Will Davis Jr.'s Blog, page 18

Can We have a Conversation?

This weekend at ACF, I begin a four week teaching series that I hope you will participate in whether you attend ACF or even if you read this blog from somewhere else in the world.

The series is called Conversation Staters. My goal in the series is literally to begin conversations between people who fall on all sides of the issues I’m addressing. And more importantly, I want to start conversations between people and God.

Here are the topics I’ll be addressing:

April 25/26–The Question of Suffering and Sacrifice . How do we, as believers, respond to suffering of other people around the world? Is the poverty in a third world country on the other side of the globe our responsibility? And, how should we respond to persecution of Christian around the world?
May 2/3–The Question of Same Sex Orientation .  Is there a more polarizing question in culture and in the church today? Have scientists and theologians finally agreed that God creates people gay? Is homosexuality still considered a sin? How can someone be sinning if they’re born that way? How do we respond to gay believers?
May 9/10–The Question of Parenting . Does the way we parent today align with God’s design for parenting? Are the goals we have for our kids consistent with God’s plans for them? Are the values we’re teaching them and modeling for them consistent with God’s Word?
May 16/17–The Question of Careers and Callings . Is the “go to school, find a career path and work till you retire” plan really a good one? How do you know if you’re called, and to what? Does God have other plans for us than just pursuing our careers and then retiring.

As you can see, this is going to be a spicy series.

I hope you’ll participate by either attending ACF or watching the messages here each week. I’ll post a series of discussion questions here each week with the video to help you get those conversations going.

See you next week!

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It’s Time to Start Some Conversations

Letters to the Church 4:21:15 from Will Davis Jr on Vimeo.

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You can Overcome Fear. Here’s Living Proof

 

Today, Susie’s book Unafraid officially releases.

It’s a huge answer to prayer. It’s a story of redemption and healing, and one that will help you confront and overcome your own fears.

It’s a story of how God can take even the worst human tragedy and turn it into beauty.

It’s a story that took over thirty years to write.

And, it’s a story that will restore your hope and trust in God’s goodness.

Unafraid is available at bookstores everywhere and online. Click the image the go to the Unafraid Amazon page.

 

Click here to watch Susie telling her story at ACF last weekend.

 

 

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Welcome our new ACF | four points Community Pastor!

 

Greetings, friends!  If you haven’t heard already, I am thrilled to announce that Darril Holden, Jr. will be joining the ACF | fourpoints Staff and serving as our ACFfp Community Pastor. God led us to Darril as a result of a multi-month national search… Yea God! We are very blessed to have Darril on our team. He is a godly man with the very church ministry experience we believe we need for ACFfp. I will introduce Darril and his wife, Marie and daughter, Jenna, to ACF | fourpoints at all services Mother’s Day weekend, so mark your calendars! He will join our Staff in mid-June. We know you will give the Holden family a warm welcome when you see them!

“Unafraid” – Part 2  Don’t miss Susie’s message this weekend based on her new book Unafraid: Trusting God in an Unsafe World. Unafraid is the story of Susie’s struggle with the stronghold of fear and God’s miraculous delivery of her. It offers wisdom, guidance and hope to fear-ers of all ages. Unafraid is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. It will be officially released April 21.

Baptism! Spring is the time of new life, and there is no better representation of new life for believers than baptism. Do you need to be baptized? Don’t put it off any longer. God will honor your obedience. Contact your respective community pastor for more information about your community’s next baptism.

Upcoming Series: Conversation Starters – April 24/25 – May 16/17 – You won’t want to miss this series designed to start serious conversations in your homes and small groups or with friends, neighbors or coworkers. Topics will run the gamut from Parenting to Sexual Orientationand from Suffering and Sacrifice to Careers and Callings. Learn to take down the barriers and open the doors to deep conversations with those around you.

 

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How to Pray Big, Hairy, Audacious Prayers (BHAPS)

Ca we talk about your prayers? Are you asking big things of God? Are you praying for God to do what only he can? Many of you are.

