An Honest Ask From A Pastor's Wife by Laura Williams

“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” -Hebrews 13:7

It has been 5 years next month since we had our first gathering as Redemption Church on Easter Sunday, 2012. Daniel and I had moved our family down only months before from Washington State to this unknown (to us) south Florida beach town, and here we were introducing a new church and ourselves to the community! 

It. Was. Unreal.

Some of the feelings I remember vividly from that first-ever church service were excitement…for what God wanted to do, fear…that no one would come, joy…in seeing the first few strangers find their seats, insecurity that people wouldn’t connect with us, humor…knowing that only a week earlier, we didn’t even have a church, and desperation…for the Holy Spirit to come and bring power and life to our efforts in a way that only He can do.

None of those things has changed. Not one. As we have seen God come through and work in so many lives over the past several years, we remain excited knowing His ways are so much higher than ours! I still have to fight the temptation to feel afraid and insecure. We laughtogether sometimes, knowing that it is truly only the grace of God that has allowed us to be a part of this beautiful, difficult, and rewarding ministry of pastoring a church.

Pastors are real people. Hopefully you know this. And as God calls men and their families to set aside their own ambitions to pursue this unique calling, we need prayer. And not only those just starting out! Your pastor who has been serving faithfully in his church for 40 years needs your prayers too! 

Pastors get to experience what I think is one of the most exhilarating and exciting lifestyles that there is. We are privileged to give God’s Word to the lost and hungry, equip disciples of Jesus to do His ministry, and see the behind-the-scenes miracle of lives being changed supernaturally by a very real and present God who lets US see Him work! 

Why us? 

I have no idea. I do know, though, that it is an unusual life. And people sometimes regard us differently because of the place God has chosen for us. And that’s okay. I have always had a special respect and honor for my pastors. And this is good and right because God has placed them in a position of authority over His (Jesus’s) Church! But as you regard your pastor, please remember that he needs your support! There was a time he was not a pastor and probably had no ambitions of being one, then God spoke to him and changed the course of his life. Can you think for a moment if God were to call you to do the same?

So here is what I really want you to know about your pastor (and his family). We stumble. We lack faith at times. We try to hold up our shield of faith and not rely on our own strength. We KNOW that we need the Spirit of God to not only work through us to accomplish anything worthwhile, but to sustain our faith! We are where we are because God has placed us here—and that is all. We want to please our Heavenly Father and love and shepherd HIS flock well. And we NEED HIS SPIRIT to be at work constantly in us, around us, through us, and upon us. 

As the verse in Hebrews chapter 13 (see above) exhorts you to look to your pastor and imitate his faith, PRAY for his faith to be strengthened! It is perhaps the most humbling part of our life knowing that God Himself has chosen our lives to be showcased as an example to follow. And we do not take this lightly. 

But we do have a huge ASK for you. 

Would you pray for your pastor? And his wife? And their children? Pray as you would want to be prayed for! I have joked about the golden rule of prayer: “Pray for others as you would have them pray for you!” Remember, again, that they don’t need fancy, extra-spiritual prayers just because it’s your pastor! Pray for patience and tenderness in their marriage, for growth in their own quiet times with Jesus, pray for health and protection for their children! 

And THANK YOU. Because without the prayers of so many, I know that my husband and I would not be the same. We have asked for prayer from people near and far in the time since we launched that first Easter service, and God has heard and answered! THANK YOU! Keep praying!

My Story | Kim Travaglino

When God Says "Yes" by Andre Amirato

I would like to consider with you one response we might receive from the Lord when we pray and what impact our reaction can have on our lives. It can be a real struggle to even open up to the Lord, but even greater change can occur when we listen to his voice and act accordingly. 

Read 2nd Samuel 5:17-25 and 1 Chronicles 14:10-16

Soon after David was anointed king, the Philistines came to attack him. He asked the Lord if he would grant him victory and the Lord blessed him. He received a “yes” from the Lord and was victorious. The story could end right there, and everyone would be satisfied. You ask about something, the Lord says yes, end of story. But there are two key behaviors that we should learn from King David in order to delight in the full capacity of the Lord.

