Pastor Mike Lwin - New Hope Leeward
August 9, 2009 - W0932

Making Room for Family

Pastor Mike Lwin  from New Hope Leeward is our guest speaker today.  He could have made lots of money but chose to be on staff.   He came on staff at the same time as Pastor Elwin Ahu at New Hope Christian Fellowship Oahu 10 years ago.  He was 28 years old when he started as a pastor.

Today’s message is essentially Part 2 of Pastor Dave Barr’s message from 2 weeks ago. The title of our message is “Making Room for Family.” I don’t know about you but don’t you feel in life there are a lot of things going on? Don’t you feel that you could use extra time?  How many of you need extra time?  How many of us want that?  We are juggling so many things. Can I hear you say, “Oh, yeah?”  Oh, yeah!

In the book of Ecclesiastes, God gives us time to do all things. Read the passage with me…

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven..." (Ecclesiastes 3:1 NIV)

Now most of you don’t know me. You only know me based on what Pastor Elwin told you but here is a little background information about me. Ten years ago, I worked in the corporate sector.  I worked at a company in Kahala. I worked as a director. Life was great as a single person. I was coaching a U12 girls soccer group at Kapiolani Park.  Then there was a bunch of Moms asking me to come to their church.  At that time, I lived in Hawaii Kai and I attended a good church in Hawaii Kai. I told them no thanks but they were persistent. They kept asking me again and again. Why don’t I come to their church New Hope Oahu. Then, I said, “Honestly, the truth, I heard that New Hope is a cult!” The Moms said, “What?” I  replied, “Yeah…that’s what I heard.” They still continued to ask.

So, I said, “This is the deal…if I go once, would you shut up?” They said okay so I went. I came to the New Hope Oahu Farrington campus at 7am. I thought if I go to the 7:00 am service, I could go to my church at 10:00 am. As I drove into the parking lot, I saw the parking lot full; there were no parking stalls!  I thought, “See, this must be a cult.  Where else would you ever find so many people at “church” at 7:00 am? I saw so many colorful tents in every Filipino color. You can imagine! What kind of a circus is going on! Then, I entered the auditorium. On the front stage, there were instruments – like a band – and then soon after, a bunch of people all wearing black slacks and the same colored shirts walked on stage.  See!  Cult!  Soon they were all swaying in time. Do you believe it?

I sat myself toward the edge of the auditorium and joined in with the worship. After the worship, Pastor Wayne came on to the stage. I said to myself, “There he is!  There’s the cult leader!” He was wearing a black slack, a bright Tommy Bahamas shirt, tassled shoes and perfectly combed hair.  Then, the cult leader started talking.

I don’t know what happened but about five minutes into the message I felt like everyone else in the auditorium had disappeared and I was the only one still there.. and he was talking only to me!  Have you felt that way before?  I felt as if he knew what I was thinking and he was talking straight to me. “Wow…” I said to myself. Not only is he a cult leader, he is a mind reader!

As he went through the message, he spoke about how every single one of us could make a difference in this world. And how God asks us to rise up to the plan He has for our lives.  The series was called “Yes You Can!” By the end of service, I accepted Wayne Cordiero into my life! It was so powerful! I realized that this was not a cult because the Holy Spirit was moving in this church.

I went to volunteer in a ministry. Pastor Wayne and I became friends. I learned that he was not a cult leader but the most Godly man on earth. After a while, he invited me to join the church’s senior management team.  For three years I was part of Pastor Wayne’s senior management team then one day he told me it was time to step it up and plant a new church on my own. I went on to start a church on the Leeward side. Within a year, the church had grown to 800 members. We tried to find a new place for our church.  I drove by the old site of the Waipahu Safeway site and I wasn’t sure what God’s plans were but everyday I stopped by the site and laid my hands on the glass and prayed, “God, if this is Your will, make it so.” A few months later, we did moved into to location and our congregation immediately doubled in size!

In the midst of everything that was happening with our growing churc, I met this haole girl from Hawaii Kai. We had a long distance relationship (I lived on the Leeward side and she lived in Hawaii Kai). We dated for a while and didn’t know if she was the right one.  I kept praying about it and when Pastor Wayne asked me about her, I told him that I was waiting on God to let me know if she was the one and Pastor Wayne told me that he thought God was waiting on me!  Eventually I got up the courage to pop the question and here is the video of our engagement (video shown).

We got married six months after our engagement.  Pastor Wayne married us in front of a small crowd of 2,000 at our church. And as God would have it, we were married at 12:00 and by 5:00 pm we were pregnant! Through her pregnancy something happen to her that she needed to be at home rest. The doctor ordered her to stay at home. My wife had to quit her job. She made most of the money in our family since I was receiving a pastor’s salary so in that short time, not only had I started a new church, got engaged, got married, and started a family, but I had lost my “sugar mama.”

