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July 12, 2026 • 5 Minute Read
July 12, 2026 | Glory Withheld
On Sunday morning, we finished Acts 12 together, standing in the theater at Caesarea where a king put on a silver robe, took his throne, and let a crowd call him a god. Acts 12:20-25 turns on one verdict, struck down in a single sentence: the angel of the Lord felled Herod "because he did not give God the glory." He never claimed to be a god. He simply stood there in the borrowed shine and soaked it in. And reality answered. The chapter that opened with a king triumphing closes with the king dead, Peter free, and the word of God increasing and multiplying. Now that you have heard the sermon, the week ahead is a chance to sit with the question that burned over that throne and burns over every one of us: who gets the glory? Every one of us lives in front of some audience whose shout we crave, and every one of us knows the quiet trade of keeping a little of the credit that belongs to God. The readings below do not re-walk Sunday's passage. They walk around it, one thread each day, so that by Friday you have somewhere firm to stand. Take five minutes a day, or sit with the whole week at once. There is no wrong way to use them. Before you begin, would you do one thing for me? Name your own theater. Pick the audience whose praise has quietly become your daily bread, the room or the screen or the person whose approval you replay at night. Carry that one honest admission through the week, and each day hand the glory back where it belongs. We are not freed from chasing the shout because we try harder. We are freed when we take refuge in the King who was struck in our place. In Christ, Pastor Anton Five-Day Devotional Monday: The bread that costs you no shout Read: John 6:1-14 The kings of this world hold the bread to harvest worship, and Herod was no different: the cities flattered him because their food came through his hand. Then watch another King with bread in His hands, five loaves for five thousand hungry people. He did not make them grovel for it. He gave thanks, and He gave it away. The next day He refused their crown and offered them Himself instead: "I am the bread of life." Christ feeds you without needing a purchased shout, because He has no hunger your praise could fill. Lord Jesus, feed me Yourself this week, and free me from performing for the bread You give so freely. Tuesday: The glory He will not share Read: Isaiah 42:5-9 God says it plainly: "I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other." On Sunday we learned that glory is not a compliment God enjoys. Glory is the truth about who He is, the God who has all life and blessedness in and of Himself and draws none of it from us. So a creature who soaks up that glory is publishing a lie about reality itself, and on the appointed day reality answered Herod. Let the verdict search you: where have you been soaking in a shine that belongs to God alone? Father, expose the glory I have quietly kept for myself, and teach me to hand it back to You. Wednesday: The patience that means to lead you home Read: Romans 2:1-11 If God strikes glory-thieves, why is the world still full of proud men shining on their stages? Because Herod's sudden fall is the exception God wrote down so that no one would misread the ordinary delay. The everyday sight of the proud going unpunished is not God looking away; it is His kindness, and Paul tells us what that kindness is for: it "is meant to lead you to repentance." Judgment delayed is not judgment canceled. So do not envy the shining. Pity it, and pray for it. Father, turn my envy of the proud into prayer for them, and lead me by Your kindness deeper into repentance. Thursday: The King who emptied Himself Read: Philippians 2:5-11 Run the contrast to its end, because the gospel hangs on it. Herod was a man who let a crowd call him a god, and he was struck down. Jesus Christ is God who became a man, who "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself." He refused every stolen shout, even the devil's offer of all the kingdoms of the world. And then, at another Passover, the strike that glory-thieves deserve fell on Him, not for His own glory-theft, for He had none, but for yours and for mine. Lord Jesus, thank You that the strike I earned fell on You, and that God has exalted You above every name. Friday: The word that outlives every king Read: Isaiah 55:6-11 Luke set the quietest, mightiest "but" in Acts directly against a corpse: the king stopped, but the word of God increased and multiplied. Isaiah saw it long before, the word that goes out from God's mouth and "shall not return to me empty." Kill an apostle, the word grows; bury a tyrant, the word grows, because the King who speaks it is alive and still speaking. So measure your hope by the Word, not by the weather, and refuse to be the crowd in the theater. Carry that into next Sunday's gathering, and send the glory past every man to the throne. Father, let Your Word grow in me this week, no matter what the news says, and keep my hope fixed on the King who still speaks. God shares many things. Glory is not one of them. Give it to Him this week, and live.
