The Barnabas Blog

I was sitting across from a good friend of mine, Pastor Ben Weeks, in Sonny’s BBQ in Thomasville, Georgia, when he dropped a spiritual MOAB on me.     The picture that his words had painted were clear, obvious, direct, and almost shocking to me.     So much so that I could hardly even say anything for a good 30 seconds or a minute, the missile had pegged me right where I lived on that day.     I can remember the conversation leading up to the moment that day.     My world had been marked by some personal major health issues, an incredibly challenging building program filled with trouble, and the general hectic pace of moving through church life and my own private spiritual world.     It was on that day he told me a parable of sorts that continues to resonate even now despite the fact that it has been more than two years ago.     It had been a day of shoptalk for two Spirit-filled preachers about the need for revival, the hunger for conversions and spiritual growth among those who we we

One of the benefits of pastoring the church that you grew up in is the grasp of local church history that you are able to look to.   As a disclaimer, it was never my intention to be the pastor of the church I grew up in, it just sort of happened with God opening doors but mainly closing the ones I wanted to exit through.   My parents moved to Dothan, Alabama in the summer of 1968 which was about nine months after Brother and Sister Patterson had initially planted the church.   I was not quite two years old at the time and literally from that point on, my life was completely intertwined in the Apostolic Faith United Pentecostal Church which would later become the Pentecostals of Dothan.   My parents and the Patterson’s became so close that it was almost as if they were our extended family.   I know many of the ups and downs, the victories and losses, and saints and devils that have walked through the doors of the church over the years.     In our almost fifty-fi

In a previous blog to encourage you to pray effectively, I wrote about the importance of having a prayer journal .   They are extremely useful for recording some of your prayer needs and answers to prayers as well.   A prayer journal is greatly encouraging because it can help you see the prayer needs that are being met and it can be convicting as well when it shows the way that we neglect meaningful prayer.   We are commanded to pray but it will require great discipline on our part to do so (1 Tim. 4:7-8).   There are a host of commands that we find in the Word of calls to prayer.   A prayer journal can help you to become more focused and more disciplined in your prayers.     I think that most of the people who read this blog are familiar with the Pentecostals of Alexandria in Louisiana.   It is led by Pastor Anthony Mangun who has been there since the early ‘80’s and prior to that, his father, Bishop G. A. Mangun was the pastor.   One of the most important ministries of that chur

Prayer is one of the most crucial things that we can do as Christians and workers in ministry.   What a tremendous need in our hour to have praying pastors and praying saints in the church.   But as you quickly come to understand in the area of prayer, it is not easy.   In fact, it takes hard work and rigorous discipline to become a consistent person of prayer.   It is often easier to plan, to visit, to study, or do a multitude of other “church” things besides give ourselves to prayer.   If there is a great mandate for the apostolic church it is expressed in Acts 6:4 where we are to give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.   Those two actions do more for the work of God than anything else that we may determine to give ourselves to.   One of the tricks of the enemy is to move us out of prayer closets and into arenas of public ministry totally devoid of spiritual power.