Haiti Hurting

Greetings Friend,

We are all moved with emotion as we ascertain the terrible situation in Haiti following the devastating earthquake. One can’t help but be hurting on the inside as you see the pictures of death, destruction, and distraction through the lenses of media.

I wanted to make a short remark about those who would blame the earthquake on the fact that many in Haiti practice Voodoo and other spirit ism type religions. Let me say that those type of practices are all over the earth! Now I believe that God can visit with judgment anyone and any place that He would like. However, you can’t argue that the earthquake happened because these people in Haiti (many of whom are Christians) had a large percentage practicing false religion. How would you explain the many churches blown away by the Tornado’s that ravaged Arkansas a few years ago from Atkins through Clinton. Those believers who loved the Lord wouldn’t say that the Tornado was judgment for right worship and right belief’s!

Friends, here’s how it is! We live in the last days in which the earth itself is groaning to be redeemed. We will continue to see devastation on this earth on a large and larger scale even past the time Jesus comes for His bride, the church. The church today is to continue to blast the trumpet of truth and scale the walls of error to get the message out to the world… Jesus saves! He is the only hope whether concrete buildings are falling, tidal waves are crashing, wars are being rumored, or if things are going great. All have sinned and all need to be washed by the Blood of the Lamb.

I hope that my friends on ground in Haiti are well, giving need water, food, and medical care… as well as the Bread of Life. Pray for the people of Haiti and those who will help in whatever way possible. Also, keep looking to the East for our Redeemer is coming very, very soon!

Blessings to each of you,

Dr. Jeff Beshears

Pilots Miss Airport

Actually they didn’t miss it after they flew over and turned around abour an hour later! This week NW Airlines pilots were distracted in the cockpit while using their personal computers…according to reports and actually flew past their destination only to have to make a mid-air u-turn and get back to the airport…

Now I’m no expert! But I did stay in a Holiday Inn last night…no, not really. However, I have flown with my brother-in-law a few times in the right seat of his company plane and I can tell you there is lots of chater and request from towers all along the route. You are constantly being handed off from one airport to another…changing headings, etc. How did these guys not have there wits about them to “land that plane when they were suppose too?” Did they forget they were pilots? Did they forget they were 28,000+ feet in the air? Did they forget they had a few people behind them counting on them to get them safely to their destination? The answer is NO! These were professionals! These guys had 1,000′s of hours of flight time!

Christians can be encouraged by this story… how you say? Well, first of all we should remember who we are…sinners saved by Grace! Secondly, we should remember that we have a great task to complete…taking the Good News to the world. Remember, we are well trained by our Master. Remember, we have lots of people counting on us to share the Gospel. Remember, we are flying high by The Law of the Spirit! Let us not grow weary in well doing…let us not become so familiar with the life of a Christian that we forget what we are and what we are to be doing. Praise the Lord for our part in the Kingdom work…come visit us at The Church At Maumelle for worship…Sunday’s at 10:30 am

Blessings to each of you,

Pastor Jeff Beshears

Do You Have The Doldrums?

Nothing was so feared by seamen in the days when ocean vessels were driven by wind and sail as the doldrums. The doldrums is a part of the ocean near the equator, abounding calms, squalls, and light, baffling winds. There the weather is hot and extremely dispiriting. The old sailing vessels, when caught in doldrums, would lie helpless for days and weeks, waiting for the wind to begin to blow.

Does that sound like your life right now? Perhaps it seems you are caught in one of those doldrums and just can’t get moving… and you wonder why God allowed this to happen in your life. WHOA NELLIE>>> “God allowed this to happen in your life??? I believe we need to talk!

First, let me say that doldrums are a result of the dissatisfaction of your flesh…that’s right, you are living by the flesh instead of the Spirit. Your flesh is not receiving those jolts of excitment it is used to having…your flesh is telling the rest of you that it needs some stimulation, motivation, new thrill’s…Many a Christian finds themselves in the doldrums when it comes to life because they have forgotten to disengage the flesh and allow the Spirit to rule and reign. We have placed our flesh ahead of our redeemed man and thus fallen into the trap again… that the works of the flesh will never satisfy a true child of God.

The doldrums are a big reason young families do not attend church services regularly…say what? Yes, many families that begin to have irregular church attendance are merely giving into the flesh (doldrums)… you see, the flesh wants the next church service to be bigger, brighter, louder, creative, different in order to stimulate the lifestyle of flesh living instead of spirit controlled life in Christ. The church service is not however intended to play to your flesh but rather remind each of us that we are to “reckon” the flesh dead and our life…the life of Christ. Church services should bring glory to God.

