Everybody has a good excuse for not attending church. If you take those excuses and apply them to other things we do (or don’t do), like eating, they might look like this list:
I don’t eat any more because. . .
1. I was forced to eat as a child.
2. People who eat all the time are hypocrites; they aren’t really hungry.
3. There are so many different kinds of food, I can’t decide what to eat.
4. I used to eat, but I got bored and stopped.
5. I only eat on special occasions, like Christmas and Easter.
6. None of my friends will eat with me.
7. I’ll start eating when I get older.
8. I don’t really have time to eat.
9. I don’t believe that eating does anybody any good. It’s just a crutch.
10. Restaurants and grocery stores are only after your money!
1 Peter 2:2 likens each of us to newborn babies that “long for the pure milk of the Word.” The Message Bible paraphrases it this way: “You’ve had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God’s pure kindness. Then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God.”
The point is this: we all have plenty of excuses for not getting involved in ministry. . .and yet, Scripture reminds us that being involved, attending church is how we receive our spiritual nourishment and how we maintain our spiritual health.
Beyond that, it is the way we serve and bless others in response to all that we have received from God. Going to church, being active in ministry is the natural by-product of faith, the sign that we know we are loved and forgiven. In that state of grace, we respond by offering our lives in service to God and one another.
This newsletter is different. The front page speaks the truth about our finances and places before us all a challenge to finish this year in the black without using any reserve funds. This financial solvency will prepare us for the next two years of weaning ourselves from synod and churchwide grants. The planned goal is to become financially independent by January 2013.
And yet, please look beyond the front page to other pages that speak of the ministry that we do in the name of Jesus. Front page numbers are about those things. People will give reluctantly to a budget; but they will open their hearts to further God’s kingdom and to make a difference in the lives of those who need to know Jesus.
Notice the article on the Wine Auction —what a great success! And what a symbol of what happens as we join hands together in a project —a symbol of the “spirit” of the people of this congregation. . .ok, a little ‘tongue & cheek’ there.
Notice the new ministry of “Campfire Church.” Will it work? Who knows for sure. And yet, ministry is all about trying new things and looking for one more way to be effective communicators of Christ’s love.
An article on inviting people to church is included in this edition —the #1 effective means of growing a congregation.
And finally, as always, a list of people —their birthdays, anniversaries, prayer concerns, joys, and needs —reminding us that this ministry is an “incarnate” ministry. It is placed by God in flesh and bone, in you and me, in hopes and dreams, in struggles and heartache, in successes and failures. As we are alive and always changing, so will the ministry that God works through us, reflect that nature.
Attendance, involvement. . . “drinking deeply of God’s pure kindness.” I am grateful for the holy privilege of being your pastor. What a joy to be part of something that is alive and changing, that is becoming more and more of what God has called it to be. . .even though we sometimes cannot see what that is. I remain with you in the joy and the challenges of mission congregation ministry —a rollercoaster for sure. So let us fasten tightly our seat belts and shoulder restraints and hold on for dear life, trusting in God who has not and never will let us down!