Michael Joe Harvell

     Have you ever seen one of those maps at the rest areas that has a big arrow pointing to your location that says:  “You Are Here”?  This is exactly what God wants us to be as a church!  God desires for us to be a reference point for upstate South Carolina and the rest of the world!  God has taken me on a very interesting journey over the past several months, that has brought me right back to that “You Are Here!” spot.  This month we are going to be taking a look at some very important questions and answers that God has provided for us as a church.  Questions like:

WHO ARE WE?  We are the place and people of RIGHT DIRECTION!  We are a community of followers of Jesus Christ, committed to pursue and share “RIGHT DIRECTION” living.  We acknowledge that RIGHT DIRECTION is given to us by God through His WORD and helps us to live blessed, fulfilled and growing lives!

WHAT ARE WE DOING?  We are helping people to find RIGHT DIRECTION in life!  We are doing this by being a church that is:

· A point of reference for upstate South Carolina. 

· A community of faith that provides direction in love. 

· A ministry of equipping people to fulfill God’s purpose.

WHERE ARE WE GOING?  We are going outside of ourselves to reach inside of others!  We have a COMMISSION to share Jesus and the difference a relationship with Him can make!  We have COMMUNION and can experience God in real and relevant ways!  We have CHARACTER and are growing through obedience to God’s Word!  We have COMMUNITY in which we develop caring relationships that help to get us through life on this earth.  We have CONNECTION and enjoying giving of ourselves to make life better for everyone!

We Believe:  The Bible is God’s Word to us and is the foundation upon which we build and grow our lives!  Jesus is the only hope for a lost, broken and hurting world!  The Church is God’s agent for redemptive change, growth and fulfillment!  Every Christian is called and gifted by God to fulfill the Great Commission!  There is a RIGHT DIRECTION and it will change your life! 

Today was a great day in the life and ministry of Northwood.  The Lord had us take a look at a very sensetive subject and provided us with some great insight into what our response as a church and as Christians needs to be!  We were taking a look at God’s command to not commit adultery!  God’s commands are provided to give us boundaries, so that we will know what, where, when, how and why to live our lives.  God’s command to not commit adultery is a command to practice faithfulness!  God wants us to be faithful in all of our relationships!

We need to make sure that we are faithful to God by living a surrendered and yielded life to Him and His will.  We need to make sure that we are faithful to our families by being committed to our spouse above all others and committed to loving our families with a love that is always looking out for the best according to God.  We need to make sure that we are faithful to our friends by being an honest and available friend.

When I finished the second service today, I really felt that the messages that I delivered today, while they were not easy to deliver, they were prophetic, in that – we as a Church and as Christians had better get busy talking about the things that really matter.  God deserves glory, the Chruch was created to grow and our lives are open books for blessing.  We have a lot to get right and with God’s help we are going to get more and more of it right in the days ahead!

It is always amazing for me to watch how the Devil works, especially whenever there is an important message that the Spirit is trying to communicate with the church!  Today, before I ever even stepped into the building, the Devil was at work – nothing big, major or splashy!  I have noticed that the Devil likes to work behind the scenes whenever he can.  I was getting ready to preach a message on ANGER and the Devil was doing everything that he could come up with to make me and others angry.  I guess that he thought that if enough of us were angry, we would miss out on the message from the Spirit about anger and what we need to do with it!

The funny thing about anger is, it almost always takes you to a place of thought.  I do not always think when I first get angry, but give me a little time and I will think and when I think, my mind and heart get just still enough to hear from the Spirit.  What the Devil was intending to use to mess many of us up, actually back-fired and got many of us to thinking about our anger, where it comes from and what we are going to do about it!  The Devil gave many of us an object lesson before we got the message, so that when we got the message, we really got the message!

What is the Spirit trying to teach you – you don’t have to let the Devil get in the way!  Use the devils attacks as stepping stones to take you into the blessings and growth of God!

What an awesome day I had yesterday!  My day got started with a meeting at Myrtle Beach First Baptist Church for some training for the days events!  Our main task was to share the our testimony with as many bikers as possible.  There was a group of about twelve of us and we headed out to give away $10 worth of free gas to any biker that would listen to a three minute testimony!  We were swamped – for a couple of hours it was machine gun witnessing!  At the end of the gas give a way there were at least twenty seven new Believers that had come to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior!  I pumped over five hundred dollars of gas and had the privilege of meeting people from Maryland, Quebec, New York, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina just to name a few!

After we finished up that we ministry – we headed a little farther down south and hung out at a free BBQ give away – were bikers could get nourished physically with some free BBQ and nourished spiritually with the love of God that flows through Jesus!  It was an amazing and very blessed day!  I thank God for letting me have the experience and joy that came through it!