Let me encourage each of us that when we feel the doldrums creaping into our lives that its not because we aren’t being challenged by God in our walk with Him. No, rather we have crossed over to a flesh driven lifestyle. Remember what the psalmist said, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so…” Psalms 107:1-2a

Have a blessed day and stay away from the doldrums…
Pastor Jeff Beshears

We Must Act Now

I read an article that solidified the need  for Project 70 and Now Is The Time. We at FBCM must live by faith because that is how God wants us to live… but also as we see our culture shifting further away from God. I hope this article will inspire you to be in the Word and living out your faith.

The End of Christian America
The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.
It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life—the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, “this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified.” As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America’s religious culture was cracking.

“That really hit me hard,” he told me last week. “The Northwest was never as religious, never as congregationalized, as the Northeast, which was the foundation, the home base, of American religion. To lose New England struck me as momentous.” Turning the report over in his mind, Mohler posted a despairing online column on the eve of Holy Week lamenting the decline—and, by implication, the imminent fall—of an America shaped and suffused by Christianity. “A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us,” Mohler wrote. “The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture.” When Mohler and I spoke in the days after he wrote this, he had grown even gloomier. “Clearly, there is a new narrative, a post-Christian narrative, that is animating large portions of this society,” he said from his office on campus in Louisville, Ky.

There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.

According to the American Religious Identification Survey that got Mohler’s attention, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. The Jewish population is 1.2 percent; the Muslim, 0.6 percent. A separate Pew Forum poll echoed the ARIS finding, reporting that the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent; in terms of voting, this group grew from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008—roughly the same percentage of the electorate as African-Americans. (Seventy-five percent of unaffiliated voters chose Barack Obama, a Christian.) Meanwhile, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased about fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million. (That is about double the number of, say, Episcopalians in the United States.)

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, too, in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called “the garden of the church” from “the wilderness of the world.” As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America’s unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom—not least freedom of conscience. At our best, we single religion out for neither particular help nor particular harm; we have historically treated faith-based arguments as one element among many in the republican sphere of debate and decision. The decline and fall of the modern religious right’s notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.

Let’s be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. Being less Christian does not necessarily mean that America is post-Christian. A third of Americans say they are born again; this figure, along with the decline of politically moderate-to liberal mainline Protestants, led the ARIS authors to note that “these trends … suggest a movement towards more conservative beliefs and particularly to a more ‘evangelical’ outlook among Christians.” With rising numbers of Hispanic immigrants bolstering the Roman Catholic Church in America, and given the popularity of Pentecostalism, a rapidly growing Christian milieu in the United States and globally, there is no doubt that the nation remains vibrantly religious—far more so, for instance, than Europe.

Still, in the new NEWSWEEK Poll, fewer people now think of the United States as a “Christian nation” than did so when George W. Bush was president (62 percent in 2009 versus 69 percent in 2008). Two thirds of the public (68 percent) now say religion is “losing influence” in American society, while just 19 percent say religion’s influence is on the rise. The proportion of Americans who think religion “can answer all or most of today’s problems” is now at a historic low of 48 percent. During the Bush 43 and Clinton years, that figure never dropped below 58 percent.

Many conservative Christians believe they have lost the battles over issues such as abortion, school prayer and even same-sex marriage, and that the country has now entered a post-Christian phase. Christopher Hitchens —a friend and possibly the most charming provocateur you will ever meet—wrote a hugely popular atheist tract a few years ago, “God Is Not Great.” As an observant (if deeply flawed) Episcopalian, I disagree with many of Hitchens’s arguments—I do not think it is productive to dismiss religious belief as superstitious and wrong—but he is a man of rigorous intellectual honesty who, on a recent journey to Texas, reported hearing evangelical mutterings about the advent of a “post-Christian” America.

