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Weekly Update from Damascus Road Community Church
October 8, 2007
Dear Church,
Every Wednesday night at 6:45 during the month of October the elders are calling you to join us for prayer on the land God has given us. We agree that God has called our congregation to a season of prayer and fasting concerning some challenges we are now facing in the building process – challenges that give us the opportunity to see God move in our midst like never before.
If, for some reason you did not receive or understand parts of the initial letter from our senior pastor about this, here are some details. We have been presented with two challenges: 1) based on the current estimate for the building we believe will facilitate our needs as a congregation – beyond our fundraising and annual giving – we are short by just over two million dollars, and 2) the reality that our congregation is not growing faster than the attrition rate of this region (approximately 20% annually).
As the leadership has been fasting and praying about God’s heart in these matters, we are seeing more and more that, from His perspective, there is really only one challenge: Loving God so much that who He is and what He desires shines through our lives in such a way that will cause those who don’t know Him to look away long enough from the things that have their attention to ask why.
God has called Damascus Road to be a light on a hill that will draw people to Him. But, it is not a building that will host His light, it is each individual heart that must do it. The building is secondary to what God wants to do in each of our hearts during this stretch. To the Church in Corinth, Paul wrote, “For God...made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” And Jesus said, “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing...This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples.” Each time we bow our hearts fully to God, His light (character) increases in us, the Light that draws others to Him. So, concerning our growth rate, if we as a body are not growing, it’s because we’re not glowing – not to the fullness of God’s desire for us.
CONSECRATION: God is calling us out, leadership and body. The only response that makes any sense is to bow before the only One who is faithful and agree together that God is able. The only question that remains to be answered is, are you willing? Are you willing to let God reveal things in your heart that are holding your affections more than He does? Agree with us by praying, fasting, and seeking God together on His land. What do we love more than Him? Let’s earnestly seek and listen so that God might teach us what it means to love Him in such a way that others will want to know Him.
Dear Church, these are exciting times – God is alive, and He is pressing in on us! How beautiful that He cares so much to do that for us. We will be refined. We will be aligned. We will be enflamed with His goodness and light. We will glow, and others will be drawn to Him! Come and join us this and every Wednesday in October as we draw near to the cross. See you there!
Because of who God is, we are certain that the best is yet to come!
The Elders of Damascus Road Community Church.
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