Breakout Three

Breakout Three
Holy Hunches, Spiritual Intuition and Not-So-Gentle Promptings
Pastor Greg Nettle, Senior Pastor of River Tree Christian Church

This pastor tells the story of him leading his church from being church-centric in their ministry focus to becoming a body of believers that blesses those outside their local body with force that is centrifugal; outward. The story at his church: as they gave, their offerings went up 50%. But they gave out of a conviction of obedience and love of God, a desire to bless poor children, not expecting God to do anything in return. Literally giving and expecting nothing back. That doesn’t sound like the most logical way to run a ministry, but you can’t out-give God.

He taught us that the blessings we enjoy have one purpose: to be a blessing. Of the money we have, ten percent doesn’t belong to God; it all belongs to God.

Pastor Gary shared about a common experience we Americans have when visiting other cultures to serve and bless them. The visited are incredibly generous and joyful with the little they have because they want to bless us. We too often think that we have to wait until money “happens to us” to be a blessing to others. Meanwhile, we service the debt for the things we have instead of being generous with God’s resources (my comments, not Pastor Gary’s). Ouch.