To read the full story go to http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583?GT1=43002

Have a good week and we will see you this Easter Sunday.
Pastor Jeff

Easy Going Saturdays

Hello Everyone,
I wanted to make a short comment about an easy going Saturday.
This Saturday was one of those kind of days you dream about… not much on the to-do-list or at least anything that is too critical. Today was just cold and wet enough not to be in the yard cleaning the aged winter debris and preparing for another long mowing season. This Saturday was void of weddings, funerals, and other ministry have-to-do’s. This Saturday no cars were worked on or washed… no trips to any type of shopping (thanks Georgette)… no errands, no emergencies, and no maintenance of our three children!
No, today was one of those few and infrequent days when you get to watch old war movies, the History channel, and four different religious stations. This was one of those days for thinking, praying, and considering how busy things are in the near future. Today, this easy going Saturday, was a nice day… I hope you had a nice day as well…tomorrow is Sunday…that means it will be an extra nice day… looking forward to corporate worship.
Pastor Jeff

Slippery Slope of Scholastic Socialism

This is more than a funny title! This is a noticeble idealogy happening right here in my neighborhood. What caught my fancy this morning was a sign at my daughter’s school… “Word of the Month: Citizenship… ‘We are a citizen of the World.’“  This got my attention because lately I keep hearing that statement . Why not citizen of USA or citizen of Arkansas? Well, there is a very good reason why it said what it did…
After writing an email to the principle of my small concern I got a very generic and well duplicated response…duplicated? Yes, because I found the same answer the principle gave on another web site. Here goes…hold on to your conservative USA loving ideas…

My email to the principal:

Dear Principal…
This morning I noticed the word of the month is Citizenship. I think that’s a great word for both students and parents…however, the tag of “a citizen of the world”…seems to be a bit over the top… why not use a “citizen of the USA” or “Arkansas”? I know that all humans occupy this planet and because of that we are a type of earthly citizen… but this tag you have used also describes a one world global system that wants to do away with our individual rights, our country, etc…
I’m sure there is nothing bias or political behind the tag used on the sign… but if there is… we should refrain and make adjustments. Thanks for your time to share…
Jeff Beshears
A Parent

Principal Responded:

I understand what you are wanting the word Citizenship to reflect. With our diverse population and increasingly challenged population we are looking at going beyond the boundaries. I want to define what is trying to be convey to our students, parents and staff.

A Global Citizen is a person fully able to engage productively and effectively with the global academic, business, civic and cultural environments by possessing and demonstrating:

1. Excellent written and oral communication skills

2. The ability to work effectively in teams

3. A mastery of common business technology tools

4. The ability to analyze and solve complex problems

5. The sensitivity and skill necessary to succeed in a culturally diverse global environment

6. The flexibility to accept and initiate change

7. Solid leadership skills

8. Fluency in at least one language besides English

9. The level of cultural and aesthetic sophistication necessary for an understanding of and appreciation for arts

10. High levels of moral reasoning
My response back:

Who within PCSSP accepted this format as defined below…(I went and
right-clicked the rest of what you were speaking to…from the same website
of Upper Iowa) and at what exec. level is this definition being pushed to
you and our other schools: IE: Superintendent; or Ark. Legislature; or
School Board? Help Please…

Here is the rest of the article he left out the first time he emailed me…

Committee members: DeWayne Frazier (chair), Christopher Sanders, Gina Kuker,
Jean Merkle, Linda Haines, Brian More

Executive Summary On January 9th, 2008, a working committee with representation across all
Upper Iowa University programs (RU, EU, IP), met to discuss the definition of a “global
citizen”. The Committee decided there is no one acceptable definition for being a
“global citizen” and the working definition as provided at the beginning of the strategic
planning process would serve best. Please see the definition below this summary.

Through the efforts of the International Programs Advisory Committee (IPAC),
a process of achieving global citizenry was outlined in the Fall 2007. The process was
defined through five different methods. After the working committee’s meeting on
January 9th, it was determined that the standards were too difficult to implement as
requirements across all facets of the institutions constituencies (i.e. on-line,
education, correspondence, etc). For more details on the discussion, please read the minutes of the
meeting.

The majority of the working committee believed that the IPAC “global citizen” steps should be recommended and not required. The overall consensus was that global citizenry should be achieved through special projects in the senior capstone
as well as integrated assignments within the general education coursework. Monies
should be allotted for helping faculty receive more training in how to implement
global experiences into their curriculum.

Principal responded:

 Local control. That is from me as the building administrator. The county has to be equitable and follow Multicultural federal guidelines. This is an attempt to be inclusive of all of our students and parents in the community

Wow…  I was fired up to say the least…Here we are as a nation with the program of NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND… it is clear to me as a parent of three students who have been and are involved in public school that we are dumbing down our teaching instead of teaching to the highest level…” I believe that we have so lowered our standards (school folk keep saying they are raising test scores and/or raising benchmarks) of education that most have come to believe that if they are enrolled they must automatically get an “A” on their report card…without study, application, and rehearsed testing. Now we want to dumb them down and make them ready to be a citizen of the world…I wasn’t baptized in globalization in my 1-12 grade years but I know how to handle myself and get along with the rest of the world… I don’t know a second language fluently but have traveled to several other countries and did just fine… my good 1-12 grade education taught me to be a thinker, problem solver, team builder, leader, to accept change, make change, appreciate fine arts, and to appreciate my country.