July 12, 2026 • 7 Minute Read
Family Devotional
July 12, 2026: Glory Withheld (Acts 12:20-25) Dear parents, This morning, the whole church finished Acts 12, where a proud king dressed in shining silver let a crowd call him a god, and God would not let the lie stand. This week, the home gets to sit on the same Word that the pulpit preached. The devotional below is built so you can lead it cold, with no training and no prep. Do the whole page in one sitting of about ten minutes, or take one short step a night, Monday through Friday. There is no wrong way to use it. Here is why this matters around your table this week. Your children are learning, one ordinary day at a time, who their applause belongs to, whether the goal of life is to be praised or to praise the One who made them. You do not have to teach them to chase a shout; that comes for free. You get to teach them something better: that the only One who can keep both us and His glory is Jesus, the King who refused every stolen cheer and was struck down in our place so He could lift us up. One faith talk this week is a win. In Christ, Pastor Anton This week's Big Idea: God will not give His glory to anyone else, and that is good news. He shares all kinds of things with us, His bread, His mercy, even His own Son, but the glory of being God belongs to Him alone. A proud king tried to keep some of that glory for himself, and it ended badly. Jesus, the true King, did the opposite: He gave God the glory and gave Himself for us. So we get to give God the glory too, and it is the safest, happiest thing we can ever do. Memory verse for the week: "An angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory." (Acts 12:23) Say it together at the start of each time you gather. By Friday, see who can say it without looking. 1. READ (start here every time) This week's passage: Acts 12:20-25 (ESV). Read it out loud together. With young children, read it once slowly. With older children and teens, read it and then ask what stood out. If you are taking one step a night, read a short slice each evening: Monday, Acts 12:20, hungry cities come asking the king for food; Tuesday, Acts 12:21-22, the king shines in his robe and the crowd shouts that he is a god; Wednesday, Acts 12:23, God strikes the king because he kept the glory that was God's; Thursday, Acts 12:24, "but" the word of God keeps growing; Friday, Acts 12:25, God is already getting helpers ready for the next chapter of His work. 2. THINK (a thought a parent can read out loud, cold) A king named Herod put on a robe that sparkled like silver in the morning sun, sat on his throne, and gave a speech. The crowd shouted, "That is the voice of a god, not a man!" Herod did not say, "Stop, I am only a man." He just sat there and soaked it in, and kept the praise that belonged to God. So God struck him down, and the proud king died. But the very same God who would not share His glory loves to share other things. He gives us bread when we are hungry, mercy when we sin, and best of all He gave us His own Son. Jesus is the true King, and instead of grabbing glory, He let Himself be struck down on the cross so that sinners like us could be forgiven and lifted up. God lifted Jesus higher than every name. So we do not have to fight to be praised. We get to give the glory to God, who is so much bigger and better than we are. 3. TALK (pick the questions that fit your table; you do not need to ask them all) For young children: The king let people call him a god instead of telling them about the real God. Who should we say is great, the king or God? What is one thing God made that shows He is great? For school-age children: Herod kept the praise that belonged to God, and it ended badly. What is the difference between Herod, who grabbed the glory, and Jesus, who gave the glory to God? For teens: We all live in front of some audience whose praise we want, the team, the group chat, the people whose opinion we replay at night. Be honest: whose shout do you chase most? And have you ever stopped chasing it long enough to give your whole life to the King who was struck down in your place? For the whole table: When something good happens to our family this week, how can we say out loud, on the spot, "Thank You, God, that came from You"? 4. DO (one small thing to carry the truth into the week) Do this: Start a "Glory to God" habit at dinner this week. Each night, go around the table and have everyone name one good thing from their day, then say together, "Thank You, God, the glory is Yours." Watch for the temptation to grab credit for ourselves, and practice handing it straight back to God out loud. Another way to do this: Make a "Glory Jar." Keep a jar and some slips of paper on the table. Whenever someone notices a good gift, a sunny day, a kind friend, food to eat, write it on a slip and drop it in the jar. At the end of the week, pour the jar out, read the slips together, and thank God that every one of them came from Him. Add one slip or fill the jar; do what you can this week. The jar is your reminder that the glory goes back to God. 5. PRAY (a parent leads; pray it as written or in your own words) Father, You are God, and Your glory belongs to You alone. Thank You that You still share so much with us, Your bread, Your mercy, and most of all Your Son. Forgive us for the times we chase praise and try to keep glory that is Yours. Thank You for Jesus, the true King, who refused the crowd's cheer and was struck down on the cross so we could be forgiven. Teach our family to give You the glory in everything. And we ask You to give each of our children a new heart that truly trusts Christ, so that one day they gladly give You the glory forever. In Jesus' name, amen. 6. SING (close by singing one together) This week's song: "How Great Thou Art" (the whole song hands the glory back to God, singing of His greatness in creation and in the cross, exactly the response Herod refused and Jesus gave). Sing one verse, or the whole thing. If your family does not know it, read the first verse out loud together instead. One faith talk this week is a win. If your family can do this most nights, even better. Keep it short, keep it warm, keep coming back to it.
