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LETTER OF THE MONTH

Written by admin on . Posted in Letter of the Month, prayer. 1 Comment on LETTER OF THE MONTH

Pastor Dudley,
I feel so compelled to pass this along to you because it just amazes me that God is so tuned in to our situations. We own a very small window cleaning company, and recently it seems that everything in our lives has gone wrong. I was injured at my work after working for 10 years, and I was forced to be laid off until a workers compensation case could be decided. At the same time, my husband was injured and needed triple bypass surgery, so our income went from comfortable to nil. We were evicted from our home in front of my children, our car was repossessed, our bank account was closed, and our insurance cancelled. Things were horrible.

My husband always donates his time at Shepherd of the Hills church. He helps with the offering and hands out the communion. Anyway, on Friday, he was on Ventura Blvd. bidding a window and awning job when a group of 12 people approached him and began talking to him. They asked if there was anything that they could pray for with him, and he told them about our troubles. At this point, they informed him that they were from Shepherd of the Hills and he immediately said , “That’s my church, too!” A small woman in the back of the group stepped forward and said, “I know you, I see you in church every Sunday!” Well, these 12 prayed with my husband at approximately 4 o’clock in the afternoon. At 6:30 PM he was parking our car when his cell phone rang. It was an independent contractor offering my husband steady work starting this Monday! I had to share this with you because it’s amazing that at 3 o’clock on Friday, our lives seemingly had no positive outlook—and after that prayer encounter on Ventura Blvd. with your 12 stewards, our lives have once again taken a positive turn. We now see light at the end of what seemed like a long dark road. Thank you for being you and allowing God to use you as our sounding board. God Bless you and your family, Pastor Dudley.

– Anonymous
I wanted to share with you this letter of the month and let you in on a secret…the group of people who approached the writer’s husband and prayed with him was none other than Caleb Kaltenbach and his team at the new Shepherd Woodland Hills church plant!

Romancing Royalty Letter

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Pastor Rutherford,

Last year at this time you gave out your new devotional Romancing Royalty. It has been a blessing to me personally, as I have used it for my own devotional times, but also has blessed me in ways I would never have anticipated. I want to bless your heart with how your book has worked this past year in the hearts of some people I have given it to. I have an opportunity every day to meet many different people in another area outside of the valley, and as a Christian, I try to share my faith when I can – sometimes that means over a long period of time, gradually forming a friendship or sometimes God puts someone in my path who has a definite need he makes me aware of. Here is the story of 7 books and the results:

Von Louise had been in a bad car accident and it shook her up. Her partner of many years then left and she shared all this with me. I purchased a book for her and she began reading it, came to Shepherd to hear you in person, and I led her to the Lord at the end of the service. She now attends another church regularly and is growing. 1yr/April

Stacy was in a depression when I gave her the book and she started reading and learning that God loves her. She found a church and is growing. 1yr/July

Ed seemed hungry for the Word as I shared scripture, so I gave him a book (which he read straight through!) He is growing, but I need to make sure he is a believer.
1 yr/August

John became an alcoholic after surgery as pain relief. He let me give him a book in September and is now not drinking. I have an appointment with him to give him the gospel. 5 yrs/September

Kirby having nothing but time after back surgery began reading the devotional, and is now attending church and open to the gospel. 5 yrs/1 yr/October

Tracy’s husband left her after 12 years. The devotional has comforted her and moved her toward God. 8 months/November

Christine. God told me to give her a book even though I had just met her. After reading it for the first time, she told me she is a recovering alcoholic and it is exactly what she needed. God knew! Weeks/3days

I indicated how long I have known the person first, and then when I gave the book to them. In Kirby’s case, it wasn’t until the surgery a year ago that I was able to start witnessing, so I gave you 3 times there.

Thank you for listening to God and doing what he tells you so that many people can know the love of our Lord. Thank you for giving me a tool that has opened hearts to the gospel. It was exciting to a part of God’s work this year. I am going to continue to use the devotional as part of my outreach as God leads.

Letter of the Month

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January 11, 2007

Dear Dudley,

I had my Life Group meeting yesterday, and one of our guys came in so excited to tell us what happened to his friend earlier in the week. I will try to not make this long but it’s a great story. Hi name is Rich, and he is new to the whole Life Group thing. He absolutely loves it and tells us that all his friends notice a difference in him.

Rich has a friend named Rhonda who goes to another church but he has started giving her CD’s of your sermons. She found out that she had to go and have a biopsy and she was really nervous and scared. Rich gave her some more CDs to listen to. She decided to bring one and play it on her portable CD player while going through the procedure. Rhonda was on the table and the doctors were going to begin the procedure. Rhonda started to put her earplugs in and they asked her, “What are you going to listen to?” She said “A sermon that my friend gave me.” Then the doctor said, “Well give it to me and we will play it out loud,” so she did.

