by Josh Monda | Aug 10, 2015 | Uncategorized
You have made my day Even in stormy weather I’m dancing in all the rain
Cause you make bad days…
Great is the way When you come to mind I am smiling ear to ear Sweet thoughts of you I’m always in the mood To twirl around with you While it’s raining
Even if it’s a dream
Great is the way That I am unafraid When I see you
All my fear goes away
Bad days are coming Rainy days are always around But if I can see you One glance upon you
The sun comes out
I’m dancing in all the rain
Cause you make bad days better
by Josh Monda | Aug 9, 2015 | Uncategorized
One of my good friends used to tell me that if he did not know me he would think I made up all of my stories. If you know me then you know I have gone through many different experiences in life. Some of which have greatly tested my faith and others that are sometimes just silly. These last few day really have not been any different.
For me it started on 11/14/2013 a Thursday night. In conversation with by 13 and soon to be 14 year old daughter, she told me she was not feeling well. This really was not out of the ordinary for her as she would get a stomach bug off and on and just sometimes say she did not feel well. So we sent her to bed and she came out later saying she had vomited. Again no big deal just seemed to be a bug. So we got her fluids and thought we would see how the next day would go. Friday morning was like any other morning my daughter said she still was not feeling well and so because I knew she was ill I just told her to stay home from School as Friday is my day off anyway and figured I could keep an eye on her. Then she changed her mind and decided to go to school which was fine as well.
Around 10AM on Friday I received a call from the school saying my daughter was ill. Again not that unusual so I had her mom go and pick her up from school and she came home and went to her room to rest. She was in her room the entire day on Friday and came out Friday night and watched some television with us and later took a bath. This lead us to believe she would be feeling much better come Saturday. Well Saturday came and she still was not doing well. She was still nauseous and throwing up so we were somewhat concerned now. As my wife went to do a job she sent me a text message and said make sure I check our daughter. SO I did and quickly found my precious girl in a state that looked like severe dehydration. I let my wife know that we needed to get her to the ER. My wife hurried home and when we went to clean her up she passed out. We then called 911. As I lay in the hallway with my daughter waiting on an ambulance those sobering words rang out that she would say to me, “Daddy I don’t want to die”. Upon arrival the EMT’s could not get any vital signs. She was awake but kept wanting to go to sleep. No blood pressure, no pulse, no nothing. They loaded her in the ambulance and off they went.
I loaded my boys and headed to the ER. They had finally got an IV in her but she was still in trouble. She had very little blood when they pricked her finger they could not get any blood. After working on her for awhile the doctor came out and said she felt that she had Toxic Shock Syndrome. We are fortunate that she is still with us. Later the doctor would tell my wife if I had not gone in when I did we may have lost her. Now I sit in the ICU with my daughter still with no real answers to the cause and only knowing that my daughter has some bacteria that they still do not have the answers for.
But the story does not end there. Because this morning right before I walked into my church for Sunday services I received a tornado watch on my phone. Then right after the introduction to my sermon the tornado warning came through I moved our congregation to the basement and the sirens sounded. I decide to step outside to look things over and sure enough the tornado was forming. The tornado passed about a quarter mile from my church taking out at least 4 of our members homes. So like I said this is one crazy ride.
Please pray for us pray for my daughter, my community, my church. Interestingly enough today’s message was entitled the prayer of faith. Here is some footage I took Washington Illinois Tornado Devastation From Washington, Illinois Torando
by Josh Monda | Aug 9, 2015 | Uncategorized
I wanted to take a few minutes a blog something that is just a little different from my normal time. If you have been following my blog you know that I have recently become the pastor at First Baptist Washington in Washington Illinois. As with any position I quickly began to evaluate things such as our website, our missions statement, vision statement, etc. During this process I also started the search to see if we had a logo that belonged to the church. I was not surprised when I found that we did not have one. Honestly this is fairly normal especially in a smaller church. Rarely do churches think about branding, logos, and these sorts of things. However, I do and though I am know expert I knew we should have something.
Thus enters Zillion Designs, you see at Zillion Designs you do not have to be the expert. Really all you need is an idea. Honestly that is all I had was an idea in my head that I just was not capable of getting out that I need help with. I had heard about Zillion Designs and how they use crowdsourcing to give you many different designs that you can choose from so I thought I would give it a shot. There are several things that drew me into Zillion Designs not only having multiple people working on a logs (they have over 50,000 designers) but also you get to name your own price. It does not get any better than that.
