Jack’s Winning Words 8/18/14
“Every path may lead you to God, even the weird ones.”  (Real Live Preacher)  There are some weird ways in which people have been led to God…The Lord speaking out of a burning bush to Moses…Jonah being swallowed by a “whale”…Luther heard God during a thunderstorm…a phone call led me to become a pastor.  Do you know of times when God has communicated in some unusual ways to people…even you?    ;-)  Jack

FROM FACEBOOK LIZ:  Interested in your phone call... ?====JACK:  A phone call "out of the blue" on a Sunday night, was our minister's wife asking if I'd ever thought of becoming a pastor.  I was 19, and I doubt that I would ever have considered that occupation...except for the call.  My sister "laughed" at the thought, but God often acts in mysterious and weird ways.====LIZ:  you truly have a "calling." cool story!

FROM TARMART REV:  Mine was an afternoon movie on the television channel of KAKE, Wichita Kansas and the movie, "I'd Climb the Highest Mountain". In the fall of 1965, after graduating the past spring and not knowing for sure what I wanted to be busy at the rest of my life, I found myself sitting there bawling like a baby and answering what I felt was the call of God upon my life. Forty-four years later, I'm still fulfilling the experience of that afternoon.====JACK:  I suppose it might have been like a movie when Isaiah was called by God (Isaiah 6).  "He saw God."  BTW, do you have copy of that "Mountain" movie so that you can relive that spiritual moment?

FROM SHARIN' SHARON:  My elder brother, Tommy, died at 3 months Sudden Infant Death though they didn't know as much about this back in that day, unbaptized. My younger brother and I were christened, along with my father being rebaptized on January 22, 1951. I was baptized as an adult at age 14 on January 22, 1961 (did my parents arrange that specially on that day--I don't know). My daughter was born completely naturally on January 22, 1983. And baptized as a 10 year old child at Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church on July 5, 1992. There is something about that January 22 date being in common for so much of our family history that it really did help me to know there are theological problems in the churches and sort of follow along Someone's Leadership and fall into healthier baptismal theology. It's still all a mystery to me but I believe one's first baptism always "takes" somehow. Peace.====JACK:  In my opinion, people often misunderstand the meaning of baptism, thinking that is the "key" to heaven, when, in reality, it is by the grace of God that any of us (including Timmy) pass from this life into the hereafter.

FROM HCC CHUCK:  In 1951 on a troopship to Korea, a worship service onboard led by a young Baptist minister and I responded to the altar call.====JACK:  Battlefield conversions can happen on the way to the battlefield.  To convert means to change the direction of your life, and that troopship experience certainly changed your life.

FROM HAWKEYE GEORGE:  amen to that!====JACK:  You've had a number of "amen" experience...a sign of the presence of God in your life.

FROM WATERFORD JAN:  I think it is very fortunate for the ministry that you answered that phone call.  Some of us call that kind of circumstance "Holy Spirit stuff" (Holy Spirit is also a good name for a church).====JACK:  Some people will say, "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual."  What I say is this.  "I'm spiritual, and that has caused me to be religious.."  The Church might not be perfect, but that is why it's the perfect place for me.

FROM QUILTIN' CAROL IN WISCONSIN:  Take heed because God speaks to us in many ways!  This is awesome!  http://www.youtube.com/embed/zf_0jzPQ8lo?rel=0

FROM BLAZING OAKS:  Bill had a Bible passage come to him, after we had retired for the night, when we  were  praying about whether to stay in Moline and go into the insurance business with my Dad, (my choice!) or move to Canton to take over his Dad's construction business....He felt he had to get up (in the night) to read that passage (As I remember it was Galations 4:1-8.)  On the basis of the scripture, he felt he should move to Canton, as he was HIS father's heir, but that move quickly led to another move to Northern Seminary in Chicago, under the mentoring of  Dr. Willis Reed....it's a long story, but shows the mysterious ways in which God does sometimes move!====JACK:  That was an interesting story...going to Canton because he was the heir of his father, and then going into the ministry because he was the heir of his Father.