In verse 21, Samuel states “and the Philistines left their idols there, and David and his men carried them away.” (ESV) The enemy attacked unsuccessfully, as they retreated, they left behind their relics, false gods, images and identifiable paraphernalia. The Lord gave David the victory that he needed, and before celebrating, before thanking his men, David goes to work for the Lord. He glorified the Lord by purging the land of all that came from the enemy. Verse 21 shows us the importance of honoring the Lord, regardless of how unfulfilling the action may be. Purging this land of these items also prevented that the enemy find something familiar when returning for another attack. We can never be sure that the enemy has run for good; there may be times when he may dare to attack once again, which is precisely what David experienced.

David also demonstrated humility in recognizing that his job was not done until he took care of the cleanup, the boring administrative work that easily gets pushed off to the side. He put God in first place, and, though he had victory, he knew that he must always be ready. The enemy would no longer find something familiar upon returning, and when they came back, David was ready for them. He was ready, he had already defeated them, and he knew exactly what to do. He already had a word from the Lord, a clear mandate and direction and so he went, and paused. Before carrying out with the direction that the Lord had already given him, he recognized that he must be continuously searching for the Lord’s direction, which is what he did.

David knew how to respond to the Philistines, but revered and feared the Lord. He stopped and sought the Lord’s direction once more. He did not rely on his own experience to tell him what to do, but continued in prayer. The Lord gave him another yes, but this time, David was given a unique set of instructions. He would not attack the Philistines as he had done so beforehand, rather the Lord guided him on an alternative path. He found victory once more in this alternative path. 

It is important for us to consider that he may have still found victory if he had done what had worked last time, but such victory would have been victory alone and not a victory that is coupled with honoring the Lord and submitting to his ways and means. The Lord equips us, he teaches us and he raises us up in such a way that we will learn how to advance, but if we open up to the Lord, even in the areas where we are already proficient and trained, we will then gain the opportunity to conquer and obey, to win and to glorify the Lord. As much as we may come to know and understand through the knowledge that the Lord affords us, confirmation can only come from the Lord. 

When the Lord says yes, we advance, but we must continuously submit ourselves so that we may have victory and be able to testify to the greatness of the Lord’s grace and mercy. King David placed himself and his army in second place when he ordered his men to carry away the idols that had been left behind. He recognized the need to prepare because he alone does not have the strength to fight, but he receives it from the Lord and will honor him at all times. Then, he presented himself to the Lord once more when he was again challenged, even though he had already been given victory in that place. Similarly, our response to God’s yes must be consistently humble and continue in prayer.

Why Technology? by Daniel Williams

Redemption Church Family,

It is my honor to be your pastor. 

One of the roles of being your pastor is to train and equip you to do the ministry God has prepared for you to do. 

Eph 4:11-12a “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry.”

That’s right! God wants to use YOU to bring Him glory and advance His Kingdom. And He wants me to help YOU make disciples.

This is why I have made it a priority to faithfully teach you God’s Word on a continual basisbecause as 2 Tim 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 

Although I can’t meet with all of you daily over coffee to discuss God’s Word, I can equip you through other means. With the power of technology I can help train and teach more people about Jesus than ever…and so can YOU! This is why we are so passionate about proclaiming Jesus through the vehicle of technology and use our website to equip and train people. It is a great way to spread the Word of God and proclaim Jesus.

We, as a church, have many resources to help you grow on our website, and we work hard to keep it updated frequently! These would include our Sunday morning messages, our 3 Minute Messages for you as you read through the Bible, relevant blog posts and much more. Check them out at https://redemptiondb.com/resources and let me know what you think. 

I also want to encourage you to share these resources with others! I want these resources to not only help YOU but to also help others. And when you find yourself encouraged by a video, podcast, or a blog post, take the time to share it with others. It is very easy to share these resources on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and we want as many people hearing about Jesus as possible. So pass these resources on to others!

