I dialed back my travel quite a bit this summer, but I'm off to Houston this weekend. Super excited about speaking @ Fellowship of the Woodlands for my friend, Kerry Shook. Kerry and his wife, Chris, wrote a great book titled One Month to Live.
Evotional.com - Mark Batterson
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Evotional.com
Mark Batterson
Washington, DC
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In a Pit With a Lion On a Snowy Day
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5 Comments:
thanks so much for visiting @woodlandschurch. sorry I missed you.
down in Costa Rica on mission with our team of 25 from @woodlandschurch
your book, In a Pit With a Lion On a Snowy Day, and your blog played a part in my spiritual growth which led me to participate in this trip
thanks for all you
Mark:
It was a happy accident to hear you speak tonight -- the first time for me to ever step foot on the FOTW campus. Deeply involved in another church nearby but needed to "randomize" my worship this weekend and chose tonight for a visit.
WELL. Me hearing you speak was no accident. I was fed and encouraged by your message in ways that I cannot explain in this small space. To say that I am having a breakthrough moment would be sufficient.
It's not about the stuff, but the experiences. Nice!
Keep on doing what you do - it is having a HUGE kingdom impact!
I do not believe in coincidence. I believe your calling to The Fellowship of The Woodlands was divine. No one has been able to satisfy my personal passage, Matthew 19:21 until today. I realized once again that my faith had unintentionally been in man and not in God as it should always be. God gave me the wisdom to understand this passage today and he used you as his instrument of delivery. I thank God for that wisdom and then I thank you for accepting his calling and for providing yourself as the instrument of delivery. I am a giving soul when giving of myself. My weakness is in my giving of possessions and of money. I also tend to look at the sacrifice and then try to justify the sacrifice by weighing the potential reward. I now understand that this is backward. We should have faith in the receipt of the rewards promised by the Father when we sacrifice as he commands. I did hear the Holy Spirit today for the first time in a long while. I am learning that He is always speaking, but we are not always listening. I have been searching for a new church for a long time now. I found the FOTW when an acquaintence that is a good follower of Christ pointed it out to me one day while travelling in that area. He pointed to the sign and said, "I have been searching for that church and there it is, right here and so close to home." Those words stuck with me for no reason known to myself until recently. That friend has moved away. However I have attended the services at the FOTW for a while now. Two weeks ago I voluteered to be baptized there. I was baptized as a baby and wished to show God that I choose to follow him of my own free will and not just at the will of my parents for a new baby. That baptism realization and your sermon today as well as several sermons by Pastor Shook have convinced me that I have found a new church. I am troubled by much of what I see of my government and of many people today. I feel better knowing that you, a precision instrument of God, through which the Holy Spirit does speak is present in our nation's capital. I pray that you deliver the Word of the Holy Spirit to our nations leaders during these trying times. The stimulus we require is not the distribution of dollars taken from the unwilling hands of taxpayers, but is the distribution of His Word from the willing mouths and actions of His people. God bless you. Jacque Goodwin - Tomball TX
Mark!
Thanks so much for visiting Woodlands! I was listening at the East Campus and really thankful you could visit us.
This summer after being an atheist for nearly 3 years, God called me to give up an unfufilled life and return to him. In that time of confusion with faith and my life, my sister handed me a copy of "In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day" and took me to WCE. I'd never heard anything like your message and it literally gave me a brilliant new perspective. I'm like your NCC congregation - that single twenty something searching for my God-ordained oppurtunities. Getting to hear you speak was the end of a very long and spiritually intense summer for my sister and I. We felt really blessed to be present, so thanks from deep in the heart of Texas.
I agree with Mike in that this small space is too condensed to thank you fully. I pray that God keeps you preaching to those looking for more and that we recieve the message with hope and purpose.
God Bless!
- Jennet
thanks for all the kinds comments. Woodlands feels like "church away from church." Really enjoyed the weekend!
Blessings one and all,
Mark
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