This week – I am on the road!  I left out on Monday around noon to meet a pastor friend in the middle part of the state!  We spent a few hours kayaking down the Watree River – it was a beautiful and mostly peaceful experience!  God reminded me that it is important to take time to get out and away and be reminded of what an Awesome God He is by observing and enjoying His creation!  The water, rocks, birds, animals, trees, flowers, smells and all that you feel inside and out are simply amazing.  I miss so much, because I am often so busy!

I spent Tuesday in a class room setting with Aubrey Malphurs learning how to affect change in the church.  Most of the information I already knew, but needed to be reminded of.  If the church is going to be effective for God, then it is going to have to change, because what it is doing is just not working – not the way God designed it.

Today, I am in the lower part of the state in Myrtle Beach.  I am looking forward to a little study and reflection time with the Lord.  I also am hoping to go and join a local association in some ministry to people that are visiting bike week.  The association is doing a gas buy down – if the bikers will listen to a three minute testimony explaining what we are doing and why, then they will get their gas for free.  They had around 17 to accept Christ yesterday!

Thanks for your prayers, words of encouragement and for joining me in the Kingdom endeavor!

     The picture at the top of my blog is of me and my two dauhters at the beach a year or so ago!  My wife was joking with someone that I had not used a picture of her and had never even written anything about her on my blog!  I certainly don’t want her to ever feel left out or neglected, so I wanted to take a few moments to share a few things about my JOY!  God blessed me with more than just a wife, He blessed me with a friend.  Joy knows more about me that any other human being that I know!  I trust her with my life – every part of it!

We love to joke around with each other and we both joke in very different ways – some people just don’t get this, but we do and that is all that really matters!  I love to make her laugh!  Her smile means more to me than any words could express.  (She really has an amazing smile!)  The truth is:  We just work and we do it without a lot of drama.  She is a more loving daughter than either of her parents or their spouses know!  She is an amazing mom, who would and sometimes does truly give of her life for her daughters!  She is the best minister’s wife that I know.  She works hard in the church and for the church and stays out of the junk that often other people will try to pull her into!  Northwood is very fortunate to have her as it’s First Lady!

One of my favorite memories of her from just this week was sneaking in and watching her sing and dance with a whole bunch of 2& 3 year olds in our nursery at church.  She was leading them in all of these crazy face making, arm waving and body shaking motions!  The kids were having a blast and she was too!  She was not just watching them, until their parents came back to get them - she was making their exprience at church a very special and fun thing!  I walked out of the room thinking how blessed we all are, that she is in our lives. 

I could go on and on, but anyone that knows me, knows that I am not one for mush, unless it’s fun!  And I don’t want some of you male readers accusing me of losing “man points”!  So, I’ll just close by saying that I am very thankful to God for providing me with a lady that understands me, accepts me and encourages me!  And Joy, I am thankful to you for everything – thanks for making my life great and my journey fun!  I Love You!

What a great day we had at both campuses yesterday!  God blessed with a beautiful day and everyone seemed to be excited and happy about being at church!  I really enjoyed sharing the message on SABBATH and believe that this is a very important message for so many of us!  God gives us six days to go all out for Him, and during these six days we need to give God, our employer, family and friends our absolute very best!  Then on that seventh day we need to take some time to really rest.

You know that you are really resting when you are able to reflect and re-energize!  God not only wants you to take and make a day of rest – He commands it!  So take some time to prove your trust of God by taking Him up on a day of rest.  Just a few things to keep in mind about your sabbath!  The day is not the big issue – taking the day is!  What you do is not that big of a deal, as long as it works for you and is pleasing to God!

So make sure that you pick a day – remember six days of work for seven days of provision!  Make a plan for that day – what you will do and what you will not do.  If you don’t protect it, you will lose it.  Try to answer the question:  What is it that will allow me to rest, reflect and re-energize?

Experiment with your SABBATH!  Just give it a try for thirty days!  Four days of SABBATH a month could change your life!  I pray that God will give you some sweet rest and success this week!

There are some things that I love to do and there are some things that I can’t stand to do.  Occasionaly in my life, I have had no other choice, but to do some of those things that I don’t really care to do!  In almost every situation – it required that I step out of my comfort zone = the major reason why I did not want to do it!  But in everyone of those situations, when I stepped out of my comfort zone and did the thing that I dreaded, I was glad that I did, after the fact!

I am trying to remind myself of this truth now a days.  It seems that as we get older, we get more stuck in our ways and less willing to move out of our comfort zone.  The sad reality is that when we refuse to move, we often miss blessings!  You may have a way that you like it, but think about this:  Would you move out of the way that you like it, what’s comfortable for you – if it means that you would experience something extraordinary?  Just think of how many extraordinary blessings we miss because we are unwilling to move.

Let’s all look for some opportunities to step out of our comfort zones!  Let’s seize those opportunities and see what God has in store for us!