Shat  terd

Men 

The hidden half of domestic violence

How to have eternal life

A Lesson from the Little House

I have been watching reruns of "Little House on the Prairie" It is one of few programs that show pastors in good light. Little House does even more. It shows the the humanist of Rev. Alden but in a good way. "The Faith Healer" does this well. Mrs. Olesen invited a
a charismatic, named Rev. Danforth to Walnut Grove.

Danforth is a faith healer. He helps a crippled man to walk, a blind woman can now see. Only a few faithful still attend Alden's services and in a conversation, Alden thanks Dandforth for not having services on Wednesday nights which his flock still attends. When Danforth suggest they share the pulpit and Alden firmly declines. Danforth walks out after stating he will start having his meetings on Wednesday nights too.

Rev. Alden tells Charles that he is going to resign as pastor and leave Walnut Grove. Charles asks if it is from jealousy. The look on Rev. Alden's face says more then his words. As he states, "Yes it is" to this statement, there is a look on his face as he realizes it for the first time himself. It is what I think is the look of realizing it is sin and there is a need for repentance.

Charles later finds that all is not what it appears to be. The same people are being healed time after time in town after town. Rev. Dandforth is a fake. Charles gets several people to go the services in the next town Danforth is to be in to confront him. Rev. Alden refuses to go with him. I think part of this is to avoid accusations that he set Charles up to this out of bitterness, but perhaps he is leaving it to God.

What follows is the best part. After all his flock as returned, Rev. Alden admits to them that when he was ordained, he had visions of being an "elegant" speaker in the best cathedrals....but GOD had in mind for him to be "just a simple country preacher" because GOD did not call him to do anything more...then to simply LOVE THE LORD!

http://www.tv.com/little-house-on-the-prairie/the-faith-healer/episode/64120/recap.html

My friend, I too have some of the same feelings Rev. Alden did. At the end of this month, Shattered Men will be 7 years old. (It was started on Oct 31, 1999) There are times I too have to fight the feeling of jealousy and remind myself that this would be sin. I have seen many that simply have "feel good" ministries being promoted on major religious programming. By feel good, I mean ministries that have no real meat in them. These are programs
simply to help us "feel good" but there is no mention of the need for a right relationship with God.

Yes there are times I have asked why we are not able to give workshops, or to be "successful" in that we are on many different programs to speak about abuse like we do here in SM.

I would love for Shattered Men to be known throughout the land. I would love to see us quoted by various resources as a resource on abuse...but then I am reminded....GOD has not called us to be SUCCESSFUL! He has however called us to be FAITHFUL and I am going
to do that to the best of my ability.

Success can also be an illusion. What we think is success, may well not be because often God's work is hidden from view. There are some large mega churches that are doing little more then preaching a feel good gospel. This is one reason they are so large. They are
telling people what they want to hear, not want the need to hear. I contend that it does no good, in fact, it will often cause harm to have 10,000 attend church every Sunday but never be convicted of any present sin in their life. Many of these churches never tell people
about their need for a redeemer. They never tell them about a need for a relationship with GOD. On the average about 300 people look at the First Step each month. We will never know how many of these will be in heaven from reading this.

There are many that may be reading this that want to serve the LORD. You too would like to "do" more for God. If so, remember as I have been reminded, God has called us to simply love HIM...because if we love HIM, we will listen to His voice and to the things HE
wants us to do.

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JUNE is Domestic Violence Against Men Awareness Month