The procedure went fine and after it was done the doctors and nurses wanted to know what church the sermon was from and who was speaking. She told them, “Shepherd of the Hills Church and it’s Dudley Rutherford.” They really enjoyed it and told her they were going to check out the church. This was done at Kaiser Permanente in Panorama City.

I thought it was a very cool story and I hope you enjoy it,
Melody

Praise for HD Video

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January 16, 2007

Dear Pastor Dudley:

This past Sunday was the first time I have ever been to the 11:30 video service. The church was full, the singing was great, and the Spirit of God was in the house. As we started to sit down and get comfortable for the preaching, I told my son I could not believe the church was full of people who knew they were only going to see a video.

The lights dimmed and there was a short video. Then the lights came up and there, on stage, was Pastor Dudley. It took my son several minutes to convince me and my daughter-in-law that you were actually at Westside and we were watching a video. Well, it freaked me out!!! I could see you walking back and forth on the stage. I could see the background depth. I raised my hand when you asked questions, said Amen at the appropriate times and even repeated what you said on several occasions. Everyone was responding to a video! It was fantastic!

One favor. Everytime we sing the slow songs, I start crying. Then, of course, it’s greeting time and I have tears running down my face. Can’t we sing the slow song AFTER the greeting time? Just a thought.

Linda

The Letter of the Month

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Two sisters from the Westside campus have recently emailed me and I wanted to post one of the letters because it was not only an encouragement to me, it spoke of what God is doing over on the Westside. It also speaks that YOU NEVER KNOW what your presence means to those around you. The truth is you influence others just by your attendance and participation.

Here is the Letter of the Month:

“Dear Pastor,

…I know my sister, Hazel, has already shared with you the details of God’s prompting that led us to call Shepherd of the Hills (and now Westside SOTH) as home, but I also wanted to personally express my gratitude for the key role you have played to help make us feel at home at SOTH.

What really drew me to SOTH that Sunday when Hazel and I both felt unexpectedly led to the church was the real sense of family there. I distinctly remember a family sitting in front of us–a husband with his arm around his wife, and she alternately patting the heads or caressing the necks of their children beside them, as they all received your message together that morning. Coming from a family in which my father does not attend church, my brothers no longer attend church, and my mother has not attended the same church with us for almost two years, I was overwhelmed by the love that overflowed in that family as well as their communal reception of God’s word. I was so affected by them that I stopped the couple after the service to let them and their family know how moved I was by their simple yet open expression of love for each other. I felt like they also personified the family community at SOTH. Since then I’ve seen SOTH as a church in which individuals as well as families can grow closer to God and each other.

After several months of attending SOTH and Westside SOTH, I’ve come to see that no one models love more openly at church than you, Pastor Dudley–from your proud commentary of your children, your introduction of your family at Westside SOTH, and the efforts you make to get to know members of the congregation personally (even though we number thousands upon thousands), to finding a balance between the demands of being a pastor to two campuses and being a husband and father to your family…”

Thank you Hazel and Rhona for your VERY KIND words….

I pray that your journey with Christ will always encourage those around you as you have encouraged me this day.

In love,

Pastor Dudley

CallonJesus.com goes GLOBAL

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Someone sent me this note and I thought that you might be blessed by it. Obviously it was a blessing to me. We are actually in the process of updating and creating a new look for our www.callonjesus.com website. It will have many of the same functions but I just wanted to remind you that anyone in the world with internet access can view our sermons on line.

Here is the letter I recieved.

Dear Pastor Dudley,

I wanted to tell you about somthing my wife and I started only by accident. We have some close friends that Live in Stockport, England. We visited them for the first time last year. During our visit we had showed them the church site and www.callonjesus.com….

To make a long story short , by us showing them the site, they are now faithful viewers of our church services @ www.callonjesus.com, and it doesn’t stop there.

Their home has now become somewhat of a gathering place on Sunday afternoon at 4:30 (8:30am PST) and the number of people has grown just through word of mouth sometimes and many at 10 or 12.

I am writing you to let you know how important the Streaming Video of our services has become to Gaynor Mayers, her family Tanya, Tasha and Dakota and friends that consider Shepherd their church family.

Thank you and God bless,

Isn’t that a great note? It thrills me to see how God works and moves all around the world. How about YOU???? Is there anything YOU can do to help lead others to a closer walk with Jesus? Why not start TODAY!