"Revisit the Blessing of Conference" By Brother Andy Geibler July 13th,
2014
It’s
good to be home. It’s
good to be back
here. I’m thankful
to have a leader to
work with in Parrish, and we work well together.
The things that I’ve learned from him… I jut want to say that
it’s great to be back,
and as I was going, and Parrish is the one I have to thank, but I want
to thank
all of you, because, I’ve got my phone with me, and I’m getting texts,
and I’m
hearing everything that’s going on, and I know the sacrifices that are
made
when we take twenty people from this congregation.
I want to say that you guys did a wonderful
job with the absence of so many people.
It’s because we have a ministry; we don’t have a
social club. We
don’t have a group of people just to have
fun together; sure, we do that, but we’ve got one common cause, and
that’s to
see people saved. I’m
going to ask a few
people to share this morning—it’s not going to be all listening to me,
although
I’ve got so much to share from conference that I could probably stand
up here
for another hour. I’m
not going to do
that, at least, not today. First,
I’m
going to ask my wife, Sonia Giebler, to share what she got from
conference; the
blessings that God gave her. SONIA: It’s
great to be home. It
was an incredible time at conference.
Andy and I are just so excited to have just
recharged our batteries. Spiritually
speaking, as a husband and wife team, it was a great time to refocus on
God’s
plan in our life, as individuals and as a team for our ministry. It was an awesome time of
just wholesome
fellowship, and a time to rekindle friendships and just be with
likeminded
people that love God; it’s an extended family.
We’re definitely glad to be home, because we miss
you all so much. There
were so many nuggets of gold shared
throughout the entire week-end, through the entire tie that we had the
privilege of being there. The
focus, and
the main scripture was about being an overcomer.
What does that mean to me personally, as a
person? Have I
become complacent where
I’m at today, with what God has called me to do?
Am I trying to have that attitude of—that
negative attitude of, “I’m defeated,” that attitude of, “I can’t.” Am I just like the
scripture taught? Am
I an overcomer or am I a grasshopper?
I am so glad that God is equipping us with
the tools to go out there and share with all those souls that just need
to get
over that hump, so that they can make it the next moment, the next day,
the
next hour, the next day—whatever it might be.
It might just be simple thing—I know that I harp on
that a lot—but it
might just be that one little talent that God gave you, to just go out
of your
way, even when the flesh doesn’t feel like it, to go out of your way to
say
hello to someone, to just hug someone, to lend a listening ear. Those are things that,
believe it or not, as
outgoing, and as sociable, and as talkative as I might seem, those are
things
that I’ve overcome. If
you leave it up
to me, I’d much rather just enjoy, and listen, and let life pass me by. Believe it or not. But, I know that there’s a
work to be done; I
know that there’s an urgency for me to go out there into this world and
share
of this goodness; share of the grace that God has given me to be able
to be the
woman of God that I am today. I’m
not
perfect, by any means, but I am striving to be the woman of God,
equipped, to
be there, just like the women that I have come under, that have come
before me,
to be there to encourage, to be there to teach, to be there to just
wrap my
arms around—whatever the situation…
You
don’t have to tell me your whole life story.
I didn’t have to tell my whole life story to many
people that opened
their arms and embraced me. This
is what
it’s all about. We
should all have an
urgency to wrap our arms around those people who God has entrusted to
us,
wherever we might find ourselves, so that we can be the overcomers. I’m telling you, I’m
excited; I don’t know if
you can tell, I have so much to share—I took notes—I have so much to
share,
but, as Andy said, I’m not going to take everybody else’s time; I’m
going to be
a good sharer and leave some time for others.
It was a great time in the Lord, we gained a lot of
great tools on how
to be better leaders, how to care one for another, how to grow in God,
how to
just be overcomers. Go
has given us
talents; we need to use them. There
is
an urgency to go out there and to help each other out and spread His
goodness. Let
people know that there is
more to life than just having a nice pair of shoes and a nice purse, or
a nice
suit, like Parrish would have; there’s more to life than just those
things of
this earth. That
life everlasting; that
price that Christ paid that none of us could.
