The emptying of our nest of 4 beautiful children has allowed us to reset our lives by living light for the sake of spreading the Light through the local gospel ministry of the Stillwater Community Chapel. (https://stillwater-chapel.org/) This blog is the musings and ministry of the Wolfgangs as we have gone wherever God leads. May we always live light and in the Light, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
God gave us a good weather window to travel...yeah God!!!
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Berthoud Pass
Here we are at the top of Berthoud Pass. It was a whirlwind week to conduct a "hand off" service in Wisconsin on 3/17 and then preach a Palm Sunday sermon in Colorado on 3/24. We give God all the glory for this happening. So there are two video links at the bottom of this blog. One is for the Wisconsin service and the other is for the Colorado service. I racked up over 12,000 in the last 7 weeks.
I love to take these pictures sitting from the front row of chairs and listening to the one God has provided for the church I had been serving for 20 months. I now have 3 and I am so thankful for the opportunity God gave us to serve Him in this type of ministry over the last 5 years. It has been great to add to our daily prayer list Zach in Maine, Chris in Ohio and now Stephen in Wisconsin.
This was our set up for the 2000+ mile trip. No "hiccups" except for the strong eastern winds in Kansas. Of course everything was quite a bit dirtier when we arrived. We were so thankful that Stephanie didn't have to drive separately and we could enjoy the trip together along with Buddy our dog.
My part of the service in Wisconsin was to commission to new teaching pastor. 2 Timothy 3.16-4.6 was the text I used. It is a text that I am speaking back to myself as I am charging another with the calling of a pastor. My points were:
We elevate God's words. 3.16
God's words equip the man of God. 3.17
We acknowledge the true audience. 4.1
Our what is to preach the word; our when is in and out of season; our how is to mirror what God's word does in v.16; and our why is because they will not endure sound teaching. 4.2-4
How we are to be is very important. 4.5
God provides shepherds for His flock. 4.6
It was great to collaborate with the district superintendent and it is sweet to have the new teaching pastor end the service. The "hand off" is complete.
I enter now a new phase of ministry at the Stillwater Community Chapel. I went from my assessment of a packed house of maybe 300 in Wisconsin to a small group of 25 with 10 being children in Colorado. The shift in delivery and style couldn't have been more drastic. Stephanie plays the piano and I lead the songs for now and we are starting to walk through the Gospel of Matthew. We jumped ahead to the Palm Sunday passage and will do the same for the Resurrection Sunday passage this week but then we will venture back to Matthew 1.1 and track it all the way through.
Trying to be more interactive, I pulled out the white board but I also asked questions looking for answers from those in attendance. At about mark 30:30 I asked a question about what the children were doing and a grade school boy answered the question so perfectly(turn up your speakers to hear). God made the point as it was in His scriptures that the young are to cheer him and give perfected praise. It was the highlight of the morning. It was probably the most convicting too. Our children watch our actions and are mimicking them.
I know many were praying for us on this transition. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. I are excited to see what God is going to do amongst the mountains of Grand County.
The Never Summer Mountain Range is behind me. It is always amazing to me how people will respond more quickly to a picture than to the text. I updated our Facebook cover photo and profile picture and people are responded left and right to it. I do not get as much response when I print text to the same group of people. I think this bears true with the response to video presentations of the Bible over just the written text of the Bible. But since we don't have actual video footage of Jesus (sorry Chosen) I feel it is important to not just rely on someone's artistic presentation of the text but to read it for ourselves. The question would be, "Am I reading more than I am watching when it comes to God's words?" I have purposely not used much video in my preaching opportunities because video will steal the show, no pun intended, to the actual passage we are looking at. I think we need to train ourselves again to rely on what we are reading rat...
Look at the color that greets us on our deck! Stephanie sure has a green thumb. I'm just the waterer and also diligent to keep spraying to keep the critters away. It is also the sign here that colder weather is on the way. There is snow on the tops of the mountains again and there was also frost on the roofs. Summer people are headed to warmer temps and we settle in not just for the colder climate but also for the time the core has to zero in on each other. What will come of our colder months together in light of the further developments of being a better established biblical church? I am praying that we will develop a pathway to go from investigating SCC to investing in the ministry here, from being infrequent in attendance to being a frequent flyer with us, from just attending to one assigned to a ministry, and from the pew to being a player. How are we assisting in this process and what does this person look like in practical ter...
This isn't 5,000 men plus women and children as in the passage last Sunday but this is our 5,000+ for the week. It is amazing to be all around the table at once. There are now 20 of us. We have went from addition to multiplication in our family as each of our 4 children are now having their families. Our 2 year reunions have been highlights of our lives and this one was spent in Colorado. This picture featured the 20 rainbow trout the grandchildren caught at a local kids' fishing pond. Jesus is going to present 2 amazing events back to back for his disciples. In this big feed they are ready to pass off the responsibility to someone else. They tell Jesus to send the crowd away and their solution is that those people can fend for themselves. They use the word " only " and calculate what was possible with the money they may have had. The disciples were identifying and pointing at the need but they were not going to get involved ...
Hoping to be able to follow your teachings from the Book of Matthew. -Francine
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