Then one day, I got a phone call from her, “Honey, guess where I am?” I thought maybe she was shopping but she said no, she was at Queens. She had gone to the doctor for her check-up but there were some bad signs so the doctor told her she was going to have the baby that day. It was earlier than we had expected and we hadn’t packed for the hospital or anything so she asked me to pack a hospital bag.  We’ll I didn’t know how to pack for the hospital so I just packed for the beach!

I sped to the hospital. I broke all kinds of traffic laws rushing to the hospital and all I could think was that if I was stopped by a police, please let him be from New Hope. Anyway, you can imagine my surprise when I rushed into the hospital room and she and her mom were there casually watching tv.  She said the wouldn’t be there for another 5 hours.  In reality, the baby didn’t arrive for another 9 hours.

When we brought our little baby home, I told my wife that we should wait for a while and enjoy our lives and the new baby before our next pregnancy. The doctors said not to worry because breastfeeding mothers don’t get pregnant.  They lie!  Five months later she was pregnant with our second child. On top of that, her second pregnancy turned out to be worse than the first.  She was put on bed-rest almost immediately – 9 months flat on her back.  While she was going through this pregancy, I was trying to take care of our new baby girl, we had also recently decided to build a Christian school at our church and were in the process of hiring a staff and…circumstances would have it that we adopted a teenage boy. From a family of two, we became five...with a growing church and establishment of a school. So believe me when I say that know how difficult it is juggle things sometimes but I also know how important it is to make room for your family because they are your number one priority (after God of course) so let’s talk about that.

Here are a few of the statistics today that challenge our families:

· In 2008, nearly 50% of all marriages in the US end up in divorce. - www.statistics.gov

· 1 in 4 teens, reported “doing something sexually they knew that they shouldn’t do.”- Kaiser Family Foundation 2007

· 52.5% of US high school students reported having sexual intercourse.-Center of Disease Control, 2007 Study

· 70% of teens report their information about sex came first from their friends and then from mass media. –NBC News

· Among the ages of 15 to 24, there are 370 suicide attempts per day in the U.S., totaling 132,000 per year.

I don’t want my kids to get their information about the beauty of sexual relationship outside of God’s will. And also I don’t want my marriage to be includes in these statistics. How many of you believe that God can change our families if we just do our part? Say oh yeah!

Then, in the first point is…

1. Make your unique role your TOP PRIORITY!

Let us see what the apostle Paul says about this, "Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." (Ephesians 5:15-17 NAS)

We all have so many roles in our lives. We need to make wise decisions when it comes to our time in our roles. We need to determine what they are, understand what the will of the Lord is for our families, make wise use of time with our families, and make our families our priority. Your spouse and children are your priorities. Like me, I need to make time for my role as a husband and a father. Then…

Determine your UNIQUE LIFE ROLES and prioritize them at the top!

Write down your unique roles. Invest your time in your unique roles. Our kids shouldn’t be influenced from others, they should be influenced by us. Spending time with your spouse and kids are important.  You need to remember that quality time will never replace quantity time.  We need to invest time in those things that are important and by us being there, we can influence and guide our children and confirm for our spouses that they are important.  The next thing we need to know about prioritizing is…

2. Do less to DO MORE!

In order to make your family a priority, do less to do more. Everyone has a to-do list. Be sure that your family is at the top of  your to-do list. Most of us have a to-do list but how many of you have a “to not-do list”? Be sure to prioritize taking care of your family on your to-do list but also....

Determine what should be on your "TO NOT-DO" list!

I have to determine what I place on my “to not-do” list and the best thing I have found is to work with my gifts.  Determine what your gifts are and use them to the best of your ability for God’s purposes. For example, my gifts include leadership and communication – and they do not include counseling so I spend my time gathering and leading other people in the church and delegating the things that I don’t do so well to others who are gifted in those areas so that we are all using our gifts for God’s purposes and therefore we collectively do the most possible with the talents God gifted us.

Even at that, we sometimes struggle with all that there is to do.  As mentioned, we need to prioritize our families and use our gifts to determine how we can best serve God (and others) but sometimes we just need to determine how much time we can spend on somethings and lessen the stuff on our list so we have more energy for our families.  Let’s hear what the apostle Paul says,

"Everything is permissible (allowable and lawful) for me; but not all things are helpful (good for me to do, expedient and profitable when considered with other things)." (1 Corinthians 6:12a AMP)

3. Invest some of your BEST ENERGIES in your family!

Our families suffer when we don’t have those energies to give them.

Your family needs you FULLY ENGAGED - not exhausted!

In conclusion, write this words be, explain, and discover. I spend time with my family by spending quality time with my family. As Christians we need to explain to our children the questions of why we do the things we do as Christians and so forth. Jesus spend time with people. Disciple our children on how to follow Christ. They need to discover on their own on how to follow Christ. We need to start early.

"I brought glory to You here on earth by completing the work You gave Me to do." (John 17:4 NLT

DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS:

1. What does the Book of Eccesliastes say about God giving us enough time?

2.  What is your unique role? Describe your role.

3.  How do you make this role a priority?

4.  What activities do you do with your family to invest some best energies?