I had an interesting and encouraging experience earlier today (Monday). I am part of a group of ministers who meet monthly to pray for each other. We go around the circle and share one personal concern and one ministerial/church concern. In our group was a new minister to the area who moved here from New England.
He is retired and spends his time going to different churches during the weekdays to spend time in the sanctuary in prayer for the church. When it came time to share his prayer concerns today, he pointed only to me and said he had been to Crabtree Valley Baptist and felt God’s Spirit and Promise for the future of CVBC in a way he had not experienced in other churches. What do you make of that?
Is it hard or does it happen also for you that you sense the presence and promise of God when you think of the future of CVBC? This past Sunday I spoke of a God who is able to move mountains (Mark 11). And so the issue is always are we focusing on the mountain or on the Mountain Mover? How easy and tempting it would be to see the small numbers of members at CVBC, to compare to many other churches much larger with any number of ministries, and conclude that the best days of CVBC are all behind us. But don’t count me among them. I serve a God whose other name is Surprise, a God who can take a mustard seed and do far more than is expected or imagined. And I find my best faith calls me to forever be looking for how God is at work.
I invite you, as I challenge myself, to expect something of God. That minister felt God’s Spirit when he prayed in our sanctuary. I sense it when I am with you as well. I look forward, not backward, to what God is up to in the life of our church. Will you join with me….and will you pray for the mountain to move and the glory of God be revealed?
Brave Journey,
Bill
