The gospel according to Luke contains an account of a visit that Jesus made
to the home of two sisters, Martha and Mary, in the village of Bethany. In the
account, Martha complained to Jesus that while she was busy with much household
work Mary was just spending time with Jesus and doing nothing to help with the
work.
Read More of the Declaration of Jesus
There is no one who does not know how to pray. Everyone has done it. But
we can all do it better. – In Luke’s gospel, right after he wrote
the account of Jesus at the home of Martha and Mary, he went on to tell about
a time when Jesus’ disciples came to him and asked him to teach them
to pray. This request did not come because his disciples did not know how
to pray, they had grown up in good Jewish homes.
Read More of Teaching Us
to Pray
Pastors are an integral and indispensable part of God’s plan to make
his wisdom known to the world through his Church. When Christ ascended on
high he gave gifts to the Church that some should be … pastors … for
the building up, the preparing and the equipping of God’s people (Ephesians
4:7-13).
Read More of Feeding HIS Sheep
When I graduated from seminary in 1975, many lay people in my churches
expressed amazement at how low clergy health insurance rates were. The explanation
for this was that clergy, as a population group, had healthier life styles
than the average population. More recently, as I worked with many lay committees
on their pastor’s compensation packages, they have expressed amazement
at how high clergy health insurance rates are. Something has shifted. The
expectation placed on clergy today keeps them in a high and almost constant
state of stress.
Read More of the Harvest
During the years I have served as a pastor and a district superintendent,
I have grown increasingly more aware of the need for centers that are dedicated
to prayer ministry and the spiritual renewal of pastors and God’s people.
Therefore, I was not surprised, as I drove past a for sale sign for 100 acres
of land near Jamestown, NY, to hear God say to my spirit, “I want you
to build a prayer campus there.” That was in the summer of 1998.
Read More of the Vision
As I contemplated the official organization of The Better Place, there
were two options before me. I could bring it under the umbrella of the District
Corporation where I served as superintendent or I could form a new independent
not-for-profit corporation. There were obvious advantages to both options.
The primary advantage to organizing under the District would have been that
all the government requirements that are part of creating a new organization
could be avoided and, thus, everything could get started sooner.
Read More of Further Assurances
All of the above was written in February of 2004. Since that time the ministry of The Better Place has been growing – and growing – and growing. Details can be found on the many pages of our web site at www.TheBetterPlace.org. Thanks to email and the internet, the ministry of The Better Place has become literally worldwide. Resourcing has been solicited from people in Africa as well as all over North America, and The Better Place has delivered. For more face-to-face ministry, we have been utilizing the facilities of churches, conference centers and public buildings. I call it a "hermit crab" ministry because we use other houses as we lack a house of our own. As of February 2011, the vision of a campus with buildings and all the amenities of spiritual renewal ministry still awaits, but all of that is soon to change.
Read More of the Postscript