Another thing was, is there anything standing
between you and what God
wants you to do? Yes,
there’s a lot of
stumbling blocks on a daily basis—I recognize that, and I’m sure that
you all
run into that—but, God is equipping us with all those tools that
putting on the
armor of God will be able to defeat anything that comes our way, just
like the
Scripture that was our main Scripture, “Nay, in all these things we are
more
than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor
height,
nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from
the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39) I’m so proud to be a part
of this ministry;
I’m proud to be in it with you all, and I pray that we will just take
one soul
at a time to further His Kingdom.
Thank
you for your warm welcome to us; Andy and I are just so excited to be
home, and
we look forward to everything that God has for us in the next few years.
I
see Sister Donna Ferguson here; I want to catch her before she has to
leave
again. I know she
works a crazy
schedule. Why don’t
you come on up? I
know you spent a week in DONNA:
Morning! It’s
kind of like—I don’t know—those of us
who are teachers and have worked with young children, or, those of us
who
remember your school days, and you know the right answer and you’re
sitting in
your chair, and your teacher’s looking through the room, and you’re
thinking,
“Call me! Call me!” That’s kind of the way I
felt, sitting in
that chair; I was really hoping that Andy would call me up to share a
little
bit with you. I
have a lot of snapshots
in my mind. It’s
kind of like Sonia was
saying, it’s like your cup is just running, and there are so many
things that
you want to share and you want to talk about.
I think that one of the things that was really
important for me—and, for
me, life-changing—was, in our day-to-day lives, sometimes we get in a
rut, or a
routine, and we need to shake it up a little bit, and, for me, the
conference
shook it up a little bit. I
haven’t seen
many of those people in ten years, maybe fifteen, twenty, some of them. It was like we never lost
the beat. It was
kind of like, the conversation that we
ended ten years ago, we just picked it up and carried it on. It’s a little crazy, but
it’s the Spirit of
God, because it rings true. When
you
walk up to somebody and you resonate that Spirit that they have and
that you
have and it’s just that common thing that you have in common—it doesn’t
matter
if you’ve known that person for five minutes or ten years, fifteen
years, it
just is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
God just gives you something to talk about; you’ve
got something in
common. One of the
things I remember
when we first walked through the door—just got off the plane, walked
in—I
remember Pastor Brand had a big video thing, and I was like, “Ray guns
In the
house!” So, all of
you that were not
able to make it, we represented. There
were—our music department, those that were able to make it… I know Bill Adams, Mike
and Linda Alford,
drove all night long, and walked right into conference.
It was a blessing to have them there. People really sacrificed
to make it, when,
technically the flesh would have been okay to stay home, I’m sure. Sonia and Andy were great
representation, as
far as our music department. It
was
wonderful, wonderful worship. (I
don’t
want to talk too long! I
have so much to
say!) For me, also,
the conference was
about not re-inventing the wheel.
I
don’t need to re-invent the wheel—what I need to do is to go back to
the
basics. That’s what
the conference was
about to me. There
was a time-management
work-shop—there were a lot of awesome workshops; you could pick the
workshop that
you needed to attend, based on what your goals were, what your
interests were. They
were—it wasn’t’ as though
we had hired people to come in and
speak, we have been blessed with a ministry that is world-wide and,
like Sonia
said, many gifts and talents—people from within the ministry from all
over held
those workshops. This
workshop was with
Rich Snow and Debbie Paine. I
just have
to tell you guys, Rich Snow looks awesome.
He’s doing really great.
I don’t
know if those of you who know him remember when he left here, he was
very
sickly. I was
concerned if he would even
make it; he was really ill. I
would have
never known hi when I saw him. But,
that
time management workshop really helped me realize what was sucking the
life out
of me in certain areas. In
other areas, what
I felt like I had an overflowing ability in, I could take from and
manage a
little bit better. I
mean, let’s face
it, we all still have twenty-four hours in a day, but, sometimes in
life, we
don’t feel like we’re getting things done, and why?
One of the things that might go to the side
might be your spiritual reading of the Bible, you prayer time, things
like
that; the basics kind of went to the side just a little bit, and, some
of the
other stuff, I realized that I was increasing it to the point that—I
needed to
even it out a little more. So,
I just
want to say thank you so much, it was a blessing, blessing,
blessing—did I say
blessing?—blessing to be there. It’s
good to be back, though; it’s good to be home, worshipping with you.
