Brett Morey

Investing vs. Spending

What is the difference between investing and spending?

invest – to use, give, or devote (time, talent, etc.), as for a purpose or to achieve something

spend – to pay out, disburse, or expend; dispose of (money, wealth, resources, etc.)

- Dictionary.com

In our lives we are entrusted with a vast array of resources. This includes our time, our talents, and our treasures. We must choose how we use these resources. We can either invest them or spend them. We can give our lives “for a purpose or to achieve something” or we can give our lives “to pay out, disburse, or expend; dispose of.”

When we use our resources without an overarching purpose we are spending, not investing.

The same is true for the life of a church. We are merely spending our resources when we:

• are busy for the sake of being busy
• give for the sake of giving
• do church for the sake of doing church

How do we invest ourselves as a church instead of merely spending? We must use, give, and devote (time, talent, etc.), for a purpose to achieve something.

What does all of this hinge on? Knowing what that “something” is. Until we know what it is that we are to invest in we can’t invest. Sure, we all know some generalities of what we are to invest in but that in not enough. We as a church must have a clear, distinctive, compelling purpose. Without it we can not invest with all of the power and potential that God desires for us to have.

So what is all of this about?

Please be in prayer. The pastors of FBC Lake Placid are spending the entire day on Thursday in prayer and the Scriptures to hear from God specifically about His will in how we invest our life as a church. Please remember during the day on Thursday to lift each of us up individually as well as all of us as a team in prayer.

Matt Chandler on the De-churched

Why do some people walk away from the church?

Oh what a journey

I write this as I watch my kids on the playground. I think back to when I was their age. I had no idea of all of the twists and turns that my life would take to get me from their age to now.

There has been great joy and great hurt over the years. If I had known all of the things I would experience through the years beforehand I wonder how different the journey would have been.

I don’t know what Jordan and Joshua’s journeys will look like but I pray everyday that they will set their eyes on Jesus in the days of their childhood and follow Him until their last steps.

God is Great. God is Good.

When I was a child I was taught the same little pre-meal blessing that many have been taught through the years.

“God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him…” I’m sure you remember how it goes.

It seems that all of our doubts about God center around one of these two ideas about God. Is God really great? Is God really good?

Tomorrow morning I will preach about the greatness and goodness of God. I have known for a number of weeks that this would be the topic. It is simply the next message in a series of messages about who God is.

It is uncanny how this week has forced me to focus on these questions. Over the past few days I have looked into the face of individuals who are wrestling with believing that God really is good. How can we say God is good when He allows our loved ones to die in tragic accidents? How can we say God is good when, through no fault of their own, a couple loses almost everything they have and aren’t sure how  they are going put the pieces of their lives back together?

I know that this is hard to understand but God’s goodness is much larger than our immediate circumstances. In fact, sometimes, the tragic events of our immediate circumstance are the stepping stones of our path to the good that God has in store for us.

So what do we do when our circmstances aren’t good but we want to trust that God is good? We hope. We simply hope. We hold on to fact that God is good until we see that goodness manifested in our experience.

Hope isn’t easy but hope is always worth it.

Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who put their hope in Me will not be put to shame. – Isaiah 49:23

I’m Mad!

The title of this post says it all. I am mad. In fact, I feel like a much stronger word would better describe how I feel right now but it would be inappropriate to use it.

I was eating lunch with my family after an awesome morning at church. I couldn’t believe how great the services were and how present God was. Just then I received a message on my cell phone. Upon reading the message I learned that a pastor friend of mine announced his resignation at his church today because he had been physically and emotionally unfaithful to his wife with his personal assistant.

At first, I was mad at my friend. Because of stupid decisions he has battered his family, humiliated his wife, shattered the trust of his church, gave the church of Jesus Christ another black eye, and gave the world another example of a fallen pastor. For all of those reasons, my first reaction was that I wanted to punch him.

As God began to speak to my heart, however, my anger didn’t lessen but it was redirected. I am still very mad. But I am mad at satan. It was his attack. It was his handiwork. Now I don’t see my friend as any less responsible. But it is the evil one that won that battle and is taking great delight in the destruction that has been caused.

Please pray for this former pastor, his family, church, and community. Out of respect, I won’t call out his name but the Lord knows them. And pray for me. This has hit me very hard.