At the churches we've come to and come to love, we truly have had a great year in 2015. They had a fabulous year before Mary and I came and a
fabulous year together afterwards. It’s because of the work of the
congregations and the work of the staff, really. Truly.
I believe next year promises to be greater. I really do. Next
year promises to be even more wonderful and my faith tells me that we’re simply
just now getting started.
But…
But the true blessing is we’re seeing new people contribute
in new (and exciting) ways, by God’s blessings. That’s a sign of God’s
leadership and contributions, the leadership above all leaders, of course. Last
year (and the year before that and the …) this church has established goals,
aspirations, ideas about where we go from here.
Our goals include:
1) Musically, FUMC is blessed in that we
have such talented persons like Florence Bethard and Karen Squires and Francis
Ruth Hale. But we continue to plan, dream, hope and pray that we can do even
more with what God has provided. We’ve discussed the return of a chancel choir.
I continually discuss ideas about establishing a band, and even throw around
ideas about two services here at Coushatta First. There’s more to come. I plan
to explore how we might budget for musicians.
2) As we approach 2016, we've need to ask ourselves
this, if this church suddenly weren’t here, would the community notice? I
believe that it would. We continue to throw out ideas for discussion on what
comes next in terms of buildings, youth, children programming, etc. Our Bishop
has set our core values as “having integrity, being accountable, having
unrelenting love for all people, taking risks and having courage, as it takes
new actions to have new times.” Most importantly, she has called us to “hold
nothing sacred but the mission,” which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for
the Transformation of the World. Jesus simplified that to love our neighbor as
ourselves. In other words, we need to, we must, remember what we’re called to
do – each of us, all of us.
3) So, we need to pray about what you can pledge
for 2016 … in terms of service, money,
time, prayers. It’s hard to talk about money, sometimes. Folks don’t like to
bring up money in church, but here’s a fact: Jesus talked about money more than
he did love. Eleven of the 39 parables He tells are about finances.
4) To do proper budgeting, we need to
have proper pledges. That’s to make some of our dreams come true, we have to
give more money. That’s a fact of life and serving. To make some of our dreams
become reality, we need to reach out and touch a heart for God. To make some of
our dreams grow into our next great project, we need to simply pledge a tithe
and then actually make the pledge real as spring rain.
5) At our two churches, we need to increase the numbers of
small groups, increasing the number of teachers or facilitators for those
groups. We need two small groups per week at Wesley Chapel. We need three small
groups each week at Coushatta First. Now, I love teaching and/or leading
groups, but we need to have others doing so, as well. We will.
6. We need to increase the depth of mission work, locally and
statewide. We need to fund a summer youth mission trip for 2016 that will help
our youth learn about serving beyond ourselves.
7. Finally, I believe we need to establish or perhaps
re-establish ourselves as a praying church by having two groups come together
each week to pray through our list of ideas, and the persons involved in those
missions. I need someone to step up to lead each of those groups.
Other than that, there's no problem at all. None.
But, friends, church, ultimately, we can’t keep doing the same
things everyone has always done and keep expecting new results. But if God is
involved in all that we do, just watch the church rebound or even start new
things – again and again. It can happen.
I’ve seen it happen. We worship a big, big God. We can’t imagine beyond
his capabilities.
King David, with great counsel and prayer wrote, “You guide
me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny. Whom have I in heaven
but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my
spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine
forever. … I have made the Sovereign Lord my shelter, and I will tell everyone
about the wonderful things you do.”
Let’s make the Sovereign Lord our shelter and be prepared to
tell everyone we meet about the wonderful things He has done in our lives, and
what we believe He is planning for our future. Let’s fan the flames of our
spiritual lives again. Let’s get excited, together. Let nothing stand in our
way, because God is the strength of our hearts. This is real stuff, and we are
capable.
Sunday, we are having our first Pledge Sunday together. They will receive cards at the beginning of the service. I'm asking everyone to consider increasing
their pledge from 2015 by as much as five percent, or if they are already tithing, to move to 2 percent above that pledge as we consider ways to make these church
not just beautiful physically, but beautiful in terms of being lighthouses to a
dark world.
When Jesus shows up, everything
changes. This I know.
I love them all,
Pastor Billy Turner
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