(1) So What’s the Deal on First Fruits.

(2) First Fruits is Not a Cure All.

(3) The Land of Sanctified Faith.

(4) Only the Rebellious Dwell in a Parched Land.

Buddy

Ah, please do share further.

Hi Lois,

I’ve had so many people ask me to write a book about how Christian Challenge got started and how we made it through all these years without offering plates, and without any outside support. It is a story in itself.

I think the key centers are on two things, a direct stewardship from the Lord, and, the willingness to begin with what little we had. And, believe me, we had little. In fact before the blessings really started coming in, we had to give all that we had away.

What did we discover? We discovered that you can’t really give it away. It keeps coming back. We’ve given everything from cars to our weddings rings to see Christian Challenge get on the right page. (Some stories are better left unsaid.)

But the sacrifical giving has always been the keynote. We rarely if ever sell anything. The greater blessing is always in sowing. Don’t know how many cars we given to people who had transportation issues. (And we’ve had cars given to us.)

Pardon me — I’m not really answering your question. About our home debt free. Don’t know what exactly to tell you. Because we’ve continue our lives as givers, we’ve had wonderful gifts coming our way.

The Lord put on my youngest son’s heart the purpose of building mom and dad a home. The church rallied together and from foundation up, it was paid for. That is the say way we built Christian Challenge. (However, our home is given to Christian Challenge. We have rights to live in it until the Lord calls us home. That is the way we wanted it.)

The reason we can have three fulltime pastors on staff, being a small congregation of about 140 peopole, is because we refuse to make debts. Secondly, we never forget our need to help others.

Christian Challenge is a very unique congregation. We have built our ministry on the principles of Biblical discipleship. In some instances I suppose we could be compared to the Amish in that we try to take care of our own. (Not to the extreme. We expect people to do what they are suppose to do.)

Anyway, that’s it for now. When I get to writing, don’t know where to stop. All I can say is that we need to learn sacrificial giving — Which is giving that costs us something personal.

The Lord bless you sis,

Buddy

Ah, please do share further.

“True prosperity is about making us a blessing to others.”

As you know, my support group late last year started book giveaways for our membership. It all started when I saw some books for sale on the internet that dealt in some way with spiritual abuse and they were used, but in good condition and a very good price. I already had the books, but couldn’t pass up the deals. I won the bids on them all and decided to use them as a giveaway to one lucky CK member. We made it very easy to enter.

Well, the Lord is moving in this as I got excited (and I admit like a kid) at the possibility of doing this on a regular basis. Lord willing, and I believe He indeed is, we will be giving away a fair amount of books in 2007. They will be varied, but will be in some way helpful to those who have been involved in unhealthy churches.

The thought then came to me to contact all the guests we have had on the board to see if they would be interested in donating a copy of their book for a giveaway this month. It was thrilling to get almost immediate responses from everyone and they all readily agreed. Two of these authors (Tony Ducklow & June Summers) have sent us extra copies of their books to be used both for giveaways throughout the year as well as to sell to help support the web site and support group.

Now….to zero in on your statement about being a blessing. I have had myself a time searching for books to purchase to use for our giveaways. In fact, before finishing this blog of yours, I had to stop and go purchase that copy of the Discovery Bible that’s been on my mind to use for this. (The one you mentioned in DU recently.) I want this year to be an extra blessing for our members and this is one way it can be accomplished. But one aspect of it that is great, and how the Lord works, is that I feel blessed in pulling this together. As you pointed out before, it is better to give than receive. There is a definite joy in giving to someone.

I know I want to be a blessing to those who come to the support group and spiritual abuse web site. One thing about giving is that there’s all kinds of ways to do so and the Lord can direct us in any of them. :)