But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8 (ESV)

No, you read that right, it’s not a misprint. A Bass landed me. Usually, it’s the other way around. You go fishing and you land the bass but that’s not what happened to me, at least on this occasion. At the time I was landed, I was eight years old and my family resided in Plainview, Texas. I was a typical west Texas boy, thoroughly interested in all sports, adventurous, couldn’t wait to get up the next morning to find out what me and the “boys” were going to do that we hadn’t done before. It was a great way to begin the trek of life.

The “boys” were all the guys in the neighborhood that hung out together every day and all day. No locks on the doors back then, no unending busyness that sucked away all of your time, except for Little League baseball. All the sports back then had their own delineated seasons and rarely overlapped much, if at all, and you could play all of them if you so desired.

But we had time, time to find adventure and explore, and we did both. Sometimes it might cause a little issue here or there, but most of the time we just engaged in endless games and activities we just invented on our own.

During the season of my eighth year of life another boy, not from my neighborhood, but within my circle of friends, asked me to go to a Hot Dog Supper at his church. He said there would be plenty of food and girls and games. The trifecta, how perfect was that? So, I asked my mom if I could go. It progressed through the proper channels to my father and agreement was soon settled upon and I was able to give Jon the word that I was “good to go”. I couldn’t wait!

Seemed harmless enough, no worries, but as I look back on it now, I was the subject of an intentional act of love from Jon Bass to introduce me to Jesus Christ. Someone (the Lord) had put somebody else (me) on his mind and heart, enough that he was willing to risk taking me to church so that I might hear the gospel. I was in his circle of “influence”. I was one of the people that he knew, that he had some type of relationship with, and was unsure if I had ever trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

I still remember the “gist” of that evening. I remember the “hot dogs with chili”, I remember Monica Moat, my earliest affection, and I remember listening to the gospel. I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time, I just knew that I believed what the man was telling us, that I needed Christ to forgive my sins. For one thing was certain, I knew I was a sinner, but I didn’t know the consequences of being one, he told me...it was separation from God, and everlasting death in hell. Well, needless to say that when I received that news I was intensely focused in on what he was saying about being saved (rescued) from my dire situation and the Holy Spirit was revealing the truth to me, and convicting me, and leading me to Christ. I said yes, but I didn’t tell anybody, although I did raise my hand when he asked if anyone had decided to follow Jesus, but it wasn’t till later, at a “revival” service that I told my mom that I wanted everyone to know that I wanted Jesus to be my Savior. She started crying. I thought I had done something wrong, later to discover those were tears of joy.

LANDED BY A BASS

I was landed by a bass. For Jon Bass had been fishing, not for fish, but for souls. Later I would discover that his whole family had been involved, and that since the time of playing football with Jon in the city league they had been praying for me at family meals, and “intentionally” planning on how and when to share the gospel with me. As I look back on it, there were numerous times the subject had come up with Jon and his family, but it wasn’t until the “Hot Dog Supper” that I “listened”.

What about your circle of “influence”? Your family, your extended family, your neighbors, your vocational friends, your extracurricular activity buddies, your acquaintances. Just make a list of those people, as many as you can think of, and ask yourself whether or not they are Christians. Then moving from the inside circle of influence, to the outside, intentionally pray for their souls and plan to tell them about Jesus. Be intentional. You are intentional with everything else you do.

When I go to the range for target practice, if I don’t intentionally pick a target, I won’t hit a target. Very rarely, could I just step out on a range and randomly hit a target. That’s how some Christians have been about sharing the gospel, no wonder we’re not hitting anything, we’re not aiming.

It’s true for every area of life. If I want to graduate and go to college; I had to target certain classes in order to reach my goal. If I want to succeed in business, I have to target my customer or I will not be successful. In fact, I had to “target” my wife before she became my wife. You get the drift. We need to be more intentional about sharing Christ.

Sometimes it’s good to be a target, when you’re a target of love and compassion. That’s what I was to Jon and his family. They cared enough to risk their relationship with me in order to share with me the best “news” I’ve ever received... about Jesus and His love.

Who is it that you know that God loves and they haven’t ever heard about it? Maybe you could tell them? Maybe you could “intentionally” go fishing...just like Jon. He caught me with a “hot dog” and the Lord did the rest. Just throw out the lines and leave the results to the Lord.

Yep, I was landed by a Bass, best day of my life.

The Holy Huddle….to some a term that is beautiful and embraced….to others it’s an ugly term. As Christians the idea of a group of people, striving towards holiness, is an incredible thing. God gave us the church as the gathering of believers striving towards holiness…..our weekly or even more often “holy huddle”. It’s a beautiful thing, you come together with likeminded people, to worship the same God, to talk about the same struggles, to learn from God’s Word, and to take care of one another. Those of you that love FBCW or another church you’re apart of know what I’m talking about. You’re excited about your “holy huddle”. But wait there’s more……bad sales pitch I know but the reality is I don’t see the church as a “huddle”, holy yes, huddle no. You can argue in talking about ekklesia or the gathering of the church, it’s meant to be a huddle. Ultimately, that’s fair but when I think about a huddle, I think about the backyard football game where we place the football on the line of scrimmage then huddle up, arms on each other’s shoulders, ready for the mastermind of the group to create some play that they saw on TV in a college football game. The thing about a huddle is it intentionally excludes the other team…..for good reason. In the church’s case, if we exclude the other team, those that are perishing and going to hell without Christ as their Savior, we’re doing great harm to them. So maybe the ‘holy huddle” isn’t always a beautiful thing. I think we’re supposed to Love God, Love Our People…..errrr….I’m sorry I got that wrong, Love God, Love People.