I think before we start teaching our middle school kids a second languge we should make sure they can use their English in the real world…like at McDonalds…can you say “good morning in a clear and pronunciated way while looking someone in the eyes!!! Can you count the change back without having to use a $3000 computer to tell you that if the meal is $1.51 and they give you $2.00 that the change would be $.49! Can our education department today convince kids to quit putting studs in their tongues, their noses, belly buttons, etc… or painting up their bodies with tatoo’s?! Can our present Globalization of our public school kids help them understand tyranny and hatred being spread by an evil world…NO! Because listen… the entire concept of the school is and should be only about EDUCATION. Please school, teach my daughter the formula for knowing the Area of An Isosceles Triangle but leave the moral, philosophical, globalization of her to ME! Her Father! You are not to be the parent to these students.

Well, it’s time…time to pull my daughter out of public school. It may still work in other school districts in Arkansas… but not here. I will enroll her in Liberty University’s Academy… where she will get an education from a Christian perspective,  a USA perspective without history being rewritten… and a quality education that will make her a good citizen here where she lives… and prepare her to have a proper perspective on the world and it’s people…

There’s Your Sign…

Jeff

Lukewarm: Can The Church Overcome?

I believe that every Christian would have an opinion concerning the question found in today’s title. Each one of us see the church either doing well, doing not-so-well, or  just doing the best we can. Our opinions are based most  likely on  recent experiences we have had in corporate worship… or how things are going in your daily life. However, our perception can be skewed via our own self-imposed value of the church. For example; how well should church life be in the midst of a pagan world or how much influence should a church have in our own local ministries?
Jesus teaches us something very important about the church…namely, that the proper perspective to evaluate the effectiveness and life of a church is from Heaven down not earth up. Jesus said in Revelation 3, “I know you works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing–and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked–(here is how a church moves from lukewarm to God pleasing) I counsel you to buy from me gold refined iin the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.”
The Laodicean church was indifferent to doctrine and to truth and to the teaching of God. The church members did not even know the truth and the doctrine of God. Even today you may ask a church member a simple question about God, about the Bible, and about the revelation of Christ, and they have no idea what to answer. The Laodicean church had a hybrid type of worship with both Baal and Jehovah being worshipped at the same time…just like today we have men trying to worship Christ and the world at the same time. Probably the greatest estimate of the church of Revelation 3 is that they were self-deceived!
Christ on the other hand shows the church a way out of their situation…namely, a saving faith…with continual everyday supernatural Faith Living…second, knowing His Word and application of it in their lives…and third, a proper world view from the viewpoint of Scripture and Truth…

Can The Church Overcome? I say YES! It is not going to happen through man’s well conceived ideas and plans… but rather on our knees in prayer, great amounts of time spent in the Word, and pressing forward to excellence in Christian living.

 Join with me in a daily time with our Lord… and then when you get up from such sweet fellowship… continue to have a heart of prayer and obedience throughout the day. It will make a difference in your life… and that of your church family!!! God bless each of you… Pastor Jeff

Take Me Out To The Stimulus Package

One thing I enjoy is a good baseball game. I like to be in the stands watching it live with a diet-coke and a loaded hotdog! I like baseball games so much that a couple of years ago me and three other church members went to see the Cubs play at Wrigley field, then on to Milwaukee that night to see the Brewers, and finally the next day to St. Louis for the Cardinals… that was so much fun!
I feel like I’m at a baseball game with this whole Government Stimulus Package Deal. I’m a spectator with a vested interest as much as a fan can have… but I don’t have any way of making the game go in a certain direction because I’m not on the field. I’m yelling  but my voice is covered up by rhetoric from both sides.

I hear the crack of the bat and watch with expectation as the ball sails high and far… only to be caught on the warning track…almost a homerun but just another out. The game seems to be going back and forth… yes it will help our country…no it won’t help our country. It will help us avoid a depression…no it will only prolong the ebbing tide toward a depression.

