Congregational Assembly
Preview!
The Changeable, the Changeless and the Wisdom to Know the Difference!
Next Sunday, November 20th,
we'll gather for our semi-annual congregational assembly meeting. We need the collective wisdom of the
congregation to make some important decisions.
Let me share some thoughts with you that will help you prepare for this
important day!
Unchangeable!
Because God sets the
mission, one thing we won't have to debate is our purpose as a Christian
congregation! The Lord Jesus himself
laid it out very simply when he told his disciples that the Greatest
Commandment is to love God with all that we are, and that there is another
Commandment that stands right with it: to love our neighbor as ourselves.
And his parting words to the
disciples have driven the Church of Christ onward now for centuries. The Great Commission is our charter, to go
and make disciples of all nations. We're
thankful to God for the generation before us that shared Christ's love with us,
and we'll do all we can by the power of God to pass the torch of faith to all
who will hear in this generation.
A renowned Christian leader
said recently that churches die for one of two reasons: they change what must
never be changed, or they fail to change the things that are permissible.
We will never change our
teaching. The word of God stands
forever. The life, death and
resurrection of Jesus are our only hope.
The Great Commandment and the Great Commission still stand as our
marching orders. These we will not
change.
But since the very first
congregational assembly meeting in Jerusalem (read about it in Acts 15), God's
people have gathered to consider new approaches to the ministry, new strategies
for reaching out with Christ's love.
Within walking distance of our church you can find a wide variety of
approaches to ministry across denominations and even within the LC-MS churches
of our area. Worship times, musical
styles, methods of outreach and educational ministries run the spectrum. That's a good thing.
So we'll gather next week to
consider some of the changeables. What
should we keep in mind as we gather as God's people for this important business
of the church and its mission?
Changeables!
We begin with prayer, because
we ourselves are so changeable. Our
interests, passions and experiences shape and mold us. None of us are the people we were ten years
ago, or even one year ago, so we turn first to the One who is unchangeable, the
Lord.
We begin with prayer, because
the mission of the Lord is far beyond the capacity of any of us. Humbled by the responsibility to carry the
saving message of the gospel, we begin on our knees. Pray this week for forgiveness of past
failures, and for wisdom for upcoming decisions. God is God.
This work is his. Pray that he
would make us all simply his humble servants.
Then study the times in
which we live. Get a reality check. Who are we as a congregation? What are our strengths and weaknesses? What have we done well in the past and in the
present, and what have been our failures?
And get a reality check on
our community. What opportunities do we
have to reach out with Christ's love?
What challenges must we overcome?
What forces from outside would hinder our mission in our community?
Next, we should always be
considering our resources. God provides
all that we need to be about the business to which we are called. It's the responsibility of each of us as the
Lord's extraordinary servants to be faithful stewards of all that God has
entrusted to us. Our recent pledge drive
and ministry fair were an opportunity for us all to reflect on our stewardship,
our management of God's gifts. Have I
offered myself first to God in service according to my gifts and
abilities? Have I given generously and
sacrificially of my financial resources?
Then we count our resources
collectively. First we count our people
resources. Our nominating committee has
worked diligently in recent weeks, because elections to our Board are
critically important matters. I'm
pleased to announce that Dick Adler and Les Stroh will stand for re-election as
our President and Vice-president. Two
at-large members of the Board will be elected also. The nominees are Joyce Luker and Molly
Dallman, extraordinary servants with wonderful records of service in God's
kingdom work.
A major portion of our
meeting will be in response to our accounting of financial resources. We annually prepare a Ministry Spending Plan
for the coming year, based upon the congregation's current levels of
spending. Last year, you remember, we
were only able to work six months at a time, and drastic cutbacks to mission
and ministry efforts had to be made.
The Board has worked all
year to prepare for some difficult decisions about the level of paid staff that
we can afford given our financial resources.
Your church leaders will continue to wrestle with the challenging
decisions we face this week in preparation for the meeting and will be prepared
Sunday to give you the best information we have and our best proposals for
2006. This has not been an easy task,
and next year will look considerably different than this year. However, we are confident of God's hand of
blessing upon us.
Just as God called Gideon to
face the Midianites with a much smaller army than Gideon intended, so we may
move forward with a smaller sized church staff.
But the victory always belongs to God, and I am confident he will work
in us and through us, even though it may be in different ways than we had first
envisioned.
That's again why we stop and
pray. When God allows us to face
challenges that we had not anticipated, it makes us ever more dependent on him,
and that's a good thing. We'll present
ourselves to him, and watch him work his wonders. The mission is always before us, and by his
power and grace, we move forward.
And we plan. The Board will be ready to present the
planning and goal writing work that has been done this year and is still under
way. We'll share some of the insights
learned from our conversations about our continuing relationship with our
school, CCLS. All of these things give
me encouragement that despite the great things God has done at Mount Calvary in
the past, our best and brightest days lie still ahead!
Please keep Cory Smith and
his family in your prayers. They are
visiting St. Paul in Peachtree City, Georgia this weekend as they seek God's
will concerning the call to serve as youth director. I know that Cory values your prayers and your
insights. We all look forward to hearing
more from him concerning his future service in the Lord's kingdom.