KenPetrus.com

Executive Pastor @ North Side Baptist Church

Archive for February, 2010

Finding Your Place in Ministry…

Feb 24

Posted by ken in General, Leadership, Personal, Staffing

Finding Your Place in Ministry…

Where is your place in ministry? Do you know how God has gifted and equipped you to serve Him? Here is “OG”…he has what I call a “servant’s heart”. He shows up here at North Side a day or two each week to help out where ever he can be of service. Today, he shredded a huge pile of paper for us…then he had to clean up the mess that he had made…you got it…small shreds of paper all over the place. The job wasn’t finished until “OG” pulled out the vacuum and cleaned up the mess. A shredder and a vacuum cleaner may not be your giftedness, but what about helping out with children, preschoolers, students, senior adults, etc?

God has gifted and equipped us with various abilities and passions as well as life experiences to serve Him and grow His Kingdom. At North Side, we use a great tool…PLACE Assessment Tool provided by PLACE Ministries…here’s the link http://www.northsidebc.org/place/. The activation code is GEGEYFYNEA.

It is an assessment tool that can be taken on line and the results can be reviewed immediately. Call or email me after you have taken the assessment and we will get you an appointment with one of our counselors to explain the results with you. Our system is  designed to assess and place people into ministry.  Here is the acronym for PLACE:

P – Personality Blends

L – Spiritual Gifts

A – Abilities

C – Passions

E – Life Experiences

This is a great tool…check it out! Let us help you find your place in ministry.

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Oh No…I turned into a Hand-Talker!

Feb 16

Posted by ken in General, Leadership, Personal

Oh No…I turned into a Hand-Talker!

Sure enough…the other night on the way home form our C group time…Gail told me…”you know, if someone tied your hands down at your side, you would not be able to speak. In fact, you got so animated, at one point you almost hit me while I was sitting next to you”. I passed it off as “a constructive suggestion” and went about my usual thing. Then the other day I glanced at my Facebook profile picture…it was a random picture that one of the staff took of me during a conversation. But, there it was…I was talking with my hands again.

I don’t know what being a hand-talker really means…maybe it is simply the fact that I’m getting older and am trying to be more expressive.  Maybe it’s one of those “habits” that I have picked up along the way. Maybe its just me being me. In any event…I can officially say today…I am a Hand-Talker!

As His child, I am certainly glad that God accepts me just the way I am…even if I am a Hand-Talker.

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SnowSharks in Greenwood…

Feb 13

Posted by ken in General, Leadership, Personal

Well, we got it…6″ inches of snow in Greenwood! Here is a picture that Gail took  last night as the snow came down.

It appears that we got our “once a year” snowfall for 2010…much more that in recent years. The snow reminds me of times when our children were small and I made up an imaginary animal  called a “SnowShark”…they were at such an impressionable age…It was those early morning times when I would take them to school.

Aren’t they cute? Anyways…back to the SnowSharks…I told them that these little critters were about two feet long, looked like a shark without teeth and a happy face. They were gray, had legs and feet and ran so fast their feet looked like wheels. These SnowSharks only appeared when snow was about to fall. Of course, the only one that ever saw the SnowSharks was me…none of our three children ever saw one…UNTIL NOW!

Yesterday, Savannah…our 4 year old granddaughter shown here on far left announced that she saw a SnowShark on our ride home from school. Yup, we were riding home and out of nowhere she says…”Poppy, I just saw one! I saw a SnowShark!”  Apparently, she gets her imagination from her Poppy!

SnowSharks are one of those goofy fun things that has been  part of our family for over 25 years. It’s fun stuff.

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Martha, O.G. and me…

Feb 3

Posted by ken in General, Leadership, Personal, Sonshine (Special Needs) Ministry

Martha, O.G. and me…This past Sunday, my friend O.G. preached the message in the Sonshine Ministry. O.G., aka David, had been telling me for some time that God has been calling him to preach. So last Sunday, we gave him that opportunity. O.G. did a great job. As David told me when he was done…”I brought the Word”. He did a fine job.

By the way…do you know what the initials “O.G.” stands for in David’s name ? Here it is…the “original gangsta”…you are going to have to figure out the rest of it for yourself.

The message that David brought was from Luke 10 where Jesus is invited in the home of two sisters…Martha who begins working on dinner and Mary who sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to His stories. David went on to talk about how we all tend to be a Martha and worry too much about  tasks rather than being a Mary and sit at the feet of Jesus. A great message…how often are we too busy with our Martha tasks that we miss out on “sitting at the feet of Jesus”? How often are we too busy or there is too much ministry work to do to spend time with our Lord?

Here is how Jesus responded to Martha, when she complained to Him that Mary was not helping her serve…

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things.  But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42 (NKJV)

Serving is very important, however, we must never let it interfere with our time spent with Jesus. Make time to spend time with Him today.

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