Imagine Paul out there preaching like gang busters. . .

  • People being saved
  • Miracles
  • Churches started
  • Leaders developed

Wow! This is great! Then Whamo! Thrown in jail.

  • Sitting
  • Waiting
  • Bored
  • Maybe I will write a letter

I am sure it looked like a big detour to Paul. Perhaps he thought. . .

  • God, why don’t you get me out of here?
  • But, I was doing your work!
  • Things were going so well! What’s up, God?

I have felt that way. I was flying high doing 100 conferences a year.

  • Teachers were being trained, challenged, and equipped to double their classes every two years or less
  • Missy was traveling with me training children’s workers.
  • We both achieved Executive Platinum status on American Airlines. We got to fly first class all the time. Who hoo!

Then the economy went south. Conferencing dropped from 100 conferences a year to 75 to 60 to 30. Ouch.

  • Why don’t you do something God?
  • I love traveling and speaking and training Sunday School workers
  • Missy loves training children’s workers. . . and she is good at it!
  • What gives?
  • Maybe I will write some lessons while I am on this detour.

It is hard to know for sure what God is up to this side of eternity. There is no way Paul could have known that his letters would do 1000 times more good for the kingdom than any sermon he preached or any church he planted.

I wonder if it is true of me. Has it ever been true of you? I wonder if the lessons I am writing will do far more for the kingdom of God than any conferences I did or teachers I trained.

I know I am pretty fired up.

  • I know I have been in enough Sunday School classes over the years to know that many of them need some help. Dare I say it? A lot of Sunday School classes are boring. There is a reason a lot of Sunday School classes are not growing. I have attended many a class over the years and walk about say, “I give my life for this?”
  • I know I love digging up really interesting stuff from world-class writers like Charles Stanley, Beth Moore, Max Lucado and John Piper.
  • I know these kinds of lessons would not be possible until this generation. Why? Kindle. Two words: find and copy.
  • With Kindle we can search and find where Max Lucado told that touching story or John MacArthur had that great insight.  (I also use a lot of books from WordSearch and Logos.)
  • With Kindle you can copy short excerpts and include world-class writing in every lesson.
  • My lessons follow Lifeway’s outlines and are usually used supplementally.

I think I have found my calling. I found it in a detour. But, I need help with something. That will be the subject of my next article.

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