Leadership Summit 2009

A quick note that the leadership summit was awesome this year.

Available

  I am excited to announce that I am available for revivals and pulpit supply.  I have over ten years of experience pastoring Southern Baptist Churches.  I believe the need of the hour is Biblical preaching on the life, death, resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  I am passionate to share the difference that Christ makes in the life of an unbeliever and a believer alike.  Please email me @ d_burchfiel@sbcglobal.net or call @ 405-248-7433.  Money is never an issue as I will come for a love offering.

Burchfiel News: Where have I been?

Sorry that it has been a while since I last posted.  I had a little surgery and other things have consumed my spare time.  One of the things that I’m committed to is that blogging won’t take away from my family time or my quiet time with the Lord.  Since I’m committed to that there will be times that I can’t blog.  The reason I have made that commitment is that I want to be faithful to the Lord and my family above all else.  I challenge each of you to examine the way you use your spare time.  It may not be blogging, but it may be something else that is getting in the way of your relationship with God or your family.  It is a good practice to examine your priorities every couple of weeks so that you make sure you are making the main things the main things.

So what have I been doing with my spare time besides blogging.  I have been reading a ton.  I hope to put some book reviews on here soon.  The books that I have read in the last month are ”The Calling” by Brother Andrew and “It” by Craig Groeschel.  I am currently reading “Developing A Heart for Mission” by Roy Robertson and “Velvet Elvis” by Rob Bell.  I have also been doing an indepth study of Acts.  I love reading and God has been challenging me to be more ministry minded.  In my reading I have developed a new life verse and I want to share it with you.  My prayer is that this might challenge you in the same way it challenges me,

“But I count my life of no value to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of God’s grace.” Acts 20:24

The last thing I want to share is that for the last month my wife and I have been memorizing a ton of verses and then in the evening reviewing them together.  This has been a great tool to not only grow in the Lord but to bond closer to my wife.  I want to encourage you to start memorizing verses.  I would start with John 3:16, Ps.19:11, or maybe 2 Tim. 3:16-17.  I encourage you to start because God’s Word is awesome.

Lastly, since I don’t know when I’ll blog next, I’ll leave you a joke and a song.

Joke:

Why did the tire get fired from it’s job?

It couldn’t stand the pressure.

Song: Audience of One

Fridays are Fun Days

What would the United States look like if Obama becomes president?  Is this our future?

 

Obama said he was bringing change to the White House

Gives new meaning to wanting a camel.

 

Obama's solution to our gas problem

George Muller

I finished reading the autobiography of George Muller and loved it.  Many may not know who George Muller  is and what a special role he plays in Classic Christianity.  He was a man who simply trusted God and prayed for everything.  George Muller is most known for the orphanage he created for children.  He didn’t go around asking for money or taking out loans to provide what was needed for the children, he just prayed and God provided.  

In reading his book I can’t go back living the same.  Two things that changed in my life is the realization that debt is sin.  He makes a statement that if you have to go into to debt to buy something then God doesn’t want you to have it.  We have some debt but because of this challenge we have a plan to get out of debt and stay out.   The other thing is to trust God in prayer.  He makes the statement that if I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, then I can also can do nothing without Him.  It is clear that the life of faith and the life of prayer go hand and hand.  What would happen if you measured your life and ministry by the answers to prayer you have experienced?  Are you willing to trust God with your life, your needs, and your ministry?  I encourage everyone to read this book and allow God to challenge you to trust Him for everything.

The W’s – The Devil is Bad

No this isn’t George Bush singing, this is a Christian Group with a fun song.  It is important to not only remember how great God is but to also remember how evil sin is.  I hope this song challenges to hate sin and the Devil.  I also want it to challenge you to love God with all your heart.

“The Hour of Desperation” by Dr. Stephen Olford

One of my favorite preachers was Dr. Stephen Olford and he spent his life challenging preachers to preach God’s Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.  In this article Dr. Olford shows us the power source for every believer.  Our power comes from prayer.  As you read this I hope that your prayer life is transformed.