So I went in with a design idea in my head and posted a creative brief where I pretty much describe what I am looking for. After I went through the process I had my first design to look at within 24 hours and they just kept coming and coming. By the end of the week I had over 60 designs that had come in. In addition to this you can interact with those designers letting them know to change something or not to change something etc. They work hard to make sure you get exactly what you are looking for.
I would also add that the customer support for this company is superb. I never had difficulty reaching anyone and they followed up with me very promptly. I has asked for some files to be separated and within an hour they were sent to me separated this is going above and beyond what most companies will do. Not only that but they followed up with a phone call to make sure I had received everything that I had asked for and to make sure I was satisfied. These guys are second to none.
They also do more than just logos I would challenge you to check them out. Take some time to go to their site if you need a logo these guys can do it, or if you need something else, stationary, letterheads, etc. they do that as well. So go and have a look at what they have to offer at Zillion Designs. Oh yeah I almost forgot check out our logo.
by Josh Monda | Aug 8, 2015 | Uncategorized
I have debated on whether or not to that the time to write this. Partially because being a pastor in a smaller church it seems like you are trying to promote yourself or somehow trying to force people to appreciate you as a pastor. However, let me say that right up front that is not the point of me taking the time to write this. In fact I rarely see pastors taking the time to write about this as they have fear of self promotion. With that said there are to my surprise many people who read my blog and not all of them are pastors so I thought if I could somehow help others think about this biblically it could in turn help many of my friends who are pastors. Additionally because I am from a smaller church I am certain that only a select few of my parishioners will read this, and I know that they know me well enough to realize this is not some sort of self promotion.
I primarily wanted to take some time to speak to this first of all because next month (October) is pastor appreciation month and secondly and very frankly I have seen pastors that have gone through pastor appreciation month very much unappreciated. Often I believe this stems from the fact that many churches do not really know how to appreciate their pastor and honestly many pastors do not know how to appreciate their congregation. With that said I do believe that there are those who wonder if it is even Biblical to appreciate the pastor and there are some who believe that the pastor is called to a life of poverty. I would say that with nearly 20 years of ministry I have struggled financially for the majority of those years often wondering how we would survive, and yes at times feeling guilty for being on government assistance while being a pastor. So before I get into the idea of whether or not Pastor Appreciation is Biblical first let me just quickly break down a pastors pay and perhaps some common misunderstandings in relation to it, as I believe this will help in an overall understanding.
Unfortunately when I first started ministry I really did not understand things like pastors taxes, housing allowance, etc. I also believe that the common parishioner does not understand this either. So I thought I would break at least these two thoughts down for those that may not really understand them. First, let’s look at the typical pastors taxes in the simplest way possible. I will not go into all of the variables of this but will give the common circumstances for most pastors. Often when one looks at their church budget and they notice how much the pastor is being paid their first thought may be that is a pretty decent salary. usually the problem with that thought is this. In most church budgets when the pastors salary is published is really does not show the bottom line it is really showing the before tax amount. This tends to be a problem as causes what I believe is a common misunderstanding for people in that they believe the pastor is making more than they really are. So let me show some numbers very quickly. Lets say that the pastors salary is $40,000. Well out of that $40,000 the pastor is required to pay 15.3 percent in taxes because a pastor is considered self-employed and most pastors do not pt out of social security (full time employees pay 7.65 percent). Ok let’s do the math so 40,000 x 15.3% is 6,120 now 40,000 – 6120 brings us to 33,380. This may not seem to bad as a salary but also let’s not forget that at least the pastors I know make sure that they give at least 10 percent of their income in tithe (I believe the national average is 2.5%). So let’s subtract that. So since we tithe on our before tax amount lets multiply 40,000 X 10% which equals 4,000 now subtract that from the 33,380 and we are now at 29,380.
Before I go any further I want to just quickly address housing allowance because again I think there is a misunderstanding that a housing allowance is added to the pastors salary and it is not. If a pastor claims a housing allowance of lets say 15,000 that does not mean the church is adding 15,000 to the pastors salary it really is simply a tax benefit for your pastor and that is all. So to somehow equate the housing allowance with salary is somewhat of a misnomer. Ok now that we have that out-of-the-way. The pastor is not bringing home 29,380 a year. Which is roughly 2,448 a month. So with this in mind and if we used Dave Ramsey’s budgeting guidelines this pastor should spend no more than 856 a month on total housing, 244 on utilities, 367 on groceries, I am not going to put all of the other numbers in If you want to see the worksheet go here it is the same one I use. Fill in the worksheet and it is easy to see why so many pastors struggle. I have always said if they are worried about money than their thoughts are not on ministry. If you are still with me congratulations you either really love your pastor and want to know how to appreciate them or you really want to know if pastor appreciating is Biblical.
