Second Stage Ministries

The word is CHANGE for 2017.  2016 taught me a lot. God has really spoken to me throughout this year. There have been some ups and downs in this year, but it has been in those up and down moments that I have seen a lot of what God is doing in my life.  The weeks leading up to Easter this year were amazing in the area that I serve in at my church, and Easter weekend was totally phenomenal. But that wasn't where I learned the most. I learned a lot toward the end of the summer about what God is doing in my life. There was a lot going on in my life over the summer, and I could just quit and given up on God and everything. But I saw what that did to other people. My hard time was not a time to desert God, and I am glad that I didn't.  I kept moving forward trying to see what God could show me through all of this. The lessons that I prepared for the fourth and fifth grade students at church in July, August, September and October were some of the hardest that I h

For this special Christmas day post, I have just posted the Christmas story from Luke 2.  Jesus’ birth was the most important event in the history of the world. The Bible tells us this about the birth of Jesus: 21 “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” – Matthew 1:21 NIV He will save the people from their sins. This birth was not just the birth of a baby. This was the birth of the Savior of a broken world. Please read the text below. ________________________________________________________ The Birth of Jesus In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register. 4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the h

This is post 2 of a series where we are looking John 3:16. If you haven't read the first post go to the link here --- . Please read John 3:16 again and we will be looking at the underlined text. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son , that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 NIV He GAVE - The Greatest Act 1 Have you ever been given something really awesome and you didn't know what to say? Maybe it's a toy that you received for Christmas when you were a child. Maybe it was a needed amount of money so you could pay a bill. Maybe it was a car that a friend let you have after you were in a car accident. Maybe the person in front of you at McDonalds paid for your food. Maybe someone gave you another chance after you messed up. We have all been given something in life. Something that we didn't really deserve. Something that we didn't have to pay back. But it changed our life. God did th

For the rest of the month of December, I want to take some time and look at the story of Christmas in a different way. Over three weeks, I want to, look at 26 words in the book of John that tell one of the greatest stories ever told. If you haven't figured it out yet, we are going to be looking at John 3:16. For this series of posts, I have divided the verse into three sections that we will be looking at each of the weeks. Take a moment and read the verse below: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 NIV The first section that we are going to look at is "For God so loved the world". God - The Greatest Being 1 God is the greatest being in the universe. We can see evidence of Him when see all that was created. Everything that we see had to have been created by someone. This all didn't just all of a sudden exist. For example, the phone that you are r

During an experimental gathering for South Bend City Church, a new church plant in my area, we read the following passage of Scripture many different times. Each time we read it, each time we had a few minutes of silence to ponder the words in the passage. So read the passage below, and I will tell you what I found in those moments of silence. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30 MSG During those few moments of silence this is what I kept repeating; Come, get away with Me, rest with Me, walk with Me, work with Me and keep company with Me. So I wanted to briefly look at each of those in this post. Come and Get away with Me This is an invitation

This post is tough for me, and I'm sure everyone who reads this will agree. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had some things to say about worry. We can find those words in Matthew 6. We are going to look at those verses in sections. Here is the first section: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" - Matthew 6:25-27 NIV God (Father) cares for everyone on earth. Every living thing on earth is cared for by God. He provides for the smallest creatures on earth, and we mean more to God than anything else on earth. God took time and created us. David writes these words in Psalm 139 - “For you created my inmost b

Today is Thanksgiving Day. So this week I asked some people what they were thankful for. So I hope you enjoy this short little post and the answers to the series of questions that I asked others. I want to leave you with two verses and then you can read the simple things that others and I are thankful for. “Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.” 1 Chronicles 29:13, NIV “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.” Psalms 100:4, NIV These are my answers to the questions; What food are you thankful for? – I really like SHRIMP!! What sight are you thankful for? – The scenery in Kentucky and Tennessee as you are driving south What song are you thankful for? – Blessed Assurance – I love the Elevation Worship version. What small thing that happened today are you thankful for? – Brownies! Who in your life are you thankful for? – The older people in my life. I know that may

In this post we are going to look at a few verses in the book of Philippians. Philippians is often referred to as the joy book. We are going to be looking at what Paul says about being content and thankful. Let's look at what he says in chapter 4: “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:11-13 NIV In this section of Philippians, Paul is writing to thank the people for the gifts that were sent to him. But he also was sending them a reminder that it wasn't all about stuff. He tells them that he has been in need and has had plenty. Paul had been shipwrecked and in places where people took care of him. Paul traveled all over Asia during h

I wanted to look at another story that I have had a renewed perspective of in the last few months. There is something in this story that I saw (with the help of a podcast), and it has really caused me to think. When I taught this story to the students at church, I asked them a very interesting question that I will also propose to you. We are going to be looking at a brief moment in Moses’ and Israel’s time together. If you want to look at Moses’ story you can find his story in Exodus 1 . We are going to pick up in Exodus 14 . At the start of chapter 14, we see Israel and Moses fleeing Egypt after the ten plagues. Moses has lead them to freedom while back in Egypt Pharaoh has changed his mind and had begun his pursuit of them just as God said he would. Israel sees the army of Pharaoh coming their way and begins to panic and asks Moses why he would bring them out here to the desert to die when they were safe in Egypt. But God instructs Moses to lead them on and Moses does so. They a

So, Election Day was Tuesday and most of us either stayed up to watch the election unfold or we woke up to a new president on Wednesday morning. Some are angry. Some are happy. Some are indifferent. Some are worried. Some are scared of the future. Some are pleased to see what Mr. Trump will do as the President of the United States. Some don't even want to give the man a chance.  In the wake of this election, my Facebook has lit up with people voicing their thoughts on the outcome of the election. Some are positive and some aren't.  But there is one thing that I want to say right now, and I won't say it again. I am concerned about all of this. Where the country is going, what's going to happen and anything thing else that might come to mind. But I am not nervous about any of it. Steven Furtick said it like this "concerned---but not nervous."  Who did Mr. Trump take office from?? If your answer is Barack Obama, you are correct. Who did Mr. Trump not

Edited by Kay Beam In the last post [ Waiting Part 1 ] I introduced the idea of trusting in the Lord and not depending on our view of the situation. These next two posts are going to deal with the subject of waiting. I am sure that there are more stories in the Bible than the two that I am going to share with you that deal with waiting. But I have had a renewed look at these two stories over the last couple months and that is why I chose to look at them. In this post, we are going to be looking at the story of Joseph and focusing on how he had to wait on the Lord. If you are not familiar with Joseph’s story, you can find it in the book of Genesis 37-50 [make link] because in this post I am going to briefly tell his story. Joseph was the youngest of 12 children. He was the favorite child in the family, and his father spared no expense in showing that. Jacob, his father, gave him a really nice coat that made Joseph’s brothers dislike him even more, and they decided that th