Looking to the Year Ahead
February 23, 2010
Last night we conducted our annual business meeting, where the congregation overwhelmingly affirmed Peter Kinkel and reaffirmed Don Vander Giessen as elders. I took some time to reflect on the year behind us, address some current issues, and look to the year ahead. Here is what I shared about the year ahead.
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What we have seen in 1 Corinthians 12-14 is a vision of the Spirit’s Christ-centered, gospel-focused work in our midst to build up the church by empowering spiritual gifts in every one of us. As we look to the year ahead, this vision should cause us to ask some big questions about how we are living out this vision. Here are some big questions related to the “reaching in” and “reaching out” portions of our mission statement.
Reaching In
We should be asking: are we pursuing the type of fellowship where interdependent exercising of spiritual gifts and upbuilding in the gospel is a reality? To individualize it, am I intentionally and consistently in a context where there are people I am relying on to experience the fullness of the gospel and there are people depending on me to experience the fullness of the gospel?
Reaching Out
In a few weeks we will see that Paul envisions the Christian community not only as the context in which building up takes place for believers but where non-believers are introduced to the gospel (1 Corinthians 14:24-25). By this I do not simply mean that we should have a “bring a friend to church” Sunday where they hear the pastor talk about the gospel, but that we should be strategic and creative about bringing non-believers around Christian fellowship as we experience life in Christ together.
In our core values we specify that our “reaching out with the gospel of Jesus Christ” takes place both through proclaiming that gospel and through portraying that gospel. As we move into 2010, a question that burns on my heart for us is this: how will we portray the gospel to nonbelievers as a community? How will they not only hear the word “grace” as it relates to Christ’s work for them; how will they also experience grace in our relationships? How will they not only hear words about the gospel’s power to save, but witness the gospel’s saving power in our lives?
I believe grace and power and a dozen other gospel realities are existent in our church family. But the question before us is this: how do we effectively, proactively, strategically, and consistently bring non-believers into our community to both experience those realities and to hear about the work of Christ that makes them possible?
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May God help us wrestle with these questions as we walk through a new year together.
Pastor Chris