You’re praying for an addiction to be broken, or for a friend’s business to be successful. You’re praying for an atheist professor to find Christ, or you’re asking God to change the heart of a national leader. Maybe you’re praying for the return of a prodigal son, or perhaps you’re asking God for a miraculous physical healing. Whatever the case, if you’re in the business of praying BHAPs, you already know it.

But maybe you’ve realized that you’re not making sufficient asks of God. You’ve realized that you don’t have any real BHAPs. You’ve recognized that you’re stuck at the God bless Tom level of praying. Are you ready to start asking for bigger things? Maybe you’re wondering, How do I know what to pray for? How do I find the right BHAP for me to set before God? Here are some simple suggestions.

First of all, examine your concerns. This isn’t difficult. Just start with the areas that you worry or fret over the most. Are you worried about your marriage, your career, a friend’s salvation? Then why not make it a BHAP? Turn your fears and worries into big asks of God. Also, consider your passions. What areas would you most like to impact or most like to see changed in your world? Turn them into BHAPs.

I pray just about every day for my hometown of Austin to be known around the world as a God-fearing city. I love Austin and I am saddened by the spiritual confusion that reigns there. But all my sadness and worrying won’t help Austin. So several years ago, along with starting a church to help Austinites find Christ, I started praying some very specific biblical promises for my hometown. Every one of them are big, hairy audacious prayers. I’m asking God to do really big things in a city that I know he loves and died for. That’s BHAP praying.

Second, find verses of the Bible that state what you want God to do. I gave up a long time ago on trying to find creative and persuasive language to use on God. Now I just pray what he’s already said that he wants to and is willing to do. The Bible is an incredible source of BHAP promises. So once you’ve identified you passion or concern areas, start combing the Scriptures for verses that clearly state your desires.

Another BHAP I pray regularly is for 5000 believing men to fill our church. Acts 4:4 says that “many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.” That “5000 men” phrase appears more than once in the New Testament. One day I felt the Spirit nudge me to start praying for 5000 believing, praying men in our church. Can you imagine the impact a church of 5000 spiritual warring men could have on a city? Today in our church, we’re still a long way from having 5000 of anything, much less men, so it’s a very outrageous prayer. But you can still find the phrase “5000 men” written on many of the pages of my Bible. I pray that BHAP just about every day.

Do you want wayward child to come home? Then remind God of his love for prodigals (Luke 15:11-24). Do you long to see someone under extreme spiritual oppression liberated? Then pray that Jesus will do for them what he did for spiritually oppressed people in the Gospels (Luke 8:26-39). Are you unable to forgive someone who has wronged you? Pray for the kind of heart that Jesus had for his enemies (Luke 23:34). The Bible is loaded with ready-made prayers to help you express your BHAPs to God. Become a student of the Bible and learn to how mine the treasures of its promises.

Finally, pray. Don’t just come up with BHAPs for your own entertainment. Have the spiritual gumption to pray them! Where would Zechariah and Elizabeth have been if they had only wished for a child? What if they had talked about the BHAPs, read about similar BHAPs in the Hebrew Scriptures, but then never got around asking God for their own? At some point, if we’re really serious about securing miraculous things from God, we’ve got to be equally serious about asking him for them.

Here’s a critical word to describe BHAP praying–tenacity. If you’re going to secure big things from God in prayer, then you better be willing to stay after it until he comes through. Drive-by praying and miraculous answers rarely go together. Remember the verse we looked at from Isaiah a little earlier in this chapter: I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth, (Isaiah 62:6-7). God’s command there is to never be silent. He wants us to persistently seek him until he answers. He said that we are to give him no rest. That means that every day, every time we go before God, we need to remind him of our needs and his promises. Tell God that you are deadly serious about securing his answer. Tell that you will not be silent until he moves in the situation that you’re praying for. Show God that you’re willing to pray and wait until he comes through, just like he promised.

