Matthew 28:19-20 New American Standard Bible (NASB) 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” At work, one of my areas of responsibilities is to recruit and train the sales team, empowering and equipping them to meet the expectations of the customer and the company. I regard my sales team to be a reflection of me. When they win, I win and conversely, their failure is my failure. I have found that an excellent training program produces excellent processes, programs and has a by-product of excellent results. Over the years, I have attempted a number of training programs, some included a written training manual and a series of books to read, others included a library of training videos and one on one coaching. While all of these have been good pursuits, they fell short of
Those who know me know my interest over the last several years has been to look at the Christian experience and calling through the lens of 'one anothering'. That is, fulfilling all of the many ways we are told to support one another in the fellowship through our prayer, gifts, love, forgiveness, encouragement, service and so on. And so through that same lens I have been thinking of the last sermon, not just in the context of Christians impacting the world as salt but as it applies to our relationships with one another. And I think that the admonition for Christians to be salt to the world has that additional, equally meaningful application, that each of us as Christians need to be salt for one another too. How does that happen, though? First we need to see ourselves as family. All of us as members and fellow believers worshiping at New Hope Bible Church need to consider ourselves and value one another as family (people related to one another by birth and by blood, which Chr
As you know, this week churches across the nation have shut their doors and cancelled their services. We are told not to congregate in groups larger than 10 people and to limit social visits. At New Hope, we have also cancelled our activities and services for now. We are not sure how long this will last, so I thought I would give some thoughts on where we go from here and some reminders that are good to keep in mind. This is the first time we have experienced something like this. First, I think it is important to note that a situation like this has not happened in our lifetime, as far as I know. Your pastor and elders have never led a church through a crisis like this. So the decisions made are made prayerfully, and we daily seek wisdom from the Lord. We will strive to lead New Hope according to what we believe is the Lord’s will, and we simply ask for grace and patience from you, our church family. You are the church. Secondly, the church is not closed. The b
Comments
Post a Comment