WBM Update

August 2, 2007

Still summer, still hot, and I'm still praising God for AC. The first week in July I took a few days for a time of refreshing at the campmeeting held at The River of Tampa Bay. Experienced some wonderful worship, and heard some very timely and motivating messages by Rodney Howard-Browne.

On Tuesday mornings we finished up through Romans 9 and into chapter 10, learning that the plan of God for Israel in no way failed, but that God's purpose was always to bring salvation and the Messiah to ALL the nations. Though we are not all children of Abraham in the natural sense, we are counted as "children of promise" and heirs of Abraham through faith in Jesus Christ. As we continue in chapters 10-11, we will learn that God has not forgotten Israel and how His for her will be fulfilled.

Birthing the Book Within You
This month I completed the book layout for my friend Ben Peter's new book called Birthing the Book Within You. We have done a couple of seminars together on that subject, to motivate and introduce Christian ministers to the process of writing and publishing the books they have dreamed of giving to the world. You can view the cover here (it will be the first image in the line-up). If you are interested, you will be able to order it from Ben's ministry, Open Heart Ministries.

Notes from our Friends

• From Robin: "Too often we put God in a box. He is the same today as He was then. He is still a healing God. Thanks for this post. I am adding it to my new Sunday meme." [About our Faith Log entry, Walking Tabernacles. Not sure what a "meme" is.]
• From Sombra: "I followed Robin's link here. Too often we forget that we are the Tabernacle.. and we defile it with our own sin. Your post has reminded me to keep on the righteous path. I need good reminders daily... moment by moment sometimes."
• From Harriet: "I have read and printed articles from your website and have been blessed by them."
• From Elizabeth: "Great post, Jeff. How often do I forget where my help comes from?! I push in my own strength and then fall flat on my face frustrated. Then I remember God's available help and cry out!" [About The Table of Abundantly Available Help.]
• From Claudia in Porto Alegre, Brasil: "This site has helped me in more ways than I have time to mention. I love Jesus and I absolutely love the Word of God expressed on this site. It is changing my life for the better."
• From Joel in India: "I was really blessed by reading your article."

July 11, 2007

Summer is here ... Very hot outside ... Thank God for AC! ... Hope you're keeping cool and comfortable, too ... Family gatherings with a lot of food ... Very hot! ... Did I mention that I'm thankful for air conditioning? Enjoying the Lord.

In our Tuesday a.m. Bible group, we've been luxuriating in Romans 8. It is so jam-packed with powerful stuff that keeps coming back to me time and again that we have taken the time to really dig into it. Beginning with the liberating truth that there is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ, it blasts us with all the powerful things God has working together for our God, blending in the "big picture" revelation that all of creation is eagerly waiting for these things to be revealed in us. It explodes with a really big finish—an epiphanic hymn of how the love Christ has for us is so much greater than anything else we could ever imagine. It is sheer bliss!

Have I tempted you to run and get your Bible?

The Faith Log in Your eMailbox
You can now get our (almost) daily blog, The Faith Log, delivered to your email address each evening. There is no cost to receive these little faith-building articles. You can subscribe here

Christian Book Design
Since I have now laid out and designed a bunch of books for our ministry and some other ministries, we have decided to branch out and offer this service to others. The technology makes it much more accesible and inexpensive for Christian authors and ministries to publish their message in print, eBook and on the internet. We are already invested in the software and have followed the learning curve anyway, and we believe this will be a great benefit to others. We've put up a new web page for it at www.christianbookdesign.com.

As it happens, I have just been doing layout and design for a new book by Ben Peters called Birthing the Book Within You: Inspirational and Practical Help to Produce Your Own Book. That sorta helped confirm me in this new endeavor.

June 5, 2007

School is out and Summer is almost here. In May we went off on a working holiday. Suzanne had a business seminar in NJ, not far from her sister in PA. So we made two long weekends to visit and play. During the week in between, while Suz attended the seminar, I blogged and worked on our book, Miracles and Manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the History of the Church (it's coming along, folks).

In the Tuesday a.m. Bible study, we went through Romans 7, about Paul's failing struggle to live under the Law and overcome sin in his own power, and we started in Romans 8, the revelation that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). Living in Romans 7 is wretched, as Paul discovered. But living in Romans 8 is joy itself. I wrote about the difference in a blog article: A Better Way to Live.

Renovation
We have recently been refreshing and upgrading our website. Improvements include:

• Faster page loads
• Better placement in your browser window
• New and improved navigation
• Removed the clutter

Come and peruse: www.walkingbarefoot.com

Printer-Friendly Faith-Building Articles
One improvement we are especially delighted about is that now our all of our faith-building articles are printer-friendly. So we invite you to check them out and print out which ever ones you like. If there are some articles you would like to print to share with others, we would be very happy for you to do that, too. Here is our current list of articles.