I use my Bible as my prayer guide. It’s filled with literally hundreds of names and needs that I take before God regularly. Some of the same names and needs appear on just about every page. They’re there to remind me to not miss a day praying for Mike’s salvation, or Austin’s revival, or our church’s financial provision. Are you doing that? Are you being tenacious in your prayers? Don’t quit! You may just be one prayer away from a huge breakthrough. So stay at it.

From The Power of Praying Boldly.

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Don’t Let A Little Rain Stop You!

 

Greetings, friends! Looks like a lot of rain is in our forecast…Yea God! Keep praying with me for Lake Travis to hit 681! Grab your umbrellas and head out to ACF this weekend for a Saturday or Sunday event. It’s going to be a great weekend! Here are some of the highlights for the weekend and other upcoming events:

Beginning This Weekend! : Unafraid – April 11/12 & April 18/19 Susie and I invite you to join us as we lead through this two part series based on Susie’s new book Unafraid: Trusting God in an Unsafe World. Unafraid is the story of Susie’s struggle with the stronghold of fear and God’s miraculous delivery of her. It offers wisdom, guidance and hope to fear-ers of all ages. Unafraid is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. It will be officially released April 21.

UPDATE: ACFgroups Transformed Celebration Postponed! The outdoor Transformed Celebration has been postponed due to the weather forecast of rain.  Since it just didn’t feel right to pray AGAINST God bringing rain to Austin to preserve our plans, a new date will be announced next week!  This weekend, however, there will be tables in the lobby to sign up for Transformed Electives.  Take the next step, and dive deeper in the areas of physical, mental, emotional, relational, financial or vocation health.

Baptism! Spring is the time of new life, and there is no better representation of new life for believers than baptism. Do you need to be baptized? Don’t put it off any longer. God will honor your obedience. Contact your respective community pastor for more information about your community’s next baptism.

Upcoming Series: Conversation Starters – April 24/25 – May 16/17 – You won’t want to miss this series designed to start serious conversations in your homes and small groups or with friends, neighbors or coworkers. Topics will run the gamut from Parenting to Sexual Orientation and from Suffering and Sacrifice to Careers and Callings. Learn to take down the barriers and open the doors to deep conversations with those around you.

 

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Are You Unafraid?

 

On May 18, 1978, my wife, Susie, witnessed a murder in her public school classroom. An eighth-grader at the time, Susie was listening to her much-loved teacher, Rod Grayson, when her classmate and neighbor walked in and calmly fired three shots from a .22 rifle into him from just a few feet away. Mr. Grayson died moments later.

It was the first school shooting in the US in nearly forty years, making Susie and her other classmates now the oldest surviving group of school shooting witnesses in the country.

The murder devastated my wife, who over the years developed a major fear stronghold and a distrust of God. She loved God, but she didn’t trust him. In her young mind, God had proven to be unreliable. He had let this bad thing happen, why wouldn’t he let something horrific happen again?

Susie embraced fear as her guardian, believing that hyper-diligence and caution would protect her and those she loved from the bad things of the world. But fear is no guardian, but rather a tyrant. Susie was soon a slave to the tyranny of fear.

In the early 1990’s Susie began to show symptoms of PTSD, including having flashbacks from the shooting. That was actually the beginning of Susie’s healing, and in the coming years my tentative and fearful wife was freed from her stronghold and grew into a brave and courageous woman.

Today, her calling is to find fellow “fear-ers” and to help them be delivered from the tyranny that she knows all too well. This woman, who for years couldn’t even talk about the shooting, has now written an amazing book about her experiences and God’s healing.

In Unafraid: Trusting God in an Unsafe World, Susie tells the story of the shooting, her subsequent battles with fear and the miraculous freedom that God brought to her. Scattered throughout the book are beautiful stories of God’s gentle work in Susie’s life, including a pivotal moment when he spoke to her through the regrowth and new life in a Colorado forest that was devastated by a fire in 1978, the same year as the shooting.

If you would like to know more about Unafraid and Susie’s story, check out Susie’s blog at Susiedavis.org. Unafraid will be released on April 21st. If you order it today you will have your copy on the release date.

