AT SEASONS END

I love it when the first cold front blows thru in September and the temperature drops 30 degrees. It means the Summer season is over and the fall time is here.
I also love it when I look up at night and no longer see Scorpio’s tail in the heavens but Orion’s belt and sword in the east. It means the season has changed and winter is here. Just about the time my Wisteria begins to bloom, I tend to catch a giant V of Geese headed back north to Canada. And it is so much fun to sit down in my chair in the back yard, watch the sun go down and hear the locusts and crickets fire up for the first time. There is hope in seasonal changes.

God is the designer of times and seasons. He made sure that people can separate in their mind the difference between childhood and young adult life. He wants things to be different for us in our strong thirties than it is in our mellow seventies.

For the person who hates the hard work of summer, there is always the harvest of Fall. I love how God has such a value for Hope.

Today you find me at the end of a season. For the past seven years I have faithfully and joyfully hammered out my thoughts and theology in this column. I am hanging up my newspaper column hat today.

THE REASON FOR THE SEASON

Nothing negative what soever provokes me to make this change. Seeing my writings in newspapers everywhere has been a dream come true for me.
It’s just that at 44, I do not find things slowing down but much much busier. My recent move to Down Town Joshua and our incredible church growth has me stepping and fetching in a way like I never anticipated. My life has changed and so has my ability to meet another deadline.

I am about to start a school to train up people in ministry and once things settle down at Open Door, I will spend several days a month in foreign countries training Pastors and working on my orphanages. My Calendar of conference speaking is filling up and as grateful as I am to the Lord for that opportunity, I know it means saying good by to my love of writing this column.

I will still write it from time to time but I just can’t promise to keep a deadline anymore and my editors deserve better than that. So I don’t want to be like Bret Farve, I want to be like Michael Jordan and leave the game while people are still very happy with what I do.

Saying Good Bye

Just a moment ago My brother-in-law, Lonnie Applegate called me and said that my good friend John Smith is living his last day in a hospital in Ft Worth. John and I played in the same band, The Midnight Riders, as kids. we actually provided all the music for the Joshua Centennial, back in the day. Apparently John has suffered some kind of diabetic stroke and today his family has painfully and prayerfully decided to pull the plug on John’s machine.

I expect the next time I see him, he will be happy and young and funny like he was when he was a kid. I look forward to that and as I type this out I pray that John’s last moment in Texas will be peaceful and full of God’s presence. Its the end of a season for my friend John and the beginning of a new one.

I have to go guys. My daughter finished high school early and today, not unlike my friend John, is the day she graduates. Her older sister also graduated early from Burleson High and Rhema is walking the stage at TEAM school in Cleburne today. It is a time of celebrating what we have done and moving on to the next big thing.

Blessings and peace and a really fun life be yours in Jesus Christ.
Troy A Brewer
www.opendoorexperience.com

Tassels Are Turning

A few weeks ago I told you about the amazing miracle that happened for those people we reach out to in the trash dumps of Mattamoros Mexico. If you missed it, you can read all my archives on the world-wide-waist-of-time at www.freshfromthebrewer.com.

This week I want to tell you about another miracle just as amazing. It’s not a blind eye seeing or a resurrection from the dead although it’s just as miraculous. My son Benjamin is graduating high school.

Now Ben, or Bean as we call him, is as sharp as a tack but he’s not famous for self motivation. That brother could sit and watch grass grow or paint dry for entertainment. Like his old man when I was his age, he seems to be content doing nothing until the very last minute. So all of us were shocked when he really manned up and started doing extra homework to get his grades where they should be. Bean, doing extra homework? Yes, there is a God and his glorious presence will be manifest next week when the bean dawns his cap and gown for his graduation ceremony.

The big deal about Ben’s graduation is that this is not just his victory, it’s our victory. This week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christian comes brewing with proud papa accolades.

School of hard knocks

Let me detour into something God taught me about raising my boys. The place I learned this was not in an air conditioned room with a professor; it was behind the sixteen foot walls of a terrible prison. I have spent a lot of time in prisons throughout the state. Not because I committed crimes, but because I wanted to reach people who have.

