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Weekly Update from the Senior Pastor
October 6 , 2006
Dear Family and Friends,
After thirty years of pastoral pre-marriage, marriage or couple-crisis counseling and scores of weddings, I’ve come to this conclusion:
Marriage does not change,
but only intensifies who we are as single people .
If we are miserable, lonely and insecure as singles, we will be even more miserable, etc. in marriage. If we think, as so many do, that marriage will solve issues only God can solve and we come to marriage like two empty cups demanding to be filled, that is a prescription for disaster. But if two single people are fulfilled in their walk with God, enjoying healthy relationships with friends, active in a church community and a secure in their identity in what Christ is doing in and through them, then marriage will definitely intensify and multiply their joy and impact. You have the union of two cups of love spilling over into each other, which is the fulfillment of Psalm 37:4.
I’ve come to the same conclusion about building a new church facility.
If a congregation is listless, divided, filled with petty turf wars and gossip; and they think building a new building will solve their lethargy…oh boy. That is a fast track to an ugly ending. If, on the other hand, a church has growing passion for evangelism, missions and ministry involvement, if miracles are happening, friendships are deepening and lives are being transformed; if the lost are being saved and the saved are learning to serve; and if genuine, honest and vulnerable community is growing, and that congregation builds a ‘Light on a Hill’, watch out! When we have our own facility, built according to our unique congregational characteristics and mission, in a highly visible and accessible place AND we keep on being faithful and excited about pursuing God’s will for us, then that new facility will definitely intensify and multiply all we are doing.
So, Damascus Road , here we go on our journey of following God’s heart to our future.
This Sunday we continue our series by that name. Last week I offered an initial big picture perspective through the story of Caleb, a guy who didn’t ever allow the bottom line to be the size of the challenges, but always the size of his God. While ten spies who focused on the size of the obstacles ended up feeling like grasshoppers in front of the enemy (and all ten died in the wilderness), Caleb ended up at 85 asking permission to take on the remaining giants in the promise land. Which kind of life do we want?
We have a goal to reach financially by December 3: $3.4 million in cash, pledges and/or stocks so we can begin building. That’s big for us. Not much of a stretch for the Creator, but big for us. Right now we are very much like the boy standing before Jesus with a couple of loaves and two fish in his hands facing the same reality: what mattered then and now is not what we see we have, but whether we are going to unite in sacrificially offering what we can to Jesus. Just like that faith-filled little boy did with his one and only lunch. From there the math is God’s.
And rest assured, that dollar amount is not the focus or even the point of this series. The whole premise is different and bigger. It is based on the conviction that if we learn, in deeper ways to follow God’s heart, then we are starting a new ride with a God who “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or even imagine, according to HIS power at work in the Church…in EVERY generation.” Ephesians 3:20-21. That is a message the whole world needs.
I am definitely excited about our future and I can’t wait to see you this Sunday. Thanks for ALL you are doing.
Give us the giants!
Richard
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