Kirk, come up and share with us,
and, after that, Bill Adams. KIRK: Jennifer was being rebellious, and she said, “Just tell him no!” She’s a teenager. She just wanted to see if I would do it. It kind of reminds me of when I was at the conference, and Pastor Paine was having different people come up and share and I didn’t know if he going to call me or not, but, I thought, “If you asked me to come up right now, I’ve got all these other things in my head, I don’t know if I’m even going to be coherent.” Then, people are sharing their testimonies of how they got saved and so forth, and it was just kind of like, it connected all those thoughts and everything. It all kind of came to me, and he was like, “Hey, Kirk, I know you knew that I was going to call you up,” and it was right then I knew he was going to call me up. Anyway, the conference really is all about family. I think that really summarizes it for me. If you listen to the testimonies, a lot of people reconnected with their faith, and so forth. First, I think the place that we start is just thinking, this church family, I didn’t really know if I was going to be able to go. It was a hard decision to decide, because we have a newborn in the house, and I was going to be leaving them—the wife and the daughter to take care of him, when I was away, and that was not really a nice thing to do. But, I also knew that there was a church family here that was looking out and making sure everything was taken care of here, so I felt confident to do that. Getting down there, of course, getting connected, reconnected with all these people. As Donna said, it was just right back in, and the fellowship just takes off right where you—as though you’d never gone. It truly is a blessing. I love to see how people are growing. You go to these different workshops, see different people present. The quality of information, and the amount of history that you can see that they’re learning and applying; it was really encouraging as well, as opposed to going down there and, ”Oh, that wasn’t very well prepared,” and you’re disappointed But, of course, it was all really good. It was great; really edifying. So it was very encouraging. The worst thing about the conference is that we weren’t all there. That really makes it—you know, if you have a family reunion, and only part of the family goes, and it’s like, “What happened? We got down there, now where’s everybody else?” So, it’s one of those things, you know, what was encouraging about was hearing about all the blessings that were happening here, and how everybody was really ministering and sharing. Hearing about the worship services going on, and so forth, and then coming back, and it’s like wherever you go, there’s family. There’s no family like your immediate family, so, being here is awesome. Being down there is also awesome, because we know—those of us who have been around long enough, we understand that we are just one big family, and we’ve stirred the put many times; we put people different places, and there really is no way of separating the threads, the connections of fellowship. Anyway, it was great. I was able to stay with the Ulysse’s and work with them, and that was all so—you know, I’d get to spend more time with them, but not always with the whole family—and see what they were doing. Their kids are really getting more involved, and doing more things. You see the years, and you see them grow up and start to establish their own ministry; it’s encouraging to see. Jim Ottoson—one of the hopes that I had had was that we were going to get together and hang out for a little bit, but it wasn’t happening, and it wasn’t happening, there was too much going on—good things, but just keeping us occupied—and then the final day—Sunday, I left Monday morning—we were able to go out, and grab something to eat, and, again, just sitting there, it in a formal setting, just able to share and talk about what God is doing in our lives and encourage one another, and just talk about what a blessing it is to have brothers—sisters as well, but—people in the faith, and regardless of our differences or what we would think would be generally wouldn’t want to meet and sit and talk, but we would see how the presence of God and our love for the Word of God has changed us and moved in our lives and just makes us united like nothing you could ever imagine. I could go hang out with somebody that does exercise or cycling or kettlebells, whatever it is I like to do, if they could do it, too, and that would be cool, that would be nice, kind of enjoy it, but there is nothing that recognizes like those people who go through the same thing. I though it was kind of cool that the conference theme was about overcoming, because that’s really—if we ever have a testimony, we have something that links us together. We have gone through all these same common battles, whatever it would be, we know what temptation is; we know what it is to see persecution, we know what it is to feel weary, and all those things. We know what it is to have someone come and encourage you, or pray with you, or pray for you and you don’t even know it; to be edified by worship, to be edified by hearing the Word of God, and we understand all that, and that’s really what makes us the family of God that we are. So, I’m just really thankful for that fact, and I appreciated just being there, sitting in that family, and knowing those things, knowing how some people are able to—you know, the breaking point of the family would be people that receive all these pearls, but never talk about them. “I know you’re going through a battle; I went through that, too, but we can’t talk about that, because I don’t want to talk about what I did, how bad I was,” or whatever. When they had those workshops—there was one I actually missed, but it doesn’t matter—there were people who were able to stand up and say, “Hey, I’ve really been working with this issue, and I need some help and encouragement and everybody else would come and rally behind them. It’s |