In all of the prison ministry I have done, I have never seen one that wasn’t divided ethnically. There’s always a White section, a Black section and a Hispanic or Asian section. The one section I can’t ever find in a prison is the Jewish section. Although according to Wikipedia there are over six and a half million practicing Jews in the United States, there is a not a significant population in prisons. I wanted to know why there are so many high percentages of other ethnicities filling up our state prison systems but not Jews. Here’s what I found.

Practicing Jews have a culture where the fathers bless the sons. They publicly and privately value blessing and affirmation on young men as they are growing up. It’s a part of their heritage. Whether it’s through a Bar-Mitzvah or just through how they deal with their kids. Jewish sons have the verbalized approval of their dads and in most cases it keeps those boys from going crazy. Their father figure is a stable and loving, responsible man, not a running buddy, not the baby daddy. He’s a father and the sons are expected to grow into men who contribute and pass down their blessing to their own sons -so they do.

I might be a gentile Texan but I want to pass down a blessing to my own sons and in so doing, my sons will bless me.

School’s out

Next week, my son Benjamin Allen Brewer with thousands of other sons and daughters here locally will have accomplished what he set out to do twelve years ago. He’s a good boy and fine young man and I yes, I am so proud of him. Just two months later he will be leaving for a two year internship at Teen Mania’s Honor Academy (http://www.honoracademy.com) in East Texas and the iWwar School of Worship (http://iwarschool.com) in Vacaville, California. I can’t imagine what life is going to be like without my Bean around here, but off he goes to seek out his own destiny. He’s free to do it because he’s blessed and what a big difference that makes.

Thank you Ben for being you. You’re Mama and I both love you more than you can imagine. You were an amazing kid and I know you will be an amazing man. You are a blessing to all who know you Bean. I am so happy to publicly say it’s great to be your dad.

…Then as Jesus prayed, the sky opened up, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove. A voice from heaven said, "You are my own dear Son, and I am pleased with you.

Luke 3:21,22 (CEV)

Contact the Brewer at www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

A Big Shout Out To All Our Graduates

The Party Is On!

People that are Godly and people that are thankful, observe accomplishment. We know that God loves to reward achievement because the Bible says, “He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

In the book of Genesis the Bible also says that at the end of the day, and in every stage of creation, God stopped what He was doing and said, “IT IS GOOD.” That means He celebrated the accomplishments of creation, not just at the end, but also at every stage along the way.

Even before He created people and even before He could share anything with anybody, at the end of every single phase, God stopped what He was doing, put a little party hat on, threw some confetti into the air and said “IT IS GOOD.”

In this world it is so easy to make a big deal out of bad things. It’s so easy to be upset over failure and disappointment. That’s why God wants us to make a big deal out of achievement and realization. Your graduation ceremony is mostly about celebrating the fact that you finished what you started out to do. Way to go graduates!

Old School

22 years ago I sat at my high school graduation ceremony. I sat in that seat listening to an old codger like me talk about something that I can not even begin to recall and I could not have imagined that in 20 years I would be the one giving the speeches. When it comes to remembering graduation ceremonies, there is one that I will never forget.

On one of our many missions’ trips to Mexico, we were feeding people in the trash dumps of Matomoros. It was a hot day and the lines were long. In the midst of handing out food I heard what sounded like applause and excited laughter behind me. I turned around just in time to see a beautiful little girl taking her very first steps.

That day, the same scene was being played out in comfortable air conditioned homes all across America, but there in the trash dumps of Matomoros, the great moment of triumph was every bit as exciting and worth celebrating. She might have had to learn how to walk in a filthy trash dump but make those steps she did. Everybody in line began to clap and cheer as the daddy swept up his little girl in his arms!

Crossing the Stage

In no way did it end all of that family’s problems, but still it was progress. The Lord taught me right there through a living sermon that you have to stop looking at what stinks long enough to rejoice over the achievement of forward progression. Even if those steps are little bitty. Even if there are yucky things all around us, progress should be celebrated.

Congratulations graduates on your big walk across the stage as you cross this stage of your life. We celebrate this victory and believe God for many more.

I hope to see you all on that great graduation day in the future when we meet the Lord eye to eye and hear him say,” Well done, good and faithful servants." I plan on throwing the Brewer’s Cup (or at least my hat!) way up into the air.

Contact:

The Brewer welcomes your input at FFTB@OpenDoorMinistries.org or by phone at 817-297-6911.