July 11, 2026 • 7 Minute Read
Leadership Briefing | July 11, 2026
PASTOR'S NOTE Dear fellow servants, Our Servants Council gathered this past Saturday, and we opened and closed our work in prayer. That is not a formality. We wanted to seek the Lord before we planned, and to give the morning back to Him when we were done. I want you to know that our summer is showing a healthier, more organized rhythm across the church. Our ministries and leaders are taking clearer shape, the operations plan is settling many things that used to pull at us, and the church office has more room to breathe than it has had in a long while. None of that is a reason to boast. It is a reason to give thanks, and to keep our hands to the work God has put in front of us. There is a good deal to share in this issue, most of it pointing toward our July 26 Quarterly Congregational Meeting. Please read it through, and please pray for that gathering. Warmly in Christ, Pastor Anton MINISTRY UPDATES Quarterly Congregational Meeting, Sunday, July 26, with a luncheon. This is the largest thing on our near horizon, and I want our leaders to help set the tone for it. We are framing this quarter's meeting around worship and prayer, and we will conduct our business in an orderly, Christ-honoring way. The Call to the Meeting and the accompanying materials go out tomorrow, our two-week notice. Please look for them and read them before you come. Governing documents coming to a vote. As part of this meeting, the congregation will consider a set of revision proposals to our constitution and bylaws. At a high level, the aim is to tidy and clarify our governing documents so that the bylaws state our "ends," the goals we are committed to, while our policies carry the "means," the specific ways we pursue them. There are also some housekeeping and conforming corrections. The congregation will also be invited to consider adopting a fuller statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. The full revision proposals will be printed and available with the July 12 materials, so please read them for yourself rather than relying on the summary. Two new deacons and a new member. With thanks to God, the congregation will vote on July 26 to bring on two new deacons, Brad Little and Chris Little. We also warmly welcome Neil Shea, who is coming on as a member. Please keep them and their service in your prayers. Ministry Team Charters are now live. The Servants Council approved our new Ministry Team Charters, and they now live in the Mayflower Wiki under the operations plan (operations plan → organization chart → team charters). Each charter says why a team exists, what its leader is responsible for, where its work begins and ends, and who provides oversight. If you lead a team, please point your people to the charter that covers them. Please ensure new members receive a paper copy along with the link when they join your team. We will walk through the charters together at the Leadership Summit. Family ministry resources are rolling out. We now have children's worship packs, age-appropriate sermon activity sheets, nursery stories tied to the Sunday text, and weekly family devotionals that began on Father's Day, along with a new family-ministry station taking shape in the foyer. These are meant to help our families worship together, and they are an especially warm welcome for visiting families and for families who keep their children with them in the service. One practical request: please help us remind families to return the worship packs after worship so they are ready for the next Sunday. Strengthened child-safety framework. The Council adopted an updated Child Safety Policy along with a new policy governing how we protect the children in our care. A required, hands-on training component for our childcare workers is coming, and clear communication for parents will follow. We take this seriously as an act of love and stewardship toward the families who trust us with their children. Sanctuary guidepost banners in the works. We are designing a set of "guidepost" banners for the sanctuary, drawing on Jeremiah 31:21, "Set up road marks for yourself, make yourself guideposts," to keep our shared values before us as we worship. One way visitors will understand what Mayflower is about is through these banners that display our core values, vision, and mission. DATES AT A GLANCE Sunday, July 26 — Quarterly Congregational Meeting and luncheon Friday and Saturday, August 7 and 8 — Leadership Summit (registration is on this page) Sunday, August 30 — Back to Church / I Love My Church / Southern Rail Sunday, October 25 — next Quarterly Congregational Meeting (Reformation Sunday) For the current operations calendar, see the link below. ON THE SHELF In this issue, I want to put a small, practical book in your hands: What to Do on Thursday: A Layman's Guide to the Practical Use of the Scriptures by Jay E. Adams. The whole burden of the book is the gap between the Bible we hear on Sunday and the decisions we actually face the rest of the week, and Adams patiently teaches ordinary Christians how to move from knowing Scripture to genuinely using it to guide real, everyday choices. That is exactly the work our leaders and servants are doing all the