Here’s Michael’s latest update!
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From: Michael J Sullivan [mailto:mikejennys@juno.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 2:44 PM
To: mikejennys@juno.com
Subject: February update & prayer requests
February 2005 Update and Prayer Requests
Thanks again for remembering us. We had a fantastic time in California. We saw many familiar faces despite the many years since we last saw each other. Regina is now very busy at the Los Angeles Film Studies Center. We were able to meet the entire staff and many of her classmates who come from Christian colleges around the country. She has classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and internship on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Her internship is with Roserock Productions which has its offices in Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank. It is only a 15 minute walk from her apartment in LA. Her classes are also within easy walking distance. She has to come up with four short films as a student along with numerous other projects and assignments. Our semester started two weeks ago with 31 new students joining the upper classmen. I am also doing some interim pulpit supply at Ganson Street Baptist Church in Jackson.
As far as health issues go: Jenny’s heart monitoring and tests have come back negative and they see no need to change what they have been doing at this point. Age makes us both more aware of the brevity of life and the truth that our bodies do not improve with age. Robert McQuilken is credited with having said this in a letter written in 1973:
“I think God has planned the strength and beauty of youth to be physical. But the strength and beauty of age is spiritual. We gradually lose the strength and beauty that is temporary so we’ll be sure to concentrate on the strength and beauty which is forever. And so we’ll be eager to leave the temporary, deteriorating part of us and be truly homesick for our eternal home. If we stayed young and strong and beautiful we might never want to leave! It’s sad to see people struggle so frantically to preserve the physical, never developing the strength and beauty of spirit. In the end they are left with neither – weak and impoverished in body and spirit.”
Please pray for:
· February 6, 13, 20, 27 – AM & PM services at Ganson Street Baptist Church
· Classes: Bibliology, Life of Christ, Philippians–Colossians–Philemon, and Understanding the Nature & Purpose of Suffering – we want to be clear, challenging, instructive, and encouraging
· Continual positive interaction with the students, staff, and church people
· Wisdom in my roles as coordinator of the Academic Management Team and as part of the School Administration Team
· Preparation time for upcoming Mission Conference messages (St. Louis, MO in March and Flint, MI in April)
· Wisdom in planning a two week trip through Florida in late March and April to visit friends and supporters
· Continuing growth in our relationship with the Lord and each other
· Direction and wisdom for the Executive Committee of the Mission and the leadership of the Bible Institutes as they decide on how, when, and where to combine the two Bible Institutes together
· Regina’s creativity and time management as she works & studies in LA at the film center
As we enter a very busy four month stretch of time, we thank you for caring about us and this ministry. We are not ashamed to admit that we cannot do this work without the prayers of our friends. Thanks for being a part of what we do.
Mike & Jenny
Thoughts for Meditation:
2 Corinthians 5:7 – For we walk by faith, and not by sight….
As I continue to see Christian homes and marriages disintegrate, it is often with deep grief that we reach out to the broken hearted. The greatest tragedies are in the lives of the children who cannot understand how parents who claim to be Christian abandon each other & them. I am more and more convinced that the church as a whole has little or no understanding of the extent to which self-centered philosophies of this age have permeated its teaching and practice. In tribal missions we often talk about syncretism – the danger of seeing tribal people blend their tribal superstitions with the new teachings of the missionaries. The result is a powerless group of converts that fail to grow and see any change in their lives. This is happening in the churches of America. We are allowing ourselves, sometimes in reaction to legalism or other cultic forms of Christianity, in the name of Christian liberty to live lives tainted by (and sometimes totally dominated by) the value systems of the world around us. We talk about the Christ who died for us, but very little about the Christ who lives for us. Instead of a life of faith built upon the power of His resurrected life from within, we live lives so intertwined with the things of this world that it smothers any reality of the life Christ desires to produce in us through the Holy Spirit. Our compromises are not sudden and obvious but subtle surrenders of truth, minute movements away from convictions, small truces in the face of the enemy attacks. Though spirituality is not measured by ritual or routine but by our relationship with Christ, our attention or lack of attention to prayer and the Word of God are reasonable reflections of where we are on the path of syncretism. Colossians 3:1-4 commands us to focus our minds above.
Col 3:1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.
Col 3:2 Be mindful of things above, not on things on the earth.
Col 3:3 For you died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.
Col 3:4 When Christ our Life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Because we tend to be creatures of sight rather than those who walk in faith, we often have little awareness as to the life we are missing through our misplaced emphasis on the values and pleasures of this life.
Here are some thought provoking ideas and questions for you to consider:
· If you carried a tape player around 24 hours and then played it back, how would you summarize your use of your mouth? Thankful, edifying, critical, grumbling, discouraging, etc. etc.
· If you compared the time you spend in the word of God and prayer to the time you spend watching television and movies, how would it match up?
· If you totaled the content of your conversations with friends what would be the main thrust of your communication?
· How would you fill in this statement of Paul’s? “For me to live is _______________?
· When is the last time you consciously decided not to buy something for yourself in order to meet someone else’s need?
· What do you consider to be the most important things in life?
· When is the last time you shared your faith with an unbeliever?
I do not list these questions because I have arrived. I list them for my own
contemplation and to remind me as to why we so desperately need to pray for
one another to be filled with the knowledge of His will. – Colossians 1:9-11!
We pray for you.
February 3, 2005
Just a short note to tell you how much we appreciate your monthly gifts
of $150 - and your extra Christmas gift!. You are such a blessing to us
and the ministry here at NTBI
We are surviving the winter - supposed to have temps in the 40's here
next week - that may be short-lived. I'm already thinking about Spring
and going to GA in late March to see my family! Dogwoods, azaleas, yeah!
Thanks for all you do in being a light for Christ there in south Florida.
Co-laborers in Christ, M & J