“It is my conviction that we are never going to have revival until God has brought the church of Jesus Christ to the point of desperation. As long as Christians people can trust religious organization, material wealth, popular preaching, shallow evangelistic crusades and promotion drives, there will never be revival. But when confidence in the flesh is smashed, and the church comes to the realization of her desperate wretchedness, blindness and nakedness before God, then and only then will God bread in.

Yes, there must be the point of desperation but there must also be the point of intercession. Oh, that God would bring us to this place of intercession! We cannot think or talk, let alone taste of revival, without intercessory prayer. Indeed, the reason for an unrevived church in the last analysis is the sin of prayerlessness. Certainly there are individuals who are praying for revival, and God is graciously meeting them at the point of their need, but where are the prayer groups, where are the companies of intercessors, where are the churches united in an agonizing that God would rend the heavens and come down and cause the mountains of hindrance and sin and unbelief to flow before His presence? Yes, there is only one thing that will save us in this hour of desperation and that is prayer.”

Fridays are Fun Days

I love game shows because people really do and say some funny things.  Hope you enjoy this video.

Stupid Game Show Answers – Dumb Luck

Petra – “We Need Jesus”

As you listen to this song realize that Jesus is the only one answer to the real problems in your life.  I have heard people say that Jesus isn’t the only way and that there are many paths to enlightenment or even to God.  This is completely wrong.  The reason is an issue of sin.  Since no person is perfect, we are all with sin.  The Bible is clear that any sin will keep you from God the Father.  This is a huge problem, because how do you erase a sin?  Good deeds can’t do it.  Forgetting about it won’t do it either.  Wishing it away won’t make you clean.  The Bible says the only way for sin to be erase is for God to pour out His judgement on it.  The reason that Jesus Christ is the only way is He took all of God the Father’s judgement upon Himself and dead for sins on the cross.  He was buried for three days to prove that His work on the cross was complete.  Then God the Father resurrected Jesus bodily from the dead.  Jesus lives!  I challenge you to realize that there is only one way to God and that is through Jesus Christ having control of your life.  We truly need Jesus.

“Preaching That Hinders Revival” Conclusion by Richard Owen Roberts

Preaching That Calls For No Response Or A False Response

Preachers must guard against two false extremes: on the one hand, the failure to issue any call for response to the message; and on the other hand, the foolish notion that an immediate overt response to a presentation of partial truth always results in eternal salvation.

Much preaching appears pointless. If there is anything the hearers ought to do in response to it, they are left with no idea of what that response should be. A serious question must be raised whether this is preaching at all. Even if by some stretch of the imagination, or by some act of charity, pointless preaching can be favorably judged, a solemn fact must be faced: preaching that calls neither for a response nor moves people toward responding correctly is a hindrance to revival.

The hindrance to revival is equally as great when over-confidence is placed in overt responses. That the Holy Spirit is powerful enough to totally and permanently transform a person in an immediate response to a partial truth is not questioned. That this is the normal way the Spirit works is certainly not the case. In the ministry of Jesus, the bulk of the of the permanent responses, came as a result of years of disciplining. The  records of those who had a one time exposure to a tidbit of truth and were eternally saved are scarce. The stress I place is upon partial truth. Most of today’s sermons are so brief and so shallow that almost any truth conveyed has to be incomplete. Surely there was wisdom in the practice of earlier itinerant evangelists in preaching for days, even weeks, before issuing any call for overt responses.

What is a major contributor to the moral and spiritual decline in this generation? Is it not the negative impact of the inconsistent lives of millions of professed Christians who have never experienced a transforming work of the Holy Spirit. To add to that multitude by overemphasis on premature overt responses to sermons is a grievous offense against the Savior. This is a problem that ever loving preacher can immediately correct. 

Those of us who preach do not need to look for hindrances to revival in others until we have first eliminated all the hindrances already working in our own lives and ministries. Let us covenant together to make changes that are needed. 

But what about those who are not called to preach? Is there some way you have contributed to those hindrances? If so will you repent? Then will you pledge yourself to pray that all the preachers you know will rise above these hindrances. To your prayers add whatever help and encouragement you can give. Together, with God’s help, these hindrances can be moved.