time, making practical decisions on the church's behalf, and I have found this little book a steady help in learning to bring the Word to bear on Thursday and not only on Sunday. I commend it warmly to you as a fellow servant. BEFORE THE NEXT BRIEF A few things to carry into the next two weeks: Watch for the congregational meeting materials in the foyer. The Call to the Meeting and the revision proposals go out tomorrow. Please read them before July 26. Register for the Leadership Summit (August 7 and 8) using the registration block on this page, if you have not already. Point your team to its charter in the Mayflower Wiki, and let me know if you have questions about scope or oversight. Help families return the worship packs after Sunday worship so they are ready for the next week. Mark Your Calendar: The Leadership Summit, August 7 and 8 I have one invitation to close with, and I want you to put it on your calendar ASAP. On Friday and Saturday, August 7 and 8, 2026, we are gathering for a Leadership Summit. This is where we will walk through the operations plan together, sharpen our shared vision, set goals, look at team budgets, and equip one another for the year ahead. I want us to plan shoulder to shoulder and leave more unified than we came. Here is the schedule, so mark both blocks now. We will meet Friday evening, August 7, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and again Saturday, August 8, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided on Saturday, so come hungry and plan to stay. We will meet at the Briggs. For now, the most important thing you can do is hold both sessions and plan to be there.Register for Friday HereRegister for Saturday Here Thank you for the way you serve. It is a joy and an honor to labor alongside you, and I believe the Lord has good work for us in the year ahead. Let us do it decently and in order, for His glory and the good of His people.
June 27, 2026 • 8 Minute Read
Leadership Briefing | June 27, 2026
Welcome to Leadership Central and our first Leadership Briefing: Where We Serve Well Together Friends, if you lead anything at Mayflower, this place is for you. Pull up a chair. I want to show you what we have built, and why I believe it is going to make your service lighter, clearer, and more joyful in the year ahead. Welcome For years our leaders have carried a lot in their heads. How we run an event. Who you ask for access to a tool. What we say yes to and what we say no to. Most of that lived in the memory of whoever had done it last, and when that person stepped away, the knowledge often walked out the door with them. That is a hard way to serve. Leadership Central changes that. This is our hub for the people who lead at Mayflower: elders, deacons, ministry leads, and the key volunteers who keep the body moving. Here you will find the resources, the clarity, and the shared rhythms you need to serve well together. Not a manual you read once and forget, but a living place we keep returning to. My hope is simple. When the "how we work together" is written down and shared, you are freed to give your best attention to the people in front of you and to the Gospel we carry. That is the heartbeat of everything we do. We are building a discipleship community rooted in the knowledge of Christ, driven by faith, empowered to share the Gospel, and committed to welcoming and equipping others in love and truth. Leadership Central exists to serve that mission, not to replace it. What the Operations Plan Is The centerpiece of all this is our new operations plan, which the Servants Council adopted on May 30, 2026. We call it the Streamline Admin System. Think of it as Mayflower's operational playbook: sixteen numbered systems that spell out how we work together as a church. Twelve of them are drawn from Michael Lukaszewski's book "Streamline: How To Create Healthy Church Systems," and we have extended his framework with four further systems written for our own setting. It all lives on our church wiki, ready for you to use. Now, I know what a phrase like "admin system" can stir up. It can sound like bureaucracy, like more forms and more meetings. Let me be plain. This is not bureaucracy. This is a gift. When the way we work together is written down and shared, no leader has to reinvent the wheel, no volunteer is left guessing, and no ministry collapses the moment one person steps back. The plan carries the weight of "how" so that you can carry the weight of "who." It frees you to focus on people and on the Gospel, which is exactly where your heart wants to be. The Biblical Case for Shared Plans I want to take a moment here, because I do not want anyone to mistake this for worldly pragmatism. Some Christians get nervous when a church talks about systems and plans, as if order were the enemy of the Spirit. It is not. The Scriptures show us, again and again, that God's people work from agreed-upon, prearranged ways of serving together. Order is not the enemy of love. Order is how love makes sure no one gets overlooked. Look at the early church. In Acts 6, the congregation was growing fast, and a problem surfaced: "their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution" (Acts 6:1, ESV). The apostles did not improvise. They created a