Independent Assemblies
Nov/Dec 2014
uniting ministries worldwide
FINDING YOUR RHYTHM
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calendar November
Interstate Fellowship Meeting November 10, 2014 Family Life Church Cyril, OK Rev. Donnie Miller Arkansas Fellowship Meeting November 18, 2014 Trinity Fellowship Center Cabot, AR Rev. Tom Bush
December
North Texas Christmas Party December 5, 2014 • 7:00pm Golden Corral Restaurant 1724 S. Loop 288 • Denton, TX Interstate Fellowship Meeting December 8, 2014 Mending Hearts Church Stella, OK Rev. David Tomkins
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January
Interstate Fellowship Meeting January 12 , 2015 Mending Hearts Church Collinsville, OK Rev. Kelvin Limbocker
MOVING?
NOV | DEC 2014
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f 2 Calendar
Independent Assemblies PO Box 1546 Ada, OK 74821 (580) 310-0222
4 Scott Crosby Ministries 5 Lost & Found 6 Super Effective Youth Leaders 8 Finding Your Rhythm
10 Higher Ground Church 11 Board Members
Independent Assemblies PO Box 1546 Ada, OK 74821 (580) 310-0222 www.independentassemblies.org Produced by Layers Media, Inc. www.layersmedia.com connection • 3
by: Mindy Wood
SCOTT CROSBY MINISTRIES Pastor, children’s crusader, evangelist, and recently a standup comedian, Scott Crosby will minister to anyone of any age in any setting. He and his wife Marci have travelled all over the United States, Canada, Mexico and Jamaica to share the Gospel with children, teens, and adults. Scott was born in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana to French speaking Cajuns who had made their living “shrimping and trapping” on the bayous and marshes of coastal Louisiana. After he graduated high school, he felt a call to ministry so he attended International Bible School (IBC) in San Antonio, Texas. There he met and married Marci. They were excited about sharing their future serving God together. There was just one problem. Scott was very shy. The thought of speaking and preaching in front of people rattled him so badly that he sought God’s will again. While attending Pastor John Hagee’s church, they were asked to work the church children’s ministry. “I just fell in love with it, and that’s where I learned to speak in front of people. Children seemed to me, at that time, less intimidating than adults,” said Scott. In the 1970s, puppet shows and elaborate, handson lessons for children’s church was not common, but the Crosby’s developed several dynamic programs. They did children’s crusades, kids’ church camps, and vacation Bible schools. The Crosby ministry started by organizing VBS for missionaries in Mexico, then they directed children’s ministry at Christian Center Church in Channelview, Texas. Eventually they were booked every weekend as itinerant children’s evangelists. After eleven years on the road, they accepted a pastorate at Vermilion Gospel Tabernacle in Abbeville, Louisiana where they would raise three children. After 24 years as pastor, God redirected them to go “on the road again,” speaking at churches, special events, children’s functions, and doing Cajun-style standup. “About ten years ago I would be at a church banquet and I would do ten minutes of standup with the Cajun dialect and style,” said Scott. 4 • connection
He was so well received as a comedian that he promoted the work and has travelled to California, Wisconsin, Texas, Arkansas, Florida as well as numerous venues in Louisiana. The Crosbys continue to have a heart for children’s ministry. Scott said it’s crucial that pastors reach children. “Statistics show that most Christians get saved when they were children or youth. Kids are open and for some reason, the older people are the less receptive they are. If you have puppets, games, and fun activities, kids will come (to church). It’s not hard to get kids. The Holy Spirit will touch and convict kids’ hearts as much as He does adults. Churches that will have a strong, dynamic children’s program will get young families. I think it’s a wise thing to do,” he said. They continue to bring children crusades to small churches who don’t have enough staff to offer it themselves and they work summer children’s church camps as well. The Crosbys also fill in for pastors who are out of town, and for churches without pastors. For more information about their ministry, contact them at 337-258-7893 or email scottmarci@gmail.com •
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Lost Found by: Mindy Wood
Leland and Jeannette Peterson can tell you a lot of stories. At 78 and 72 years old, they have both lived full lives, but when you hear the story of their recent marriage and new ministry, you’d think you were talking to a pair of newlyweds on their first big adventure. In a so-called past life, Leland and his first wife Mary were raising a family when they met Roy and Jeannette Sutherland who were also raising a family in Tucson, Arizona. Both families were active in the same church and knew each other well. The Petersons were busy with a community living house, common in the 1970’s, as a way to take in people who had lost their way. They had 24 beds to house and disciple homeless people, runaways, and those who were down on their luck. After they responded to the gospel, as Leland put it, they’d just take them home. Over the years they moved from Tucson to Oregon where they continued to disciple anyone by any means, even hitchhiking on buses to California as a way to lead people to Christ. They eventually settled in Missouri. Jeanette and Roy had a difficult life. Roy struggled with depression and serious health problems. Jeanette had to work two jobs to support the family. Eventually Roy became suicidal, but he called a suicide help line and talked with a pastor with whom he would later help provide layman counseling services. He improved significantly but when their pastor died, Roy spiraled into a hopeless abyss. In 1993, he committed suicide in front of Jeanette, leading her to shut herself off from everyone she had known in Tucson. She moved to Michigan where she worked and tried to heal. In 2010, someone from their old church in Tucson decided to host a church reunion. The Petersons were excited about it and after finally finding Jeannette not 40 miles from Leland’s sister, the three of them talked about old times.