My prayer is that through all of these resources going out through our website they would help your walk with Jesus and help equip you to pursue and proclaim Jesus. 

Let’s continue to use technology and all that we have to advance God’s Kingdom and bring glory to God. 

Praying for you all!

Pastor Daniel

Pass It On by Laura Williams

Do you ever find yourself struggling to retain what you read in the Bible? Or even to remember what you learned from a Sunday sermon or message? There are so many times that I have been deeply moved by a particular message at church, and months later I’ll find my notes from that message and realize I forgot all about the special thing the Lord spoke to my heart.

It can be embarrassing sometimes to recognize my inability to recall something that sincerely spoke to my heart. It’s not that I didn’t hear God speaking to me and desire to remember and apply what I learned. It just never found solid footing in my life, and I let it sit on the back burner of my heart long enough that it was simply forgotten. Don’t you wish we could find a way to remember and retain all of the beautiful truths we learn and keep them close in our hearts?

Something that has helped me tremendously in this area is the importance of SHARING what God is teaching me with someone else. When you teach the very things you are learning and pass them along to another person, those truths sink deeper into your own heart.

If you can teach it to someone else, your own understanding of that truth grows and becomes easier to remember.

When you read your Bible and God teaches you through it, share that with someone! You will mature in your knowledge and faith when you are able to teach someone else what God has taught you!

“Teaching the Bible” is an intimidating idea for most of us. Most of us would probably never describe ourselves as Bible teachers. You may feel you don’t KNOW enough, or perhaps you might be asked a question you won’t know the answers to! It is true that you cannot teach what you do not know and understand yourself, but what is different about teaching the BIBLE, is that the Holy Spirit Himself is able to speak through you and give you words to say! And also, it is completely normal and okay not to have all the answers!

Our faith grows when we step out and put our trust in God’s ability to speak through us! And once you do this a few times, you will begin to see that it is, in fact God who does the teaching, and you are simply his vessel—his voice—to speak to others.

Don’t be afraid to share what God has been teaching you, no matter how simple you may think it sounds!

Those truths will sink themselves deeper into your own heart, and you will get to see God use you to teach others!

And this can look different for each of us. You may want to find a friend who can be that person you share with on a regular basis—maybe you both can meet up during the week and share what God is teaching you that week. Or maybe you and your spouse can make an effort to share more with each other about your personal walks with Jesus. Another way that can be very helpful in maturing us and expanding our knowledge of the Bible is through teaching children! Teaching kids causes us to study the simple and foundational truths of Scripture in order to pass them along in a clear way. Pray about how God might want to be using you to teach someone else this week!

However you feel that this applies best to you, let me encourage you to start now! Be confident that God will use your willingness to share with others for both your own good and the good of others! Preach His Word, encourage one another, and watch how Jesus uses you!

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:  preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” -2 Timothy 4:1-2

Serve Sunday | An Interview with Daniel

Set A Goal To See Jesus by Alesha Sinks

It’s a New Year and perhaps you, like many, have set a Bible reading goal. And maybe, I’m not alone in finding this to be a daunting task. Or maybe, you’ve never even thought about the fact that there may be more than one way to go about this.

It sometimes seems like every “really spiritual” Christian sets a goal to read through the whole Bible in a year, and that anything less than that is a failure.

There are so many ways to approach your Bible reading goals, and yet we so often focus on just this one: reading the whole Bible in a year.

However, I’ve had several years of Bible reading where I haven’t come even close to reading the whole Bible, and yet, I have grown in profound ways in my understanding of and love for God and His Word.

This, I believe, is the fundamental shift that needs to take place in our approach to our Bible reading goals. The purpose of reading our Bible is not to consume as much as possible as quickly as possible, or even to achieve the “gold-standard” of reading the whole Bible in one year.

The purpose of Bible reading is to better understand who God is, and to know His Son, Jesus.

Jesus Himself said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me."
John 5:39

Ultimately, when we learn more about Jesus, when we better understand who He is and how much He loves us, we begin to love Him more. And when we fall more in love with God, when we stand in greater awe and gratitude for what He has done for us and for who He is, then we will desire and begin to become more like Him our daily living.

