Details

Published: 06 November 2020

If you are one of the many people who give faithfully for global outreach, you have already worked through this issue.  However, some of you that read this blog may be struggling to know why we give money to people outside of our immediate geographical area.  We have a lot of needs right here!  Yes, we do.  But it doesn’t have to be “either/or.”  We do help many people in our church and community through the gifts you so faithfully provide to our Benevolent Fund.   But, it is important to remember that we are here as a church (humanly speaking), because someone came to our community supported by others.  It has always been this way.  From the first missionary trip that left Antioch to this day, it is the gifts and people of the established church that establish new churches.  We can’t all go but we can all give.  We can pray.  We can encourage those who go.  If you are a child of God, you are an ambassador of His Kingdom.  You are His representative in this world.  You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  Joining the family of God has many privileges but it also has responsibilities.  Angels are not coming to earth to share the gospel, it’s our job to pray, proclaim, live and give in a way that keeps the truth before the people of this world.  If you are not praying for the missionaries we support, please start.  If you are not supporting global outreach financially, please prayerfully consider doing so.  We have some quality missionaries and we have new opportunities to support nationals if we had the funds to do so.  Sunday is Missions Emphasis and Tim Compton is here from Thailand.  Tim will encourage you as you hear what God is doing thousands of miles away from Greenville for the glory of His Name and the good of the people He loves.

Details

Published: 30 October 2020

I mentioned last week that my grandson and I watched a couple of Marvel Movies.  The action is epic.  Super-powers, battles, conquest, space/time travel.  Those people have a lot more going on than counseling and sermon preparation.  They are saving the world every other day from evil beings with super-powers of their own.  My life is pretty boring compared to Ant-Man and Dr. Strange.  However, the older we get, the less impressed we are with many things in life.  We not only become harder to impress, we can even get cynical.  I enjoy a good action movie but I know deep down that most of that stuff is computer animated and Ant-Man’s every day real world probably includes English Muffins and black coffee—just like mine.  Is there anything left in the world that is truly awesome?  By that I mean, awe-inspiring?  And, the answer is…….YES!  What?  Creation is still pretty epic but even greater is God’s work of new creation.  God has been redeeming and restoring human beings for thousands of years.  It goes on every day, quietly and steadily, like leaven in a lump.   There is no way, humanly speaking, that the church should be in existence today.  The beginnings were weak, the middle was messy and we’re not doing so well today.  Read any account of church history and you’ll find stories of failures, mis-steps, sins and rebellion.  Yet, roughly 2 billion people on this planet right now are a part of the Body of Jesus Christ.  How has that happened?  In spite of plagues, pandemics, political upheavals, earthquakes, famines, wars and countless philosophical and intellectual attacks, the Church has been built, blessed and protected.  It’s not our ingenuity or a strategic plan.  We’re here by the power, promise and presence of the One who forms us.  He is AWESOME.  What He is doing is AWESOME.  And what is yet to come is AWESOME.  Don’t lose sight of what is real and don’t lose your child-like sense of wonder.