Three weeks later, Mary died suddenly. Although she was a diabetic and said she felt as if she was coming down with the flu, her death was without any warning. As Leland waded through the murky waters of sudden grief, he and Jeannette kept in touch. She knew what it was like to lose someone suddenly. They both shared a passion for helping people. It wasn’t long before God put a love in their hearts for each other and they married that same year. Today, Leland and Jeannette are active in church and ministry. Leland is the Sunday school director at Salem Full Gospel church and they both volunteer and minister to inmates in a nearby state prison and the county jail. They recently purchased a 5,000 square foot home with seven bedrooms which they plan to convert into a community living home for those who get out of jail and want to start a clean life. “Our goal is not so much to furnish a house for homeless people but to make disciples,” said Leland. “Jesus said to make disciples and really that’s my heart’s main desire.” Jeannette is excited about it as well. “Our desire has been to do this since we’ve been married. When I went to the jail and saw the need there, I said, ‘Yes, this is what we need. These girls and guys need a place where they can go to get free without having to go back to the people they left.’” They expect the home to be ready in a couple of months and are looking for a couple to move in and help with the ministry. They challenge anyone to share the gospel no matter who they are or what their calling may be...or how old they are. “It doesn’t say go preachers, go chaplain, go priests. It says, ‘Go ye,’” said Leland. For more information about their ministry call Go Ye Disciples Inc. at 573-729-9484 •
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SUPER EFFECTIVE YOUTH LEADERS by: Greg Stier
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I just had the privilege of spending a week with 50 amazing youth leaders from across the nation and their top student ministry leaders. Lead THE Cause University is a week long intensive that equips good leaders to become great leaders who make and multiply disciples. Over this week of intensive training and interaction I witnessed 5 marks that identified these youth leaders as outstanding. These are what makes a youth leader super effective when it comes to advancing God’s kingdom in and through their sphere of influence. 1. Super effective youth leaders lead with prayer. I’ve seen it again and again and again. The youth leaders who make the biggest impact on earth relentlessly aim their prayers toward heaven. As a result God gives them the wisdom they need to keep moving forward step by step with the Spirit toward building a truly effective youth ministry. This was obvious last week at LTCU. The youth leaders who are seeing the most progress, both in discipleship and evangelism are the most persistent in prayer. Maybe that’s why Paul told Timothy, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people….” (1 Timothy 2:1.) When we pray first and program second what we program is the right stuff, delivered in the right way resulting in the right impact. 2. Super effective youth leaders set goals. Before a youth leader and their students can graduate from Lead THE Cause University they have to set and write a GREAT goal and a strategic plan to accomplish it. One of the highlights for me this last week was watching youth leaders labor over these goals that centered around their students advancing the Gospel in their circles of influence. Again and again I witnessed that the top youth leaders have very audacious, very specific and very inspiring goals that fit their youth ministry context and drive their youth ministry efforts. 3. Super effective youth leaders are super relational. Ain’t no doubt about it, the best youth leaders are really good at relationships both with their adult volunteers and their teenagers. At the core of it these youth leaders really like being around teenagers.
