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Weekly Update from the Senior Pastor
June 21 , 2007
Dear Family and Friends,
Thank you, men of Damascus Road (with a few other friends), for the Men’s Choir. Those 90 men on stage last Sunday, singing and asking God for His Spirit to rise in our midst, was a needle to the north moment honoring Jesus as Savior and Lord. The evening before, at Centennial United Methodist Church, as our men sang to a packed sanctuary there were about 30 folks who gathered outside listening on the street. Then you brought that spirit home Sunday. Way to go, men of God!
Take another ‘needle to the north’ break now and read Saint Patrick’s beautiful poem: Be Thou My Vision. It has been our theme song for the Building Homes of Light series:
Be Thou my vision, oh Lord of my heart;
Not be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy Presence my Light.
Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my true word,
I ever with Thee, and Thou with me, Lord.
Thou my great Father and I Thy true son,
Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou my inheritance now and always.
Thou and Thou only first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.
High King of heaven, my victory won.
May I reach heaven’s joys, Oh brightest Son.
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall—
Still be my vision, oh Ruler of all.
This Sunday concludes our series on what it means to turn your heart into Christ’s home. We’ll explore the dark closet in your heart—the cluttered place where you hide things behind a shut (and often locked) door:
- the wounds from what people have done to you
- the things you’ve done you wished you hadn’t
- the ongoing struggles with hidden sins.
Our goal is to look at how Jesus cleans out that closet and transforms it into a place of light and healing.
This Saturday, June 23, 40 members of Damascus Road head for Honduras to be the hands and feet of Jesus, under the leadership of Phil Catron, Woody Pangborn, Brett Barry and Roger Record. As they serve as missionaries there, let’s pray for them and pray that we can continue to be missionaries here, all of us equally living as the hands and feet of Jesus. Honduras is a great boot camp for that larger mission field which is right here at home.
- We have submitted our plans for our Light on a Hill to the county. Pray.
- Giving on our pledges has gone past $800,000.
Stay faithful in pursuing your part in following God’s heart to our future.
- Our 4th of July Freedom Series continues on Sunday, July 1, when we’ll look at how the Bible shapes America’s understanding of freedom.
- Today, remember, if you are really following Jesus…you are fishing: “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.”
Let’s all take plenty of time this summer to go fishing.
in the Lamb,
Richard
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