Get The Faith Log Sent to Your Inbox
Now you can have The Faith Log emailed directly to your inbox. What could be simpler? And the subscription is F.REE. We publish it about 4-5 times a week (that's why we call it our almost daily blog). Just sign up and you will begin to receive the very next edition at your email address. Sign up here.

May 3, 2007
Been having a good time with in the men of our Tuesday a.m. Bible study group. This past month we were in Romans 6, discussing what it means to be baptized into Christ and His death (v. 3). We’ve been learning to do some “dead reckoning,” reckoning ourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God (v. 11). Its all about the gift of God—eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (v. 23)

A Precious Spiritual Inheritance
We were able to take a few days in April to go visit some very special women in my life: my mother and grandmother. They are both godly women who represent an important part of our spiritual heritage, and that of our children.

My “Granny” is an evangelist. In 1940, she and her husband Garrette were commissioned to itinerant ministry and for the next 25 years served in the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama, preaching the Gospel and teaching the Bible. (You can read about their ministry together here). They were also involved in Jewish evangelism along the way, and Granny taught many “Good News” clubs for children. Garrette passed away in 1965, but Granny continued on with her ministry, passing out gospel tracts, singing at churches (she once sang “Amazing Grace” on stage with Dino Kartsonakis, but that’s another story) and working with various ministries for young women. Today she is 97, and doing well, living in her little apartment in Spartanburg, SC. She has taken on her apartment complex as her parish, and she regularly reaches out to the residents there with friendship, prayer and, of course, gospel tracts. The Lord regularly sends folks by who help her with her various chores and errands, and they end up being blessed as much by her as she is by them. Those who have spoken with her over the phone know that she is likely to sing them a little song or hymn—at 97, she’s still doing music ministry, and is in pretty good voice, too.

My mother is also a strong woman of faith. As the mother of four boys, she showed a lot of patience—and restraint—and later was very gracious to create annual beach retreats for us and our families (all together with thirteen grandchildren—talk about patience!). But we’ve also seen how God has used her in the lives of others to bring reconciliation and blessing. She is active in her church and enjoys the praise and teaching service with the younger crowd. Though the past few years have been very difficult for her, we have seen how she has risen up in her faith to meet the challenges. On our recent trip, she shared with us that one of her favorite Scripture verses is Psalm 46:1, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” She said it is good to know a few verses by heart for when you wake up in the middle of the night. We cannot tell you how many lives she has touched, and we know that the Lord is going to touch many more through her.

Mom and Granny are heroes to us, and since Mother’s Day is this month, we thought this would be a good time to say it. As I have reflected over the past few years on this wonderful spiritual inheritance, the words of Psalm 116:16 have taken on a deeper meaning for me:

“O LORD, truly I am Your servant;
I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant.”

Happy Mother’s Day!

April 2, 2007
Well, it’s been a good, solid month: Teaching in Romans on Tuesday mornings. Leading worship for the monthly ministers’ prayer lunch. Blogging just about every day (God has been stirring up a lot things in me). Led the worship at our home church, Revival Outreach Center, for meetings with Pat Halloran and Ron DePriest. Also brought the worship for a special time of soaking prayer one Wednesday evening. This was taught by Carol Griffiths, who recently returned to our church from three weeks of training at Toronto Airport Christian Vineyard. It was a pleasure to team up with her in this. It’s always good to get in an atmosphere of praise and worship, and marinate in the goodness of the Lord. Very healing.

Manifestations of the Holy Spirit
This month I picked back up again working on our new book, Manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the History of the Church (working title). It is a compilation of source materials from the early days of the Church up to the twentieth century. It has been a joy going though the materials, studying the many miracles, healings, exorcisms, spiritual gifts and other manifestations of the Holy Spirit—even numerous examples of raising the dead!

They have always been around. We find them in the early Church Fathers (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Augustine, etc), the “Desert Fathers,” and in the Middle Ages (including miracles in the lives of St. Patrick, St. Benedict and St. Francis). We find them also in the Scottish Covenanters (Presbyterians!), and in the ministries of Martin Luther, George Fox, John Wesley, Spurgeon and Finney. There are also unusual manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the revivals of Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Barton Stone and the Kentucky “Cane Patch Revival” of 1801. And much more besides.

We have felt a burden from the Lord to go ahead and get this out so others can study them—we believe we are in a time in which we are going to see these things increase much more than they ever have before. We expect to release this book by the end of the year.

