of this exciting change you would think BarryDean would have had enough. Oh but it isn’t enough.

Yesterday I accepted an offer from a company I am very excited to be a part of. Even as I write this blog posting my excitement continues to bubble up. The job opportunity is to me, a dream job. It will give me an opportunity to develop programs in an environment I have been longing to get into full time. It is an opportunity to really effect direction within a growing company. The new job will also allow me to get some training learn some new skills which is always exciting. It would not be appropriate to publicly divulge the name of the company right now but I will be hinting up and until my start date, which will be January 30th.

All for God’s glory!

Soli Deo Gloria!!

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Posted by barrydean on January 17, 2012 in Calvary Church Wahoo, diet, exercise, God's glory, grandparents, Local church, new job

Spurgeon in Wordle

24 Sep

Above is a Wordle I created with the text from Charles H. Spurgeon’s sermon “Secret Sins” Please click on the image to view the larger more detailed version. The word cloud or wordle is designed to make the words larger the more frequent they are used in the text. You will notice an anomaly with one word as it relates to the modern church and it’s use of the word today. That is the use of the word sin. In this word cloud it is one of the largest words in the abstract image. In the contemporary church you would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of churches in a metropolitan area that use the word sin on a regular basis. That needs to change. Believers of Jesus Christ are called to make disciples of Christ by using His gospel. If we don’t use the word sin then how do we fully explain the reason for salvation?

ht: Really Robin for finding the Wordle tool.

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Posted by barrydean on September 24, 2008 in Charles H. Spurgeon, gospel, Jesus Christ, Local church, sin, wordle

John MacArthur on “Why I Love The Church”

09 Jul

John MacArthur has written a series of articles called “Why I Love the Church” at Pulpit Magazine online. The four part series (including today’s conclusion) focuses on Christ’s church as it is defined and spoken of in scripture. MacArthur provides some great insight for all of us to consider regarding the Church. From pointing out the careless approach to the Church that many in the evangelical world have taken, to what the Church’s role is on the earth and how this role differs from the idol created by the RCC. Christ is the chief cornerstone as mentioned in Ephesians 2:19-22. He is the head and must be the one we serve. The link is in the text above. It will take you to Part 1 of the series. Once you are on the page just find the additional links to the series in the upper right column of the Pulpit Magazine page.

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Posted by barrydean on July 9, 2007 in Church History, faith in Christ, Local church, Ministry, Pulpit Magazine, serving, The gospel, worship

Leadership Matters

08 May

This past Saturday morning I attended the Men’s Breakfast at my local church Omaha Bible Church. It was a great time of fellowship and worship. We had a guest speaker, Byron Yawn who is a close friend of our senior pastor Pat Abendroth. Byron is the senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Nashville, Tennessee where he has been pastoring for six years. Byron spoke to those in attendance about leadership. I will provide the outline he gave us Saturday. It was a great topic with a ton of information. The outline continues by clicking the link below. There is also a link to the audio of the session at the end.

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Praying for ministry

15 Feb

What does your prayer life look like. If it looks a Prayer nything like mine, it consists of prayer for your spouse, family members, local church leaders, leaders of our country, missionaries, sanctification, the unsaved, the return of Christ, and so on. I’m not saying I pray for these all of the time but when I pray these folks almost consistently come to mind. Are you in ministry together with other believers in your local church? If so, I would like to encourage you to pray for the ministry and for the individuals as well. Pray that God would be glorified in the ministry and bless it. Pray that God would watch over and care for those whom you serve with. That God would meet their needs no matter how trivial. I am writing this because I have not been praying for my fellow laborers in ministry. I was prompted to repent of this by an article I read at the Grace To You website. The article pointed out that Paul prayed for those in ministry with him at all the churches he had visited or helped to establish. The book of Philippians chapter 1 contains much about Paul and his thoughts and prayers with those who labor with him. I would encourage everyone to read this chapter and become very intimate with it. Especially if you are serving in a ministry.

Getting Wet

20 Dec

PTL, three young saints were baptized Sunday evening at church. I was privileged to be a participant in the event. Our associate pastor asked me to help him with the baptisms and to do the closing prayer after. It is an honor to serve my church and ultimately my Lord. It is also a blessing to see folks obedient in following the Lord in baptism.
As a side note please pray for my wife as she had a weird experience Sunday night on the way home. We stopped for Starbucks and she had a red eye, which is coffee with one shot of espresso. We stopped at Walmart after that and she started to get a bit fuzzy in her vision. By the time she got home she couldn’t think very clearly at all. She was muttering about not remembering a word that describes knowing something without having to be told about it. She was not seeing correctly and had some numb sensations in her right hand and in her mouth. She has an appointment to see our doctor this today.