2025 June news-letter article

Greetings followers of Jesus!

Last month, I attempted to shoot across your “bow” with some probing questions about why you’re here, a part of this church family.  Though consumerism is not in and of itself an evil thing, it would be incredibly dangerous if it proved to be the long and short of why we’re here.  This month, I want to continue to push the “why” thought.  If indeed you’re here because you have been profoundly changed by a personal relationship with Jesus, don’t you want others to hear and respond to the Good News too?

I have been working in recent months on building a “missions menu” for our church.  My goal is to have that published and available for circulation by the end of September.  In working through this project, I have been reading about missions (with a S at the end) vs. living “on mission”.  I know, I haven’t even defined either term, but suffice it (for this month) to think of these as flip-sides of the same coin, feeding one another.  Both apply to the church corporately.  Both apply to individual believers.  As I mentioned a few Sundays ago, do you love your neighbor so little, as to sit back and let them whistle their way into hell?

With this in mind, I want to continue to mull through some items publicly.  As always, if you have opinions, or passions, or thoughts about anything below, my door is open to you.  I would love nothing more than discuss these things with you.  As I percolate, I hope you see what I have seen, recently, about strong biblical leadership within the Church.

Though there are a few rare exceptions, our Deacons meet monthly.  I meet with them; occasionally, others meet with them too (committee chairs, our Financial Secretary, etc.) when we have particular issues to discuss.  Deacons’ meetings cover LOTS of items, from financial stewardship and “business items” to prayer concerns, pastoral care of the flock, and strategic planning.  Some months, the bulk of our time is spent on “ash and trash issues (Col. Cohn’s Army term)”; other months, we get to discuss the spiritual health of our congregation and its members.  In April, our agenda was relatively thin, and we had the freedom to discuss more important matters than “ash and trash” business: missions!!

We talked about our current irons in the fire: the adoption of Heritage Apartments, partnership with East Stokes Outreach Ministry, partnership with The Pregnancy Network, partnership with the Back Yard Bible club in Germanton, on-going efforts to rebuild in the mountains, and Hope Kitchen (I already fear this list is not exhaustive).  We talked for 30 seconds about the logistics of the “Kitchen” side of that ministry, and about 15 minutes about the “Hope” side of that ministry.  The pressing question that we’ve all been mulling: how can we take the existing vehicle of Hope Kitchen, leveraging relationships and building upon it, and “dial up the spiritual temperature” of serving our neighbors in need within a 10-mile radius of 415 Summit Street?  Can we train our delivery drivers in more overt evangelism; do we collect requests from our neighbors and follow-up to potentially meet more needs; do we go deeper with the existing list; do we go broader by networking and growing the list; do we partner together with other churches to go twice per month?  These are all ways to bring this ministry to a spiritual “boil” in the months/years ahead.

In addition to chewing on how to better serve and love our neighbors locally, we prayed about potential missions partnerships.  Many of us remember the great partnership we had through the North American Mission Board in Vermont, from 2012 through 2018.  Do we do that again; do we do something similar in another locale; do we investigate opportunities through existing networks?  I am unapologetically in favor of having a “Samaria” partnership (within an eight-hour drive or so) and an “ends of the earth” partnership abroad (Acts 1:8).  I am so thankful that we have so many high-quality “Jerusalem” and “Judea” partnerships already (after all, I am building a menu!).  One of our Deacons, whose Rolodex is thick, has made some contacts in a Caribbean nation.  We heard about what that opportunity could involve, and prayed that God would give us wisdom as we discern this, and asked God to either slam this door in our face or blow it open for us to walk through.

I am so profoundly grateful that THESE are the things being discussed in YOUR Deacons’ meetings.  These are the things our church needs to be discussing.  These are the kinds of things that ought to be on all of our minds.  If we are going to be a refuge that makes and sends disciples, we need to be growing and equipping one another as carriers of the Good News, such that we can carry it where God is leading us to carry it (by the way, this may be a corporate effort with teams and ministry groups, but this may also involve individual callings/efforts).  Not only am I profoundly thankful for this being what we discussed (fear not, we have never neglected the “ash and trash” too), I am also profoundly thankful for those discussing it.  I had a pretty good idea already what was in the hearts of these Deacons, but it was so refreshing to hear from their hearts in that April meeting.  THIS is the kind of leader our church needs; this is the kind of leader God’s Kingdom needs!  May God bless us as we raise up a new generation of leaders whose hearts are like this!  Over the past decade, we have nearly completely shed the use of “board”.  To be clear, our Deacons do not serve as a Board of Directors, nor do they want to.  They want to “deac”, in the biblical sense; they are first and foremost servants, servants of the flock, and servants of Jesus.  I have many peers who do not enjoy Deacons’ meetings; I tell them how much I love ours, and why.  Join me, join your Deacons, join your staff, in praying over these matters, that God would reveal to us where He’d have us to go.  May we follow His leadership, and be the proclaimers of the Good News that He calls us all to be!

O God of might, o Son of light, o Holy Spirit sweet,
Thy Church expand ‘til all shall stand at Jesus’ pierc-ed feet;
let all who once Thy Son disowned, rejoice to see Him now enthroned,
yet while one straying soul there be, send me, o Lord, send me!
--A.J.