Unafraid will be a great resource for any women’s, small groups or survivors’ ministries. It will also be a great a great gift for anyone struggling with fear. And as every mom worries about her kids, it will be a perfect Mother’s Day gift.

Please write to me and let me know how God uses Unafraid in your life.

 

 

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Easter Weekend is Here!

 

Greetings and Happy Easter, friends!  This weekend we have so many great opportunities for you and your family to celebrate Easter. Don’t forget to invite friends, neighbors and co-workers to join you! Here’s what the weekend schedule looks like:

Friday, April 3

Noon Communion and Worship service at ACF | four points
Serve our City Good Friday Worship at the Long Center, 1:30, 4 and 6:30.  Check out this short video for more info:   Click here to view the embedded video.

Saturday, April 4

4 Points services at 4 and 6 PM – If you are part of the ACF family, please try to attend one of these Saturday services to make room for guests on Sunday morning!

Sunday, April 5

Regular service times at all communities

Upcoming Messages: Unafraid – April 11/12 & April 18/19 Susie and I invite you to join us as we lead through this two part series based on Susie’s new book Unafraid: Trusting God in an Unsafe World. Unafraid is the story of Susie’s struggle with the stronghold of fear and God’s miraculous delivery of her. It offers wisdom, guidance and hope to fear-ers of all ages. Unafraid is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. It will be officially released April 21.

ACFgroups Transformed Celebration! Don’t miss this celebration on the lawn at ACF | four points on April 12 after the 11am service. Stories, food, fun & games for all! RSVP & share your story of transformation.

Baptism! Spring is the time of new life, and there is no better representation of new life for believers than baptism. Do you need to be baptized? Don’t put it off any longer. God will honor your obedience. Contact your respective community pastor for more information about your community’s next baptism.

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Our Easter Hope

Greetings Friends, and HAPPY EASTER!

Before we all jump into the wildness that has become Easter weekend, I wanted to write you and remind you of the great gift we have through Jesus’ resurrection.

In 1 Peter 1:3, Peter celebrated the hope that we all have because of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. The hope of which Peter spoke isn’t a hope in riches or education or human ingenuity or blind chance. He called it a living hope.

It’s living, because it’s based in our living Lord.

At the cross, that dark day in history which we will commemorate tomorrow, Jesus felt all the weight of all the sin and suffering in the world. He died the worst death of any human who has ever lived. But the Scriptures teach and history has confirmed that he rose from the dead and thus forever broke the tyranny of sin, Satan and death. He demonstrated the greatest power the world has ever known, a living, triumphant power that knows no bounds.

And his living power gives us living hope.

Hope is a powerful force. Those with real hope have the greatest influence in the world. Living hope can neither be silenced nor vanquished. And if you follow Jesus, that hope is yours.

I want you to slow down enough this Easter weekend to reflect on our great hope. Perhaps, when you sit down for your Easter lunch, brunch or dinner, you will read 1 Peter 1:3-5 with those gathered around your table, and then pray and thank God for the unconquerable hope we have because of Jesus’ resurrection.

And then, tell you friends and neighbors about it. They’re looking for hope too.

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Wake-Up Calls Update

Friends, it is with mixed emotions that I announce that I will no longer be writing Wake-Up Calls. I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of sharing some of my devotional thoughts with you, and your responses and comments have been very encouraging. But, it’s time for a change.

After a three-year hiatus I’m moving once again in to book-writing mode. My last book was Enough: Finding More by Living with Less, and I feel that it’s time for me to write another. I have several projects and opportunities in front of me, and I’m seeking the Lord’s guidance on which to pursue. But, I know I can’t produce a book and still write Wake-Up Calls. Thus the change.

I’m not going away entirely. Please follow me on my blog, via Twitter @willdavisjr, and on my Facebook Author’s page. To keep up with important events at Austin Christian Fellowship, you can subscribe to Letters to the Church. You can also subscribe the Susie’s and my writings to the next generation at Davisletters.com.

Thank you for for you ongoing friendship and support. I’ll keep you posted as things continue to develop on the book-writing front.

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