Notes from our Friends

• From J.H.: “Hi Jeff, I attended your breakout session and just wanted to thank you for your wisdom and encouragement and prayers.” [This was the breakout session at I.A.M. on “Authoring and Publishing for the Kingdom.”]
• From Linda: “I receive your monthly newsletter in the email and I truly enjoy reading each and every one. I have come to know the Lord about 3 years ago and am reading “The Purpose Driven Life” which has answered many of my questions of why we are here and how we were made like we were and how we got the parents we did. So whenever I read any of your newsletters it helps me to understand more and more and thirst for more. I want to know the Lord more intimately each day. Thanks for your newsletter. God Bless you all. [Linda, we are very happy that our newsletters being such a help for you—that’s why we’re here. God bless you, too.]
• From Anonymous: “AMEN! This is why I believe praying the Word of God is so powerful!” [Responding to our Faith Log article, Created to Respond to the Word of God.]
• From Gloria: “I just recently found your website and wanted to confirm permission to use your prayer regarding children on a bulletin that our church is using for our children's program. It is an awesome prayer and we would appreciate the ability to print it. We understand that we need to print the copyright notice and the paragraph noting your ministry and its mission statement.” [I think she is talking about our article, Praying Over Your Children With Power, which is also a chapter in our Walking Barefoot book. We are always happy to share our articles for ministry purposes. And thanks for including the copyright notice and mission statement.]

March 1, 2007
We give God praise for His continued faithfulness to us in all things. He keeps doing marvelous things in worship, taking us deeper into intercession for nations and generations. During these times, Suzanne often experiences visions of the marvelous things God is bringing forth, especially in regard to our children (Hi, kids!). They have a remarkable destiny, and we see how the wisdom of God is continually at work to lead them into it.

Upgrades
Here at WBM Central, in beautiful Seffner, FL, we have upgraded our computer system. I did not intend to upgrade the whole system just yet; I just wanted to get a flat panel monitor with a large LCD screen (about the height of a 19” screen, but 22” wide). It's very handy for all the computer work involved with our ministry (blogging, website design, book layout and cover design, and every now and them, song sheets—and, of course, our monthly Faith-Builder ezine and newsletter).

When I brought home the monitor and connected it up, I discovered that is wasn't very compatible with our old computer, which was about 4 years old—a real dinosaur in computer world, a museum piece! I had been planning on replacing it with something more powerful and appropriate to our needs this year anyway, just not this early. So my monitor decision forced our hand and we got a new system that is about twice as fast as the old one. It comes with the new Windows Vista operating system. That means that we have also had to upgrade some of our software, but we are now about to the place where we can hum along again, faster and more efficiently than before. And the monitor is much easier on the eyes.

For reasons that I won't go into, this has also forced us to do some major renovations on our web site, so be watching for that. Again, this is something that I was planning to do anyway, whenever I could get around to it. So now, I have to get around to it. Bless God, He is faithful to keep upgrading us and moving us forward.

Annual Convening: International Apostolic Ministries
We had a great time at the annual convening of International Apostolic Ministries. It was not a conference or seminar, but a time for the IAM family to get together, fellowship, laugh, be refreshed and have some all-out times of praise and worship. Over the years we have developed many wonderful friendships with like-minded ministries in New England, Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, Kansas, Illinois, Florida, and South Africa. We always have a marvelous time, and look forward to it every year.

Authoring and Publishing for the Kingdom
At this year's convening, we were privileged again to lead a breakout session, along with Ben Peters of Open Heart Ministries, on authoring and publishing. Ben shared about being a writer—he is the author of about a dozen books, with more in the works. I talked about some of the aspects of publishing, especially the opportunities of POD (Print On Demand) technology, something I have been working with for a few years now. We also prepared handouts, and at the end we had a time of impartation where we laid hands on the participants and prayed the anointing of God on them for blessing, favor, wisdom and guidance as they take up the challenge of writing and publishing for God's Kingdom. For more about this, we have created a website called Writers of the Kingdom.

Notes From Our Friends

• From Jim: “Hi Jeff, Great article. God bless you! I have been working as a missionary in Southern Africa and was doing a study on faith and looked up the word "hupostasis" and came upon your site.” [Talking about our Faith Log article, Faith is Substance.]
• From H.M.: “I have sat in the past few years so many nights “with the gun cocked” (not wanting to live), believing the lies of Satan. I thank God for your articles. They are quite inspiring and well written. I have already begun to realize a change in my faith from reading them. And I have begun to surrender more to the Father and ask Him to remove the walls I've built around my foolish heart. Your ministry is a blessing to me. Thank you and thank God for you.”
• From J.H.: “I attended your breakout session and just wanted to thank you for your wisdom and encouragement and prayers ... All that to say, I don't know that I had the confidence to even take such a small step, had I not heard from you and Ben and received prayer during the convening. Thanks so much! I've been reading your blog and loving it! I may venture out in that arena next ... Many thanks and blessings.”