Goals and plans can surely help us, but we will ultimately fail at Bible reading if we fail to love God more as a result of it.

Knowing this, that the goal of our studying God's word is to first fall more in love with Jesus and then to become more like Him, it should be with great eagerness that we take on the lifelong journey of growing in our knowledge and understanding of Him and His Word. Granted, we are human and any growth will often feel difficult and painful, but it is so worth the work.

So instead of feeling overwhelmed by New Years resolutions to "read the Bible more", let's set our hearts to fall more in love with Jesus and plan a path of studying and growing in God's Word that will help us to do just that.

To help you as desire to grow in your understanding of God’s Word, I want to share a few of my favorite approaches to reading God’s Word:

1. Set a goal to become more familiar with the Bible as a whole.

Become comfortable with the layout and sections and flow of it as a whole. Usually the best way to approach this is to read the Bible through rather quickly, in a year or so.

My favorite way to do this is by using a reading plan. I like plans like this one, where you read a little bit from the Old Testament, a little bit from the New Testament, and a little bit from the book of Psalms each day. However, other good approaches are chronological reading plans or taking the Bible one book at a time, in any order you choose, and checking each book off until you have read the whole thing.

However you do it, reading the Bible all the way through (in a year or two) is one of my favorite ways to approach God’s Word. You will gain such an appreciation for the consistency shown by God through His Word, and will develop a broader understanding of the biblical timeline as you do.

2. Set a goal to dig deep into a specific book of the Bible.

This is a great way to use your inductive bible study skills, which Pastor Travis taught in a previous blog series: Part 1 - Part 2. Additionally, this is a wonderful way to study along with the Sunday morning sermons series or our 3-minute message series.

Pull out a notebook or journal and some study helps, and take it really slow, a chapter, or just a section of a chapter, at a time. Maybe even copy the entire section into your journal to help you slow down and really listen to every phrase.

3. Set a goal to study a specific Biblical topic.

There are so many reading plans available to help you with this and you can easily find lists of scripture by topic online. Or you can purchase a more traditional Bible study book on the topic you want to study, and use that to guide you. As always, you can find hundreds of sermons online to supplement your Bible reading and help you gain even more insight into a particular topic. Here a few good preachers to start with, when looking for sermons on specific passages or topics.

4. Set a goal to memorize and meditate on key sections of scripture so that you can quickly call to mind encouragement and wisdom and reminders of grace.

This kind of goal works really well in conjunction with the topical Bible study or even study of a specific book, discussed above. Pick a key verse(s) or section and spend a little time every day memorizing and pondering that passage. This way, you will always have that section to remind you of the things you learned during your study.

Whether you are memorizing a passage or not, going slowly and prayerfully through the same section over and over again is a wonderful way to help the truths of God’s Word sink deep into your heart and begin to transform your mind.

There are so many ways to study God’s Word, and none is better or more spiritual than the other. In fact, applying a wide variety of bible study techniques throughout your life will actually help you grow in your understanding of God’s Word.

Plans and systems and goals are wonderful things, but if we loose sight of their purpose, helping us to know and love Jesus more, then they become worthless pursuits. So as we seek to know and love Jesus more fully, let’s remember that this is something He has called us to and has given us the ability to do through Jesus.

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence”
2 Peter 1:3

He has given us everything we need to fulfill what He has called us to do for His glory in this life, and He has given it to us through knowing Him. Yet how do we learn to know Him more? Though His Word and His Spirit.

I pray that this year would be one of growth and maturity for you in the area of knowing God through His Word.

My Story | Alesha Sinks

Maturing As A Christian by Travis Sinks

As a Christian, we have the privilege of not only being saved by Jesus, but to be given new life so that we would mature and grow to become more like Him. Our calling to grow and become more like Jesus is throughout all of the New Testament. A few examples are: John 15:16, 1 Peter 1:15-16, Titus 2:11-14, Ephesians 2:10, Colossians 1:10, 2 Timothy 1:9.