Instead of draining them it energizes them. Now don’t misunderstand. This brand of relational youth leader is more of a great coach than just a great friend to the teenagers under their care. But this kind of coaching relationship runs deep and strong between student and leader because the youth leader is willing to do what it takes to help these students win in life. As a result these teenagers play hard for their coaches and are willing to do amazing things because of their investment in them. 4. Super effective youth leaders merge evangelism and discipleship. Vibrant, healthy youth groups are led by leaders who refuse to segregate evangelism and discipleship. Instead they look at getting teenagers to share their faith as a kickstarter to discipleship and evangelism as a natural outflow of discipleship. They put teenagers in the “spin cycle” between D and E and are talking about both all the time. The result is that these teenagers are living out their faith publicly and passionately. These teenagers become much hungrier to pray, worship, dive into the Word and listen closely when the youth leader teaches because of the risks and rewards of engaging their circles of influence with the good news of Jesus. 5. Super effective youth leaders lead from the front. Part of the week-long experience at LTCU was taking teenagers out to the streets to put into practice what they’ve learned in evangelism. This can be an intimidating time but we’ve witnessed firsthand that the youth leaders who lead best set the pace when it comes to evangelism. They lead the way by example. Sometimes these youth leaders do not consider themselves to have the “gift of evangelism” but they all know they have the mandate to evangelize (Matthew 28:18-20) and they take it seriously. But it’s not just in evangelism. They lead from the front in prayer, worship, studying the Scripture, feeding the poor and helping the helpless. They set the pace for their teens and the teenagers follow their youth leaders as they follow Jesus. As the ultimate “youth leader” said himself, “The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.” •
pastors.com
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FINDING YOUR RHYTHM by: Jerry Edmon
We all have routines. Actually we are creatures of habit and routine. We find security in routines because it is predictable. We drive to work the same way, men start shaving at the same spot and in the same way, and usually at the same time. You have a routine where and how you brush your teeth. It is amazing how many things in our lives are already entrenched routines. But that’s alright. It keeps us productive and helps us stay organized. There is a rhythm to your life that enables you to operate at your fullest potential. You know it when you hit your groove. Everything starts coming together. I recently got off track in my exercise routine and have not been able to find my way back. When I stopped my routine I lost my rhythm. It throws everything off. It is like I fall into neutral and cease to be productive. I function to my highest ability when I have routines because they help me find my rhythm. This is especially important when you hit a low or non-productive season in your life. Like the surfer who is sitting on his board waiting for the right wave to come. He may appear to be uninvolved but in reality, he is positioned to catch the next opportunity. He can’t create the next wave, he just anticipates and prepared for it. Life happens whether you are ready for it or not. Routines keep you in line and provide an attitude that is positive and disciplined. In other words, routines keep you positioned for what is in front of you. There are times in your life when you hit an idle spot in your journey, a time of waiting, a time of resting or pruning. Too often we don’t understand the seasons of our life and during those times, we become distracted, discouraged or confused. These times hold the greatest dangers for us because during those times we can get off track or take a wrong direction. I have seen people get discouraged because it seemed that nothing was moving forward in their life. I have been guilty of that. I start thinking things like, “Maybe I am finished with my job here and I need to start looking for new opportunity elsewhere”. “It seems like nothing is happening in my life”. In the natural we have seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter. Your life is the same way. Routine keeps you in the game even when you feel like the
game is not going on. It insulates you against discouragement and uncertainty. • Routines keep you in a productive mode. • It keeps you engaged. • It keeps you at a moment’s notice ready to take advantage of the next opportunity. • It settles you when you don’t see much progress because it gives you a sense of productivity and accomplishment. • It keeps a watermark in front of you as you go through your day. • It fights off discouragement. It gives you a track record so that you can see that you are doing something even when it feels like nothing is going on. When a golfer’s swing gets out of whack, and sooner or later it will, he always goes back to his routine. That helps him see if he has picked up a bad habit. He has checkpoints in his swing that he can measure his results against. A person with no routines in his life will soon get off-track and not know it. He can’t see what he is doing wrong; he just knows that he can’t stay out of the woods. I encourage you to develop a routine for your life. Set a routine in what time you get up in the morning, and what time you go to bed at night. Set a routine in your prayer and meditation time, or making your bed or jogging in the morning. Set routines for how you keep your possessions; how you keep your desk or sock drawer; how you keep your house clean or what do you do with your day of rest? Create routines when you celebrate holidays or have special events. It isn’t a rut; it is doing things on purpose and with intention. These things keep disarray from spreading into the opportunities that come your way. Most people miss opportunities because their life is too cluttered and they can’t see them. We all have dreams and goals for our lives. But I promise you that those things don’t just happen. You need to ask yourself this question. “When it comes to my dreams and plans, what kind of structure do I need to help me get there? What kind of routines do I need to move me forward to my future? • connection • 9
