Weekly Update from the Senior Pastor
September 8 , 2006
Dear Family and Friends,
God’s test. Our trust. Since mid-summer the Lord has been working this truth into my soul that is so simple, yet profound. It is pushing me to a deeper place with Him. I’ve wrestled with it in recent messages. Saying it is simple, grasping it is hard. Here it is:
From God’s perspective, our entire life is a test. All of it, and He is the Master Instructor imparting one core lesson. This lesson is the very thing that we, at our core, struggle with and against the most: trust—a trust that goes so deep we would trust Him in the face of anything and obey Him no matter how hard or crazy it seems.
Some teachers test students on essentially worthless stuff, but humanity’s best teachers sift through masses of data to offer perspective and impart wisdom. God is the perfect Teacher and the reason He keeps circling His core lesson is not for His sake, but for ours. By His design, our capacity to trust and obey determines our level of purpose, effectiveness, fulfillment and it is the basis for enjoying eternity. Obedient trust, rather than anxiety, fear, frustration and our frantic efforts to secure our own happiness and comfort, is the doorway to freedom.
Every memorable story in Scripture has one basic scenario and one basic point. The scenario is a situation that from a human perspective is unbelievably terrifying, difficult or impossible to solve in human strength (the test) as God watches, waiting for the light to go on and for our soul to turn our focus from the size of the problem to the size of our God, for the smile of faith. It’s why Jesus kept asking: “Do you believe?” Lord, we do believe—help our unbelief.
QUICK UPDATES : Sixteen days and counting.
Sunday, September 24 th, one service: 10:30 , in the Damascus High Auditorium. For all of you who remember Marty McFly’s question: “Doc, where are we going?” Doc Brown’s response is ours as well: “Back to the Future!” Not back to our past as a fledgling congregation fresh out of a legalistic denomination with a lot of deprogramming to do, and a lot of basic lessons to learn. By God’s grace, though we are not yet who we want to be—we are sure not who we used to be and we wouldn’t want to go back!
We’re on our way to our future: building Homes of Light all across this region—then around our world. The journey itself is a maturing process into fully devoted followers of Jesus, giving our one and only life to ministry, to missions, to the joys of living in community and to helping those alienated from God get saved, then helping the saved to serve. FACT: over 70% of the people in a twenty mile radius around our new land do not have a church community: they are living apart from Jesus Christ or they are bored, burned or by-passed believers who need to find a box bigger than self. That should matter to us greatly.
In that vein, I have a short list of frequently asked questions. Let me answer the most common one now.
Q. How long will we be in the High School?
A. Approximately 28-36 months. Is this a holding time? No way. In that longer scenario we have 156 Sundays in that auditorium to encounter the living God, help the lost get saved and help the saved to serve. So let’s make each Sunday and our daily walk count!
This Sunday, September 10 is Life Groups Sunday. The official fall semester for life groups starts October 1 and ends December 10. Don’t miss this Sunday as we study how God desires us to be “shaped by community.” Rajendra will focus on living out Hebrews 10:24-25 and our Life Groups Connection Team will be available after each service to help you find a group (if you don’t have one).
Love,
Richard
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