Let me just begin with this. A Pastor that knows they are loved will serve your church far longer and in a far greater capacity than a pastor who wonders if he is loved. So let’s just answer the question and then prove the answer. Is Pastor appreciation Biblical? The answer is Yes. Let me share with you three verses from Gods word that shows us this.
We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13, ESV)
Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. (1 Timothy 5:17, ESV)
In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. (1 Corinthians 9:14, ESV)
If well allow these verses to soak in I think we can clearly see that we are to appreciate our pastors. I am not going to exegete these passages as they say a great deal not only to the congregations responsibility to Appreciate their pastor but they have a a lot to say about the labor of the pastor as well. However, let it be clear that scripture plainly tells us to make sure that our pastors are cared for. I have seen many a pastor struggle often times needlessly. Naturally the question comes with how can we show our pastor some appreciation? How can we show him some love?
First you can pray for him. Take time to pray for his family, for his work, for what he is trying to accomplish. You can also submit to his direction, allow him to lead you. Let me just say that the success of your church depends on you loving your pastor. He can either be encouraged or discouraged further more God commands us to take care of them, and honestly nearly every pastor I know deserves it.
Let me share some Ideas that I have found that you could use to appreciate your pastor
For Kids and Teens
Ten Gifts You Can Give Your Pastor
LIfeway Article on Pastor Appreciation
NAMB Resources for Pastor Appreciation
by Josh Monda | Jan 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
I love spending time with other people. I not only like to go to other people’s homes but I love it when people come to my house and just hang out. There is something about breaking bread together that just excites me. You know, as I look though the gospels I can’t help but notice how often Jesus was just spending time with other people. So often we get caught up into the notion that our time with others has to be spent inside the walls of the church, but this is just not so. Some of the greatest times we have with others are outside of the church just hanging out. I often wonder why we allow things to get into the way of fellowship. Why do we find excuses not to spend time with others outside of church. Sure we say things like “I am to busy”, or “I have a family”. But that is the beauty of meeting outside of the church we just bring our families together to hang out and do life together.
My eyes were really opened to this the other night when my wife asked be “so who we going to have over next”. You would have to understand my wife to know why this came as a surprise. You see I am always looking for people to hang out with but she rarely used to do this. What I love about this, is she has grown so much to understand the value of just being with others, of just hanging out. Why have we relegated discipleship to a book? Why is it when someone wants to be discipled our first thought is go through this book, or study that? Is this what we see Christ doing? No, way! He spent time doing life with others and I want to do the same. I want to just hang out, and have a cook out together, play some games, watch some T.V. maybe have a Bible study but that is not even really necessary. Have some Godly conversations. You know I just want to do life with other people and grow with them in my walk with Christ. I hope you want to do the same.
When we think of John 11:35 we often thing of the shortest verse in the Bible. It seems rarely that we are forced to take a step back and contemplate the true meaning of the verse. Why did Jesus weep? Was He weeping over the loss of His friend Lazarus? This is doubtful since He is about to restore Lazarus to life. Was He weeping because Mary and Martha were weeping? Once again this is doubtful because He is about to turn their sorrow into rejoicing. It must also be noted that the word used in this passage for Jesus’ weeping is different from the one used to describe the weeping of mary and the Jews. The word used to describe their weeping indicates loud wailing and cries of lament, whereas the word uses for Jesus’ weeping indicates “to shed tears” and carries with it the idea of quiet grief. Even so Jesus clearly wept, to the point that the jews even said “see how He loved him” but why?
It seems that the answer is not as easily found as one may expect. While it is true that Jesus did love Lazarus this does not appear to be the reason He would be weeping, as I wrote earlier clearly He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. The most logical conclusion for myself is two-fold. First Jesus is weeping to show His humanity. We must understand that Jesus is fully God and fully man and by His weeping we are allowed to see His humanity. That we worship a God who is like us in all ways and does have emotion, and compassion, and does weep. Secondly I believe Jesus wept because he was grieving over the effects of sin and death. He was hurt that this had to happen, sin beings death. I am forced to examine my life and ask when was the last time that sin brought me to tears. Weeping was a natural response to the situation, it shows He has compassion for the sinfulness of humanity which is the same reason He wept in Luke 19:41. So in summation Jesus wept because He is human, and because he had compassion. Will you weep for your own sin? Will you be found weeping for the sin of others?
These are just my random thoughts.
