January 30, 2012

"Enlarge Our Territory"

    Cindy and I moved to the town where we live in back in 1995. The population was about 24,000. It was a quiet, "master-planned" community. There was hardly any traffic. Oh, and there were two volunteer fire stations.

Growth came quickly. Today, the population increases so often that they don't even bother putting up the signs anymore and that master-planned community is now a "township" and we are at about 120,000. With that growth, we saw the volunteers eventually give way to a career staff. And, the department just built Station #8. It makes me wonder if someone in that department prayed the prayer that Jabez prayed to GOD, "enlarge my territory?"

But, what territory was Jabez asking of GOD? Was it more land to farm? Was it material possessions at all? I don't believe so. Jabez asked GOD to, first of all, bless him. He knew that without GOD's blessing, nothing would happen. And, I believe that the territory he was seeking was an area and/or sphere of influence that he could use that would bring glory to our REAL CHIEF.

Bruce Wilkinson, author of the book about Jabez's prayer called, appropriately enough, "The Prayer of Jabez," challenges us to "Attempt something large enough that failure is guaranteed…unless God steps in!"

Emergency Ministries, we believe, has done just that. We started a little over thirteen years ago seeking GOD's blessing to allow us to serve some of the fire departments in our county. And, we began praying that prayer of Jabez... enlarge our territory!

Three years ago, our Board's "Strategic Planning Committee" believed and prayed that we would be serving agencies in eight counties in Southeast Texas. As of last Saturday, we now serve agencies in twenty-five counties across the state of Texas. Then, yesterday at our Board Meeting, we announced that GOD really is enlarging our territory... we are launching Emergency Ministries in Minnesota, as well!

We could never have done this without GOD's blessing. And, we were moved by the advice of two Christian authors... Bruce Wilkinson who challenged us to attempt something that would, in human terms, fail. And, Henry Blackaby, who relates this story in his book, "Experiencing God" - “I asked them to explain. They said, ‘Well, when we set the budget, we set the budget on the basis of what we believe we can do. It does not reflect that we expect God to do anything.’ ‘Hmmm,’ I said. ‘Then how do you feel we ought to set the budget?’ They said, ‘First, we ought to determine all that God wants to do through us. Second, we need to put down what that will cost. Then we need to divide the budget goal into three categories: (1) what we plan to do through our tithes; (2) what others have promised to do; (3) what we must depend on God to do.’ As a church we prayed and decided God wanted us to use this approach to budgeting. We did not try to dream our own dreams for God. We had to be absolutely sure God was leading us to do the things we put in the budget. Then we listed what that would cost. We listed what we thought our people would give and what others had said they would give. The difference between what we could reasonably expect to receive and the total was what we would ask God to provide. The big question was: What is our operating budget? By faith we adopted the grand total as our operating budget." He continues writing, "The budget of our church normally would have been $74,000. The budget we set was $164,000. We pledged to pray daily that God would meet our needs. Any money that came in that we did not anticipate we credited to God. At the end of the year we had received $172,000. God taught our church a lesson in faith that radically changed us all.”

So, we set our operating budget based on a figure that only GOD could bring in... almost double of last year's contributions. We are praying for this and ask that you join us on this adventure as we watch GOD enlarge our territory - our ability to influence and affect the lives of everyday heroes across this country and, with HIM, across the globe.

I love watching our REAL CHIEF at work around us and I love serving alongside you...
 

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