by: Mindy Wood
HIGHER GROUND CHURCH Pastors Joel and Donna Downing felt a calling to return to Oklahoma and build a church. They moved to Pauls Valley and started Higher Ground Church in a local community center. Today they are working on their third debt-free building project that will accommodate 336 youth and children with future plans to an 800 seat auditorium. Joel was with the International Pentecostal Holiness Church ever since he graduated from Oral Roberts University in 1970 on a baseball scholarship. He travelled all over the United States pastoring, planting churches, and teaching church growth. In 1997 when they moved from Arizona to Oklahoma, Downing wanted a covering that allowed him to draw people from all denominations. He kept the sound Bible doctrine, but changed his approach to reaching people. He joined IA and enjoys the flexibility afforded by the fellowship. “The culture of the church is very open, very casual, and very friendly. We have one celebration service a week on Sunday and all the rest of the ministries are carried out at various times during the week. It’s a lot of different things we do, at a lot of different times,” said Downing. One of the most crucial ministries is their small group meetings. Small group trainings are held twice a year. The intimate gatherings are one of the things that foster community, something that is often harder to achieve in super-sized congregation on Sunday mornings. “When you go to a small group, you’d think they’re the tightest knit church in the world. The larger we get, we still have the sense of community that is fostered by the culture of the church.” The Sunday morning service offers praise and worship with Bible teaching and a prayer team for anyone who stays afterwards. Downing said the functioning of the gifts of the Spirit, healing, and deliverance are especially prevalent in the small group meetings and during retreats. During the week, they have meetings for men, women, couples, youth and families. Their children’s service attracts 150 weekly. Downing said the vision of their church is “a partnership with God in winning the world and helping believers become all God has destined them to be.” He places a
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strong emphasis on training up believers to be doers of the Word, giving them the opportunity to be involved in ministry in and out of the church context. He said he does not believe in collecting people but in releasing them to be who they are and do the work of the ministry. Higher Ground Church primarily supports two mission efforts: Surge sponsors pastors who plant churches mostly in the 1040 window; and Mission Generation is a ministry which gives governments an accredited Biblebased curriculum for public schools. “We have church planters who are in prison and some of them have been killed. We have planted 120 churches but there are probably 10,000 (Christians) meeting around the world because we keep planting churches,” said Downing. He is also excited to see the power of the gospel at work in schools through Mission Generation, mostly in South and Central America. The curriculum is based on Bible principles and even includes the plan of salvation at the end of the books. “In Bolivia it’s the mandatory curriculum because the government realized it was saving them millions of dollars,” said Downing. “The children get saved, live morally, they don’t have as many pregnancies, and they don’t commit criminal acts. We sponsor schools and whole school districts to get them started. Chile has just adopted the curriculum and they’re now moving into Panama.” Downing said there are conversations happening in the United States legislature to test the curriculum in five states, though he was not free to say which states. As to the growth of their congregation, Downing isn’t sure why, but said he has always tried to do what God wants him to do. “There’s always been a presence of the Lord here. We don’t know how to attribute it to any one thing in particular. I have a philosophy that if you hold church in a way that God is pleased with it, He will help draw people to your church, because He can trust you with them.” For more information, visit myhgc.com or call 405238-3664 •
executiveBOARD Mickey Keith
President PO Box 1546 Ada, OK 74821 (580) 310-0222 mickey.keith@gmail.com www.life623.com
Dr. Ted Estes
Vice President PO Box 2248 Claremore, OK 74018 (918) 341-8344 pastorted@lifechangerchurch.com www.lifechangerchurch.com
Ken Anderson
Secretary/Treasurer PO Box 1120 Lexington, OK 73051 (405) 527-6030 kda@valornet.com www.libertygospelok.org
Robert Johnson
Director of World Missions PO Box 978 Blackwell, OK 74631 (580) 363-2734 roj@clarionmissions.org www.clarionmissions.org
Jerry Edmon
Board Member PO Box 862 Elgin, TX 78621 (512) 281-5316 Jedmon1234@aol.com www.fwcelgin.com
REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES Southeast Oklahoma District Rev. Billy Hunter Antlers, OK (580) 298-2740 Southwest Oklahoma District Rev. Donnie Miller Cyril, OK (580) 464-2224 (580) 512-3657 Northeast Oklahoma District Rev. Mac Blackwell Locust Grove, OK (918) 479-6057 North Texas District Rev. Marc Jones Denton, TX 75751 (903) 675-6011 Southeast Texas District Rev. Herb Hawthorne Baytown, TX (281) 723-2278 South Central Texas District Rev. Jerry Edmon Elgin, TX (512) 281-5316 Midwest Regional District Rev. Mark Maynard Granite City, IL (618) 931-4106 Arkansas Regional District Rev. Charles Kendrick Alexander, AR (501) 303-0831 Ozark Regional District Rev. Terry Fletcher Aurora, MO (417) 678-2310 connection • 11
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