Dear Church Family,
Well, the holidays are over. I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge God's presence and move among us during those weeks from Thanksgiving to New Years. It was a wonderful time of recognizing and giving thanks for God's provision, remembering and celebrating the birth of Jesus and looking back upon 2019 while looking forward to the works He has prepared for us in advance for 2020. Here are just a few of the things I witnessed.
We were given opportunity to visit with family members who live in distant cities. Many of us traveled during peak traffic times in extreme weather conditions without incident. All returned safely after reacquainting with and enjoying the company of their loved ones. Thank you Lord.
We used our Wednesday evenings to prepare for Christmas. We had a guest visit us on the Wednesday we put up the Christmas lights at the church. You were all laughing and working together. He talked to me about it later saying it was so beautiful to see Christians just having fun in the Lord. It was so different from any church he had attended; so free and real. He intends to return with his family.
On another Wednesday evening you went out through the neighborhood around our church caroling. Others went to the hospital to sing carols with Brenda. One man who heard you caroling felt the Spirit of God calling. He has been attending our fellowships regularly, Sundays and Wednesdays, ever since.
Many of you came to our annual business meeting and heard the challenges facing churches across our nation as we are losing our religious liberties. You responded to what your heard by recommitting yourselves to praying for our church and our nation.
Others heard messages from the pulpit of how easy it is to fall asleep in the Lord, to leave our first love or to move our hearts away from Him. Several have spoken to me of their desire to return to a closer walk with Him and to rekindle their love for Him. I am already seeing some renew their acts of worship through works of service, sharing of their faith and giving of offerings. It is such a wonder to see the evidence of revival in the faces of those who are renewing themselves in the Lord. I pray to God their joy will increase and spread among us like a wildfire. It is obvious that the Lord is with us and blessing us with His Spirit. How marvelous that He has remembered us in His plans and purposes. To God be the glory!
Following are some things coming our way in the month of January:
- For the next few weeks I will be preaching from the book of Ephesians. Please spend some time reading and meditating on it. Please pray God will speak clearly to us and give us ears to hear.
- We will be working on the new building on Saturday morning the 25th. We will be preparing the reception room and hallway for the acid wash and cement stain process. We need to move all the material from those areas and thumb tack plastic sheeting on the bottom of the walls.
- Friday the 24th our Rhino Hockey team is back in town. I thought we could go have some fun rooting for our team as they play against OKC.
Your Servant,
Randy