An exciting month—the weekend of April 17th I was in Buffalo, New York to speak at an Iron Sharpens Iron Conference. Still fighting a cold, I arrived to discover that the opening plenary speaker was stuck at the Atlanta Airport and would not make it in that evening. Needless to say, we had to make a couple of adjustments. I agreed to open the conference and allow him enough time to get in to close.
The next morning it was obvious that he was not going to make it. The re-routing would have landed him too late to speak. The team there asked if I would also do the close and it was an honor to accept the invitation. So, on that day I opened the conference, conducted a workshop on The Six Structural Elements Of Effective Churches for Senior Pastors and also brought the closing plenary session. I was exhausted but in a very good way.
I opened the conference with Cindy’s incredible story of miraculous healing and ended with our illustration on The Secret To Life. It was very well received and a natural lead-in to the seminar sessions that followed as well as my closing message. I suggested that putting God between us and our circumstances is what we must all do and explained how the upcoming workshops would assist them in carrying that out. I also promised to put an exclamation point on the day with my closing remarks.
In the final session I unpacked some practical ideas on how to have a more intimate relationship with the Lord, the key to putting Him at the forefront. We closed with a prayer over all of the pastors and an altar call. There were about 20 men who made first time commitments—It was an awesome time!
As I headed home to Temecula I had a major physical melt down as my cold flared back up—I refused to let it get me down, however. A couple of days later Cindy, me and our dog, Beau, jumped in our car and set out for Colorado Springs to visit with our daughter and her family for a few weeks. Though Cindy needed to be on oxygen most of the time we truly enjoyed being with Kristen, Mark, Hunter, Colton and little Kyleigh—our five year old granddaughter.
While in Colorado, I also had two days of strategic meetings with Dwight Johnson, Pat McGuire, our producer and my friend Jim Grassi from Men’s Ministry Catalyst out of Post Falls, ID. The purpose of our gathering was to develop ideas on how our ministries might work more closely together moving forward. Jim’s ministry is 36 years old and has had a tremendous impact during that time. We were excited to discover that our working together could be a 2+2=10 kind of equation.
I also had a great time meeting with my friend and Pastor Steve Holt from The Road @ Chapel Hill Church. Chapel Hill Baptist and The Road just merged and it looks like they have an exciting future together. Steve invited me to speak there on my next trip back there in August. Looking forward to my time there at the end of summer.
On our final day Pat McGuire had me come into the studio to produce a half hour TV show interview with Gordon Klingenschmitt on the subject, The Death Of Consensus. It was based upon my last TargetPoint article. If you missed it you can go to https://www.otm.co under the Blog dropdown menu. Just select TargetPoint articles. This turned out to be a powerful show dealing with where we find ourselves today regarding Christianity in America—I encourage you to read the article and stay tuned for a link to the program coming soon.
At the end of this month Cindy and I will be traveling to Eureka, CA to conduct a couples event for my friend, Pastor Jeff Kessenich. Please pray for our trip and that God will show up in a powerful way.
Finally, we still need your financial help at this time critical time. We are getting ready to enter into an agreement with our marketing firm that could take us to a new and exciting level with this ministry. We are in need of raising about 600.00 per month over the next six months to make this a reality. Please pray about helping us.
Thank you so much for your prayers, love and support for Cindy and me and what God is doing through On Target Ministries.
May God richly bless you as we continue to partner together for the souls of men,
Vince