{"id":382,"date":"2014-08-29T09:24:14","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T09:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/08\/29\/misplaced-devotion\/"},"modified":"2014-08-29T09:24:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T09:24:14","slug":"misplaced-devotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/misplaced-devotion\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMisplaced Devotion\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presented by Derek Morris<\/em>
22 August, 2012 Roga\u0161ka Slatina, Slovenia [John Surridge, ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/span>\u00a0Pastor Derek Morris is known to virtually all Adventist pastors in the world, mainly through his television ministry. He currently works with the Ministerial Association of the GC but, as he pointed out to the assembled pastors, he is originally from Bristol, England, and has a special place in his heart for the Trans-European Division.<\/p>\n

After bringing greetings from other pastors around the world Pastor Morris got to the heart of his message for the day: ministry is not easy, the Great Controversy is real, and Satan is ready to disrupt our work whenever he can. But God is greater than all our challenges. By adopting a few simple biblical principles we can avoid being distracted by \u201cmisplaced devotion\u201d and be more effective in our ministry.<\/p>\n

Working from the book of Acts, Pastor Morris focused on chapter 6 where the rapidly growing church ran into a problem. There was a complaint against the Jews from the Hellenists: their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. This problem threatened to derail the mission of the church. How the disciples dealt with it was key to the future of the Great Commission, and it is key to us today as we continue that work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three key points emerge from the text, the first of which is \u201cdelegation\u201d. Those who are called to a specific ministry should not be diverted or distracted by other needs, however pressing, said Pastor Morris. He illustrated this truth from his own personal experience. When he was called to pastor a 2,600 member church in Florida he was physically unable to deal with the administrative overload that some wanted to burden him with. Miraculously he found someone who was willing to take on the task and through the efforts of this one key person all 600 volunteer positions identified by his church\u2019s nominating committee were filled.<\/p>\n

This kind of thing doesn\u2019t happen automatically, said Pastor Morris. One mistake that we often make is to delegate responsibility to the wrong people \u2013 and this actually creates more work for us. Acts 6:3 gives the characteristics that are essential in people to whom we delegate responsibility: they need to be of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and full of wisdom.<\/p>\n

Although this might seem to be a tall order, Pastor Morris insisted that many of our members are not only willing to serve God they are actively looking for ways in which they can do it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A second, and vitally important, principle found in the text is prayer. In Acts 6:3 the disciples said, \u201cwe will give ourselves continually to prayer.\u201d<\/em> Through a number of moving examples Pastor Morris told of how God had blessed his churches once they became actively engaged in prayer ministry. It\u2019s not just personal prayer but it\u2019s the way that we lead our churches into effective prayer that is important, he said.<\/p>\n

A third principle from the text that can prevent us being led astray by misplaced devotion is study of God\u2019s word \u2013 but not just study. \u201cTotal immersion\u201d is a phrase we are familiar with in the context of baptism: Pastor Morris applied it to Bible study. Citing the example of H M S Richards who read through the Bible 160 times, Pastor Morris challenged the pastors: \u201cSaturate your life with God\u2019s word!\u201d<\/p>\n

When these three principles were applied by the disciples, the results were amazing: the word of God spread and the number of disciples multiplied greatly. Appealing as a pastor to other pastors, Pastor Morris admitted that these consequences may not always be immediately visible. \u201cWe are not responsible for how many people respond,\u201d <\/em>he said. \u201cBut if we preach the word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit then the word will spread and the number of disciples will be multiplied\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a final moving appeal Pastor Morris challenged his audience: \u201cDon\u2019t be too busy doing other things. Do you long for God to move you to the next level of effectiveness? Then don\u2019t be distracted by misplaced devotion. Delegate, and saturate your life with prayer and the ministry of God\u2019s word.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>[ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor; Dragana Selakovic-Duval, Frederic Duval \u00a0& Tor Tjeransen, photographers
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: tednews@ted-adventist.org
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify ted<\/em>NEWS whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Presented by Derek Morris<\/em>
22 August, 2012 Roga\u0161ka Slatina, Slovenia [John Surridge, ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/span>\u00a0Pastor Derek Morris is known to virtually all Adventist pastors in the world, mainly through his television ministry. He currently works with the Ministerial Association of the GC but, as he pointed out to the assembled pastors, he is originally from Bristol, England, and has a special place in his heart for the Trans-European Division.<\/p>\n

After bringing greetings from other pastors around the world Pastor Morris got to the heart of his message for the day: ministry is not easy, the Great Controversy is real, and Satan is ready to disrupt our work whenever he can. But God is greater than all our challenges. By adopting a few simple biblical principles we can avoid being distracted by \u201cmisplaced devotion\u201d and be more effective in our ministry.<\/p>\n

Working from the book of Acts, Pastor Morris focused on chapter 6 where the rapidly growing church ran into a problem. There was a complaint against the Jews from the Hellenists: their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. This problem threatened to derail the mission of the church. How the disciples dealt with it was key to the future of the Great Commission, and it is key to us today as we continue that work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1577],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-organisational-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}