defined role, set a clear standard for it, and appointed seven trusted men to that task, so that they themselves could hold to their own calling. "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables," they said, and so they devoted themselves "to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:2, 4, ESV). A shared plan kept the widows fed and kept the word preached. When a hard question divided the churches in Acts 15, the leaders did not settle it by whoever spoke loudest. They gathered, they deliberated, and they reached a decision they could put in writing and circulate to the churches. "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28, ESV), they wrote. And when Paul instructed the Corinthians about their gatherings, he summed up the whole concern in one line: "But all things should be done decently and in order" (1 Corinthians 14:40, ESV). And here is what settles it for me. Our Lord Jesus worked this way too. He was never frantic, never scrambling. He appointed twelve and "began to send them out two by two" with specific instructions (Mark 6:7, ESV). He sent seventy-two others on ahead of Him, "two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go" (Luke 10:1, ESV). He made advance arrangements for the upper room and for the colt at the triumphal entry, sending disciples ahead with exact directions. The Son of God moved through His ministry deliberately, entrusting defined responsibilities to His people. If our Savior worked from prearranged plans, we can stop apologizing for doing the same. Plans and shared systems are not a retreat from faith. They are how a body orders itself so the work goes forward in peace and no one is overlooked. How It Helps You This Week This is where it gets practical. Let me put you inside some real situations our leaders face, and show you exactly where the operations plan helps. If you are new to all of this, start at the overview page for the Streamline Admin System and get the lay of the land. A new ministry idea just landed on your plate. How do you decide whether to say yes? Not every good idea is the right idea for us to carry right now. We have ministries we guard with our best energy, and saying yes to everything is how a leader burns out and a church loses focus. Before you commit, look at our Priority Ministries, which names what we protect and what we lovingly say no to. If you want a step-by-step way to weigh the call, our Decision-Making Framework will walk you through it. You just finished an event and want to know whether it was worth doing again. Good instinct. We do not want to keep running things out of habit, and we do not want to quietly drop something that bore real fruit. Our Event Evaluation gives you a simple process and a template to capture what worked, what did not, and whether to do it again. Twenty minutes with that template will save the next leader hours. A new volunteer asks who they report to and how to get the tools they need. This question should never leave anyone stuck. Send them to our Organization Chart and Access page, which lays out who oversees what and how to get set up with the tools for the work. You are stepping into a role and you are not fully sure what is expected of you. That uncertainty is heavy, and it is unfair to leave anyone carrying it alone. We have written standard position descriptions so that every role comes with clear expectations. Spend a few minutes in Role Clarity and Standardization and you will know what you are responsible for, what you are not, and what a good fit in the role looks like. You will be away for a season, or you need to hand a ministry off well. Life happens, whether it is a new baby, a season of caregiving, or simply the right time to pass the baton. None of that should leave a ministry exposed. Our Leadership Transitions page gives you the plans for short-term absence, coverage, and clean handoffs, so the work continues in peace and the next person is set up to thrive. Mark Your Calendar: The Leadership Summit, August 7 and 8 I have one invitation to close with, and I want you to put it on your calendar now. On Friday and Saturday, August 7 and 8, 2026, we are gathering for a Leadership Summit. This is where we will walk through the operations plan together, sharpen our shared vision, and equip one another for the year ahead. I do not want you to meet the Streamline Admin System alone on a screen. I want us to learn it shoulder to shoulder and leave more unified than we came. Here is the schedule, so mark both blocks now. We will meet Friday evening, August 7, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and again Saturday, August 8, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided on Saturday, so come hungry and plan to stay. We will meet at the Briggs. For now, the most important thing you can do is hold both sessions and plan to be there. Oh, and REGISTER HERE FOR FRIDAY and HERE FOR SATURDAY! Thank you for the way you serve. It is a joy and an honor to labor alongside you, and I believe the Lord has good work for us in the year ahead. Let us do it decently and in order, for His glory and the good of His people. The Leadership Briefing will be sent every other week.
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