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Pastor's August 2009 Message |
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I’VE BEEN SPOILED Okay, I will admit it – I have been spoiled. Having Andy Schermbeck here for the past year as our Vicar has been a real blessing to me. I have certainly enjoyed the camaraderie, and I have enjoyed his help in ministry, especially on Sunday mornings where I have had a chance to be fed by listening to someone else bring the Word, and a chance to let someone else lead worship. Soon - too soon for me - it will be over. In fact, by the time you read this article, he and Becca and Luke will be in Chicago. But I bring it up because my experience with Andy has sharpened my vision for what is needed here at Messiah if our ministry together is to grow and flourish – namely, another Pastor. At the end of 2008, we had almost 700 members and we continue to grow. Each Sunday we see new faces and each time I offer a new member class, the class is full. Of course, having another pastor is not new in our thinking. In May of 2008, we extended a Call to Dan Hawkins to be our Associate Pastor. Dan was ready to come, but the Spirit moved him to decline our call. We had a great need then – to help us in outreach ministry, assimilation, small groups, beginning another worship service, etc. – and that need has by no means diminished. Along with that need comes another need: to expand our facilities. Should God grace us with an Associate Pastor, we have no office space for him. We also need space for a nursery, Sunday morning classes, a need for storage and we could use some renovation to our kitchen. And finally, we have a need for more income to meet the previous needs. When we gathered as a congregation May 17th for our biennial meeting, those present made some significant decisions.· We decided to abandon the Family Life Center building concept and begin looking into only expanding facilities to meet the needs of classrooms, offices and storage along with something for nursery Sunday morning and possibly renovating and expanding the kitchen.
· We decided to pull back “FOR NOW” beginning a new ministry at another location, and extend a Call to a man to become an Associate Pastor here at 8300 AND ALSO, at a later time help us move toward beginning a new ministry somewhere south of I-485.
· And finally, we decided to focus on Whole Life Stewardship that includes active assimilation of all members, new and old, helping members discover their gifts and talents so as to plug into meaningful ministry, and challenging members to bring in “first fruits” in their financial offerings so that we can support existing ministry and add new ministers and ministry. This last point is really the first point. Everything else rests on Stewardship. We have not had a general stewardship emphasis at Messiah in at least two years. While it is true that we have added many new families since then, it is also true that we all need reminding and re-focusing. On August 2, right after each service, we will have a BRIEF update on what we are doing to meet these challenges. We will dismiss visitors and guests at the end of each service, have some members leave the sanctuary with them while we encourage/exhort our members to “be seated” once again for a no more than 10 minute report. Please spoil me some more and be present body, soul and spirit for that brief update.
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