As the pastor who gives leadership to our Adult Sunday School ministry, I love to hear how our people minister to one another. It’s extremely important in the life of the church that we do so. Our Sunday School ministry enables us to break down the larger church gathering into smaller gatherings where we can meet each other’s needs. It shows the beauty of the “Holy Huddle”. I was talking with Paul Fuehrer this past Sunday about meeting on Tuesday when his wife asked him if he’d be able to take one of the group members to physical therapy on Tuesday. As much as I would have enjoyed meeting and hearing about his ministry, he told her he’d opt to take the group member to physical therapy. It was just a few weeks ago that the Edmondsons tragically lost their daughter Victoria. During what had to be an extremely difficult time for that family Prentice Robertson/Kurt Schultz’s Sunday School stepped up in a big way to minister to them. From the scheduled meals, to the special prayer time in class, to the huge presence of class members at the funeral and more that I’m sure I’m not aware of. They surrounded that family with the love of God and His church. A couple months before that, we had a young woman who was pregnant and her parents were in Jerry Lawrence’s Sunday School group and they showered her with gifts to help her as a single mother. The list goes on and on of how the groups show the beauty of the gathering as we care for one another.

As much as I love the incredibly generous ministry that goes on to our people within the “holy huddles” of our Sunday School ministry, sometimes as the huddle grows closer together we can see the harm that comes from the “holy huddle”. It’s natural for all of us, as we grow in relationship with those in the body of Christ, to become focused inwardly, to close off the huddle to newcomers or at least to not think about them as much. As important as the teaching of the Word and fellowship that drives us to ministry to others is in our Sunday Schools, the reaching of people is of extreme importance. Unfortunately, in group life you have 2 seemingly competing forces; the side of things were we must reach new people so we must be intentional about sharing the gospel, inviting people, welcoming people, and following up with people and then there is the side where you must grow in knowledge of the Word and the ministry of loving others as you become a tight knit family. If we’re not careful, the ugly form of the “holy huddle” might be used to describe some of our groups. A group that loses sight of the balance and only grows in knowledge of the Word and the fellowship of ministry together becomes an ugly form of the “holy huddle”. Doing really good things yes….but to the exclusion of one of the most important things which is reaching people for Christ. I think that Satan is completely content to watch a group of people who are Christians study Gods Word and grow in knowledge of it and to minister to one another. That’s a group of people that are distracted from the mission God has given us and thus no threat to Satan and his minions. I don’t believe that people or leaders intentionally set out to neglect God’s mission of making disciples but sometimes we just get distracted, we just close up the huddle to the other team because we’re so focused on our own team’s success. So what should we do to keep from getting distracted, from creating an ugly version of the “holy huddle”? Let’s look to Matthew 9:36-38 for some help:

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸ therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

1. It starts with compassion for the people, Jesus cared deeply about the people. Why? Because they were harassed, helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. They were lost! When is the last time you looked at your neighbor, your relative, your coworker, your friend and felt deep within you compassion towards them realizing they’re lost? More importantly when it comes to our Sunday School groups, when is the last time you spent any significant time as a group just talking about your burden for the lost that stems from your compassion for them? That would be a beautiful “holy huddle”, one that is burdened, talks about the lost, and ultimately when the lost are found, they’re welcomed into the huddle as they join in the mission of reaching the lost.
2. Recognize the harvest is plentiful…..for all the fear some of us have in regards to sharing our faith….God says the harvest is plentiful. Sometimes we fear rejection so much we can’t even think about the reality there are those out there ready to accept the lifesaving message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Sunday School groups, are we talking about the potential harvest, talking about the right time to bring in the harvest, preparing the soil for the harvest? A good farmer knows his fields, he’s concerned about the rainfall, the wildlife around it, the timing of when to plant, the timing of when to harvest. Farmers talk to each other to work together to help ensure the harvest if plentiful. How beautiful would the “holy huddle” be if each week part of our gathering was conversation about the preparation and activities related to the future harvest of the lives of people in our mission “fields”?
3. Pray as though the harvest depends on it, because it does! The passage tells us to pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest. Why? Because the laborers are few. We’re supposed to pray that God would send laborers into the harvest. This is a complex and weighty request because when you pray it you must first recognize that you are to be a laborer and that God needs other laborers to harvest as well. This isn’t the prayer where we sure wish everyone else would get their act together but if you understand anything about the new testament, starting with Matthew 28:19-20 and Acts 1:8 you understand as a Spirit filled Christian you are a laborer. So this is a prayer where you say, “Hey God help me be obedient to share my faith and help others to do the same”. What a beautiful thing it would be for our “holy huddle” Sunday School groups to pray together, weekly, for God to help them be obedient and to help others to be obedient to go into the harvest…..to share our faith. On that same note, we’re only the mouthpiece of the gospel, not the one who saves anyone. So while we’re praying to the Lord of the harvest, why don’t we pray specifically for the potential harvest by name? What a beautiful “holy huddle” we would have if weekly when we gather together as Sunday School groups we had lists of people we were praying for together because we know the harvest if plentiful.

God help us to love you as you desire, but also help us to love your people as you desire. Not just our people in our “holy huddle” but also the people all around us that make up the opposing team, the plentiful harvest. Help us to show the beauty of what the church is supposed to be and cast off the distractions of the ugly things we can become. Amen