However, we need to remember the warning that Paul gave in the book of Galatians:

"Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” Galatians 3:3

This new life given to us by Jesus is a gift of grace. And just as it is God’s grace that saves us, it is by His grace that we grow and mature and become more like Him.

With that said, God has given us handlebars and helpful ways for us to fan this gift of God from a small flame into a burning fire. It is by God’s grace that we have an opportunity to grow, and it is by His power and Spirit that we have the ability to walk in His grace and mature by faith - but he has also given us very practical steps that He has put in place for us to act on and do our part. As Jesus said, it is when we obey God in faith, and put these into practice that we are blessed (Luke 11:28).

To encourage our spiritual maturity, Peter lays out a general template of how we grow in our faith and become more like Jesus in 2nd Peter 1:5-8.

"For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:5-8

Here’s a breakdown of the list we find in this section:

• Faith
• Virtue
• Knowledge
• Self-control
• Steadfastness
• Godliness
• Brotherly Affection
• Love

NOTE: Faith is where salvation takes place. Everything from here on our is the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification, which is the life-long process of God’s Spirit making us more like Jesus. When the verses above say “supplement your faith with…” it’s saying to make complete and whole. Not that you are unsaved, but that the purpose of faith is to bring about our relationship with God and our sanctification. So when we “supplement our faith with…” we’re NOT adding to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. We are saved by grace through faith alone. However, we are told to corporate with God in bringing about our sanctification by obeying Him in faith.

With that in mind, let's look at how this process works itself out in our lives:

We begin with faith. Nothing can happen apart from faith (Hebrews 11:6).

After faith, we begin finding and encouraging virtue in our lives. As God’s Spirit fills our lives, we supernaturally will begin to seek to obey God by living a more virtues life.

From virtue we are encouraged to grow in knowledge and continue to learn the will of God that we may be even more obedient and near to His good plan for us.

Resulting from knowledge, we are called to self-control. Now that we’re even more aware of God’s plan and purpose, we are called to have self-control and seek to pursue Him over other choices in life.

From self-control we are called to remain steadfast in our lifestyle. That we wouldn’t have self control one day, and then abandon God’s will the next. We are called to walk with God throughout our life.

Through steadfastness comes godliness. It’s been said that what you do defines your character and your character defines who you are. As we continue in self-control and steadfastness, we are becoming more like Jesus and we begin to have godly character.

Eventually, godliness we will grow into brotherly affection. As we become more like Jesus it’ll be normal for us to have a love for His church, just as He has.

And ultimately, brotherly affection grows into general love for God and others.

A quick summary of what we just went over is:

1. From faith in God, we are called to seek God’s will for our lives, and be obedient to Him
2. We will find our character grow through continuing to seek Him and obey Him consistently.
3. From this nearness to God in faith that plays itself out in our everyday lives, we will begin to grow spiritual fruit of brotherly affection and love (see John 15 on bearing fruit).

Another way to put it is:

God’s plan for your life is that you would:

• Know Him (faith)
• Obey Him (virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness)
• Become more like Him (godliness, brotherly affection, love)

Paul then ends this section by telling us that if we do all of these things (“if these qualities are yours”) and if they are growing because we continue to pursue Jesus, then we will keep from “being ineffective or unfruitful.”

So may we be effective and fruitful as we have been called to be, and may we put these into practice.

If you would like to learn more about how to apply these in your life, we highly encourage you to read this book: Spiritual Disciplines by Donald Whitney. You can also read this blog post by Alesha where she encouraged us to build habits and to have perseverance in our spiritual growth.

A Recap of 2016 (Celebrating 4 Years)

Happy New Year!

As we enter 2017, we want to look back and celebrate all God has done this past year. Below you can see a recap of our year at Redemption Church and join with us in thanking God today for the great things He has done! We want you to know that you have been a part of this special work through your prayers and support for us. We are remembering with you so that we can look ahead to this new year with expectation and faith in who Jesus is and that He has great things in store! We pray that you are blessed this year as you pursue and proclaim Jesus in 2017!