KEVIN ELWORTH LIVE

Have you ever googled your own name? Maybe I should ask have you ever binged your own name? I’ve done it several times before, mostly because I want to see if our website comes up. That’s the best publicity you can get. Tonight I Binged by name and I found two very interesting things. First I found a sermon I just recently preached at a church in Ohio. What in the world! Anybody interested in hearing me preach? Check out this link-

Second I found that we have a new supporting church! A church that came and visited us this summer took us on for monthly support. I was super excited about that because we need all the help we can get right now even if it’s just a few dollars per week. Wow!

It’s been almost a month since we left on this trip and it’s been a LONG month. I’m not sure how many of you have traveled much during your life times but to those who have and have done it with a two year old we have a special place in heaven! We’ve slept in the same room as Austin since we left Mexico back in the beginning of August- that never gets easier. That little boy tosses and turns all night long.

All in all we’ve had a great trip. Visited one of our supporting churches in Canton, Ohio and spoke at their youth group meeting on a Sunday morning then their daughter campus for their morning service. Headed over to PA where we spent about two weeks visiting with Crystal’s family, speaking at another supporting church and a new church as well.

Last weekend we headed to Cincinnati where we were in a missions conference with a brand new church to us. It was a great conference, they treated us wonderfully and we made some new, awesome, lifelong friends here as well.

Tomorrow we conclude this little tour with a final stop in Wheelersburg, Ohio where we will speak to a third brand new church to us and hopefully encourage their reach with global evangelism. Cris and I went to school with some members of their staff so it will be good to reconnect with them again as well. Tuesday we fly back to Kansas where a lot of work awaits us in preparation for the next medical hurdle to jump over. I’ll write about them soon…Thanks for sticking with us

Austin has done a lot of developing lately. He’s developing into the most crazy two year old ever, or maybe he’s just being a normal two year old. For example, the last week and a half we’ve been staying in a small mission apartment at one of our supporting churches in PA. It’s a pretty nice little room, and just enough room where the bed is to set up his packnplay. So one day Cris and I are sitting on the couch right after we laid him down for his nap and heard a strange noise from the room. I opened the door to find him standing right inside the door, out of his crib! What in the world. So I put him back in and told him to show me how he got out, and sure enough he did. It was rather funny, but the next part is not. The other thing he has learned how to do is remove his diaper all by himself. This is not a good thing at all, because soon approaching is the day we walk in to find poop smeared all over the walls! Yesterday he pulled one of these stunts- poop free thank God- but he did pee all over the place. His bedding was soaked, the walls were soaked, thankfully we didn’t have any clothing close by or that too would have been soaked. O the joys of being parents of a two year old, I hear it gets a lot more fun!

My post Sunday thoughts are a bit late this week. Sunday was a great day. I had the opportunity to speak morning and evening about missions and be the encouragement for one churches annual Global Impact emphasis. The economy is hard right now and although it’s showing signs of recovery there are some places that are still very much struggling and in need of some refocus. I hope what I spoke to them was the encouragement they needed to keep at it, even if it’s not all they were doing before. Even just a little is sufficient with God behind it.

At the same time…you always here it said that the one day the preacher wants to quit the most is Monday morning and that was true for me this week for some reason or another. I guess sometimes I look around at what God is doing in some places and just wish I was a part of that. One church I follow baptized 900 people in one weekend a few months back, another had 50 salvations this weekend. My home church is seeing lives changed left and right so fast they don’t know what to do with them all. Sometimes it seems like God is at work everywhere but where I am. Ever felt that way? Man it’s hard not so sometimes. Sunday night I spoke from 2Chronicles 20 the story of Jehoshaphat where God told Judah to stand and see the salvation of the Lord. The last point I talked about was the importance of praising God. I am realizing that if we are going to get through the dry hard times we must praise God all the time. In every situation we’ve got to praise God, we owe it to Him. So you just like me, we’ve got to keep at it, God’s at work and is going to do NEW and GREAT things, but we can’t give up before He does. Stay at it just a few more days.

Last night we had opportunity to speak to a new church about their involvement in missions and it went great. They worked us hard, speaking in Awana, their main service, followed by the youth group, but all went very well and we were encouraged to see God work through us yet again. I’ve been speaking to youth groups about Hero Rejects in the bible. Thinking about Joseph, Elijah, Daniel and most of all Peter. Peter was by far the greatest hero reject I can think of. He has the greatest example of being a reject. Notice the first thing that Jesus does when he meets him- He changes his name. I tell these youth groups about Peters/Simons past. The name Simon actually means tactless, wavering, undependable. Wow! Talk about reject, he was good for just about well…nothing! Simon was destined to become nothing but a fisherman until Jesus stepped in and saw in him potential to do something extraordinary.

We see Jesus and Peter interact several times throughout the gospels and frequently we see Jesus refer to Peter using his former name. You can check out examples of what I mean but clicking here, here and here. Ever wonder why He may have done that? He did it because Peter was resorting to the person who Jesus had changed him from. He was being tactless, wavering and undependable again. How many times do we do that? Christ changed us into His image and sometimes we do a great job of distorting that image into something else, something that we used to be.

Anyway, just a sample of what I’m talking about these days in the places I get to speak. Look for more later….