Moses said to Joshua… “I will stand on top of the hill holding the stick that God told me to carry”….As long as Moses held up his arms, the Israelites won, but when he put his arms down, the Amalekites started winning. When Moses’ arms grew tired, Aaron and Hur brought a stone for him to sit on while they stood beside him and held up his arms, holding them steady until the sun went down. In this way, Joshua totally defeated the Amalekites. Moses built an altar and named it, “The Lord is my Banner”.
Based on Exodus 17:8-16
My sister and I spent a lot of time with our grandparents. They lived way out in the country on a great big lake surrounded by moss draped oak trees and orange groves.
Nana and Papa would take a nap every day. This presented a little problem for two young kids. We were given 2 choices with only one outcome. The outcome was to be quiet. The choices were, take a nap or go outside play and be quiet. The big oaks provided us with lots of things to build and lots of things to boost our imaginations. I would play with my GI Joes and my sister with her Barbie’s. We would build houses, teepees and whatever else we could put together with twigs and moss.
But there was something else under those trees that lead to a little bit of trouble. For some reason there was a water faucet way out under the trees, maybe a hundred yards from the house. It wasn’t long until we were digging GI joe sized swimming pools, rivers and canals with running water.
I learned quite a few lessons. One was that if you build a big dam and forget to turn the water off, after a few days it bursts, the water flows downhill and into the house, but that’s another story. We built lots of bridges, and lots of dams.
The larger the bridges got, the more support was needed. The larger the lake the more support was needed to hold back the flood. Now, that may be common sense to an adult, but not to an 8 year old boy.
My first bridges did not have the supports to span the ever increasing bodies of water. So it would sag under the weight of the GI Joes and trucks. So I started sticking bigger sticks down into the water and spanning it with smaller sticks. Without the support the bridges would always fail.
Church growth is just like that. The more we grow, the more support is needed. We will need to continue to add new Sunday School, Extended Session, VBS and Music and Mission classes as our numbers increase. This year we have added 83 new people to help in Sunday School and Extended Session. God has blessed us with people who are willing to serve in many different areas and age groups. We need to continue adding support to our “bridge” in order to accommodate the increasing number of people who are joining our church. Pray about your role and involvement in teaching, training, and helping.
GREG