February 1, 2007
We started off the year with a bang on New Year's Night. I led the worship and Wayne Anderson, of Standsure Ministries, took us through a time of prophesying, praying and partying in the Spirit to celebrate the things God is going to do in 2007.

This month (February 20-23) we look forward to the annual convening of International Apostolic Ministries in Dover, FL.

Healing Conference
In January, we were part of a healing conference hosted by the Order of St. Luke ministry at Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in Valrico, FL, where I led worship before each session. The presence of the Lord was evident throughout the day. The teaching was brought by Rev. Sharon Lewis of Church of the Holy Spirit (Episcopal) down in Osprey, FL. We highly recommend her ministry.

Extreme Makeover: The Faith Log
Our blog host has done a makeover and added some new features, so we took this as an opportunity to upgrade our blog, The Faith Log. We have given it a fresh new look that we believe is much more inviting.

One of the new features is the "label" tag at the bottom right of each article. If we have other articles along the same theme, we can include them together under a "label" that takes you to a page with all those articles collected together. So, for example, if you see the label The Table of the Lord, you can click on it and find all the articles we have written about that subject.

Come visit and let us know what you think: The Faith Log.

Notes From Our Friends

• From George: "Thank you for that and I really enjoy your articles and ministry. God bless you (and I know He has)." [This was in response to our faith-building article Understanding Things Not Seen.]
• From Pastor Janie: "I like what I have read and would like to share some parts of this with our small church of about 50 people ... This is a real eye opener." [Not sure exactly which article she has in mind, but we are happy for pastor Janie to share whatever we have with her congregation. We like eyes being opened.]
• From Michael: "i like your faith blog ... cool stuff ... bless u." [thanx & bless u 2]

January 3, 2007

Happy New Year to you, full of the abundance and joy of the Lord! We are believing God for you to have a glorious year of favor, breakthrough and prosperity in every area of your life!

Last year was wonderful, with many healing and worship meetings and opportunities to preach and teach the Word. (We recorded a couple of these messages, which you can find here.)

In our Tuesday a.m. Bible study group, we finished up the book of Proverbs, then explored the epistles of John, followed by the book of Jude. This year we are leaping into the treasure trove of Romans.

Project Releases

Last year, we released two projects: God's Word in Your Mouth: Changing Your World Through Faith and Healing Scriptures and Prayers CD 4: The Healing Ministry of Jesus. Sample PDF is available for the book, and some sample audio MP3 clips for the CD.

For this year, the Lord has been laying a few more projects on our hearts, and we will be telling your more about them later.

WBM Around the WorldWideWeb

In years past, we have experienced that the "worldwide web" truly is worldwide. We have seen that again this year and have received hundreds of thousands of hits on our websites from all over the world. Almost twice as many hits as last year!

A lot of this increase has to with the fact that we are regularly writing and adding Bible-teaching, faith-building articles to our (almost) daily blog, The Faith Log. With over 600 articles, each one indexed by Google, Yahoo, and all, we are giving people a lot of portals to access our ministry—and so they do.

This year we have also heard from people across the country, and in a number of foreign nations. Even folks from East Africa, Kenya, Nairobi, Pakistan, Jamaica, England and Taiwan wrote to thank us for our books, CDs, and faith-building articles.

Notes from Our Friends

• From Pastor Sadiq in Pakistan: "Greetings and blessing from Pakistan. Thank God for your beautiful and inspiring website. I studied your website and was blessed and inspired and learnt new things."

• From Martha: "I'm writing in regards to several of your articles. They have encouraged me to tears. You could say that I'm a baby Christian with a calling on my life. I'm in a dry season, and the voice and the direction of my heavenly Father eludes me. It has sent me into back-sliding and I'm trying to stop this downward spiral. Your articles and scriptures are like a much needed ointment to a hurting soul."

• From Karen: "Thank you so much. I found you through Google and listened to the samples and loved your soothing voice. I am currently bedfast due to back issues and I am surrounding myself with God's Word in as many ways as I can. I am believing God for my healing. Blessings to you for all you do." [Talking about our Healing Scriptures and Prayers CDs]

How God Blessed in 2006!