Looking for a Few Good Men in Southeast Orlando

This originally was posted on my church's website.

There are many services a church provides, and I am happy to be a part of a church that takes all of them very seriously. While every church touts that it teaches, and to some extent they all do, we have a church that attempts to be intentional about its teaching. We have a church that aims to benefit its members and parishoners through everything it does, including the teaching. While this shows up in many ways, many of which you are certainly aware if you attend, I think the most recent example of this is our men's retreat.

We had a fantastic retreat last year, and that teaching certainly benefited us, and hopefully our men have improved in the area building solid foundations and finishing well over the past year. As we are building on on that foundation, our elders thought the men in our congregation could benefit from putting aside bad habits and replacing them with good ones in a few specific areas.

Three of our leaders have been tasked with teaching in areas, where our habits tend to be bad. We learned tonight how to better handle anger, and we will learn tomorrow how to establish better habits in sexual sins and laziness. We value the fact that each of these things is based in something that can be positive. Being righteously indignant, for example, is a way in which we can mirror the God in Whose image we have been created. Rest is something that God did after he created the world. We do not want to continue to abuse these things, but rather, we want to juxtapose them with good habits.

This is a very practical way that our leaders have decided to give our men a time of fellowship, intimacy, and teaching in the same environment. I'm not sure if everything was planned to turn out the way it did, but up to this point, the setting combined with it being all family has spurred good conversation and many teachable moments. I am tremendously excited about what is happening here. I hope that those of you at home are praying for us.

I know that those who are here are growing closer together, and I pray that we continue to do so. I know we are more unified in our vision. I am thankful that this is something we value, and that our church is so intentional. I again propose, since this annual conference leads us to a greater desire to serve and grow the church, that we should do it every year.:)