Yesterday was Mother\u2019s Day and my sermon was entitled, \u201cBalanced Growth: A Mother\u2019s Hope\u201d from Luke 2:52, which says, \u201cJesus increased (or grew) in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.\u201d Preachers and teachers have most often classified those as four ways of growth: mental, physical, spiritual, and social, so those were my four sermon points for \u201cbalanced growth.\u201d But even as I was elaborating on point four, I was asking myself, \u201cWhat is social growth\u201d and how did Jesus grow in it\u2019? For Jesus, growing socially likely did not mean gaining in popularity, or acceptance, or even respect, nor should it mean that for us. So what does it mean to grow socially? In my search for an answer, I found numerous web sites offering plans, strategies, and even consultation assistance to help one grow socially, and most definitions included the word or idea of companionship. So I went back to the scriptural word, \u201cFavor\u201d \u2013 the state of being approved or held in regard, and concluded that growing socially included, growing in \u201cfavor\u201d with others, which Jesus did both with those who believed, as well as those who followed from a distance, and which I strive to do. How about you?<\/p>\n
Join me this week in praying for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Give thanks for answered prayer as Canvas Church on Vancouver Island, Canada, connected with between 700 to 1,000 people through their 2015 Canvas Family Fest, and collected over 100 registration cards. Pray for follow-up.
\n\u2022 Pray for Stephen as he leads storying workshops in Southeast Asia.
\n\u2022 Pray for continuing relief efforts in Napal, especially for a church that collapsed, killing twenty members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday was Mother\u2019s Day and my sermon was entitled, \u201cBalanced Growth: A Mother\u2019s Hope\u201d from Luke 2:52, which says, \u201cJesus increased (or grew) in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.\u201d Preachers and teachers have most often classified those as four ways of growth: mental, physical, spiritual, and social, so those were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}