I find it amusing here in the 7th inning stretch that government thinks it can outwit God! God sets forth in His Word principles that can help a nation be blessed… but we have for too long forfeited those blessings and presumed upon His grace. Both sides have quit playing by the rules and are now making them up as they go…

In this hour of desperation… it seems as though our nation and its people have called for Mighty Casey to come to bat… they have put their hopes on some miracle swing that will align the markets, banks, jobs, and financial systems. It seems the last time I read the story of Casey and the Bat things didn’t go so well…

For Christians we trust in our GOD! We know that HE WILL care and meet the needs we should have… and, in the midst of the dark and gloomy landscape MORE than meet our needs… just to show the people, the government, that GOD is still on HIS throne!

It’s the bottom of the ninth… time for another Diet-Coke and Hotdog!

Jeff Beshears

Vision Shared!

This morning I finally got to share what I believe to be a couple of key points of ministry for FBC. I believe that the Scripture truly is correct, “where there is no vision the people perish.” Now mind you there are lots of people that claim to have a word/vision from God… but over the last year the Lord has made it abundantly clear for me, the pastor, on how and what kinds of ministry FBC should be doing…all of which find the centerpoint in outreach evangelism…I guess we’ll soon see how the church family responds… I hope they first pray and consider the blessing this is from the Lord…
We had a visitor from out of town who sent me an email this afternoon… this is from someone who is not a member of FBCM…if they can see the vision…well…here is what they said
“Dear Pastor Jeff,
What a privilege to be in the service this morning, and to hear the vision you have presented to the church. In these dreary, scary times of our country, what a vision this church was given to be a shining light and a beacon to the great city of Maumelle, and the surrounding areas. People are looking for answers to challenging times.
Since I have been an outsider looking in with regard to the growth of the church, FBC seemed to missed its opportunity to be a lighthouse to the nonchurched members of the city all these years.
This direction that God has revealed to you, will make finally, the difference to be a witness with dynamic, explosive impact on the city of Maumelle. Unlike most cities, FBC has a lock so to speak on the population…where can one go to experience facilities that touch the whole family in one location minutes from their house. The outer fringes of Maumelle will also be reached with the news of a church that offers so much to families, what other city can say this?
I can see FBC as the beacon in the community that says, “Jesus loves you and so does FBC Maumelle, come and partake of all we offer you!” We can help the body and most importantly the soul. Lets make sure we light up this town with facilities that minister to all residents of Maumelle and who knows what other cities!
FBC, step up to the challenge and sacrifice, to make this a reality…lets show this city, the MIGHTY GOD we Serve…we can change Maumelle, and witness to countless people with this tool of evangelism! You all can make a difference… God bless you Pastor…you surely seek the heart of Go!!!
A Visitor From Hot Springs

I believe that if you consider what was on the DVD, the Q/A handout, and your own prayer time then each member will come to the same conclusion… we have to do all we can to reach people for Christ… and understanding the culture of Maumelle one would reason why we should head in the direction we have shared… I challenge each of us to spend great amounts of time in prayer for Project 70 & Now Is The Time.

Blessings to each of you…

Pastor Jeff Beshears

OK, Now What?

You should of seen the look on their faces…one nephew, one neice…opening up their gift from Georgette and I. How cool we thought it would be to give them a poster size print and frame of one of their favorite pictures! (OF THEMSELVES)

WRONG, you should have seen their faces as they pulled the wrapping paper off with the quickness of a hungry cheetah. They were stunned, fixated, speechless as to this truly remarkable gift. Suddenly their faces resembled that of someone who just brushed up against a person with leprosy or a shirtless, sweaty, big-hairy man. I thought about throwing some batteries at the poster, or hanging an electrical cord from one corner to make it appear modern and hip. I began to cry out to the both of them that it was printed in LOVE… but it didn’t matter. They both had gone the way of the darkside… you know, needing it to buzz, vibrate, sound, crash, or at least take over the TV while making everyone else in the room watch them capture something.

Sometimes, and I mean sometimes, children can have that, “OK, now what” attitude when it comes to Christmas. After the unwrapping, the few hours of play, then the big let down. It’s over! All that had been anticipated is lost now with a pile of stuff, a lunch that is way different from Thanksgiving, and a heaviness of eyes from getting up so early.

In conclusion, I just wonder if this is confined to just children…could this be the attitude of some Christians who misplaced Christ this Christmas. I hope not for you who are reading this…Now I know one day a friend of my nephew or niece will go into their rooms and shout with the loudness of a jet aircraft about how cool that poster is on their wall…!! Have a good New Year’s day… see you in church next Sunday.