Prayer Time
This gathering invites the congregation to sing and pray together, seeking God's direction for the new year across three focus areas: congregational matters, evangelism, and family life.
Our time together tonight will be spent singing and praying together. We will divide our time together into three sections. The first section will deal with congregational matters. We will focus in our singing on the idea of being servants of God. And we’ll pray specifically for items which will affect this congregation this year. The second section will focus on evangelism. The third section will focus on our families.
Significant Events Anticipated for 2001
There are a number of significant events which we anticipate occurring in the year 2001.
A decision will be made about our youth ministry work. We know our teens are ready for something to happen, but this is too important to rush through. Further, it would be better to continue without a youth minister than to select a person who would hurt our youth.
The Cannons are returning from Japan. This means a time of adjustment for them. We will continue to support the Cannons financially until the end of the year, but they are going to have to go through a tough transition reestablishing themselves in the United States.
In connection with this, we will be faced with deciding about our level of work in Japan. Will we support another worker in Japan? Will we seek out another ministry? Will we pull away from Japan? While our FEC will be wrestling with these questions, we need to be praying for them and our elders as decisions are being made. Your opinions and suggestions to them would be appreciated.
Our Local Evangelism work has now been subdivided into two groups—the Visitation and Evangelism Ministry and the Neighborhood Involvement Ministry. The Visitation Ministry is designed to make contact with those who visit our assemblies and to contact those who are interested in studying the Bible. The Neighborhood Ministry is to seek ways to make contact with our neighborhood and to plan ways to involve this congregation in greater service. Both of these ministries want to be active during this year. Activity for both of these ministries will mean that we as a congregation are bringing others to our assemblies and functions.
In connection with this there has been some preliminary discussion about working with a stateside work. This is all very preliminary. We have sought some wisdom from Phil Slate about where we might look but no contacts have been made. But these discussions, while in the early stages, will progress during this year.
Mission trips are also planned. We already know that Daniel Ryan will be going on a mission trip this year. Our teens will be going on a mission trip as well. Others may want to engage in mission work. These opportunities for serving others develop our spiritual muscles. Let’s pray about these items.
Evangelism: A Lifestyle, Not a Program
One of our weaknesses as a congregation is our emphasis on evangelism. By that word I simply mean living life intentionally so as to lead another to Christ. I do not mean planned Bible Studies, although these may be needed. By evangelism I mean lifestyle evangelism—living so that we make an impact on those we know with the intention of helping them to know Christ better. This isn’t a program but a lifestyle. I believe we live good lives; dedicated lives; but we live our lives without thinking about how an everyday situation can be used to talk to another about Christ. This doesn’t place the focus on having the right words but the right mindset.
My intention on Sunday nights beginning in March is to have a series of teaching lessons on evangelism. These lessons will be designed to help us think in terms of lifestyle evangelism. They will help us to think differently about those that we know and to use our lives in common association to intentionally attract others to Christ.
Our Focus as the Family Church
Our third area concerns our families. We call ourselves the family church. This has two meanings. We want to be the place where a person can be a part of a family. We want to be open, transparent, and loving so that a person can be a part of us and become part of a larger family. Sometimes we do that very well; sometimes we don’t. We succeed more than we fail.
The second meaning has to do with focus of ministry. We emphasize serving families—all kinds of families, young and old, with or without children. But by and large our greatest emphasis has been on serving families with children. This is intentional. It addresses several needs: our community is becoming younger, and we must be ready for that. Such a focus helps this congregation remain viable. Without young families we will die as a congregation. It is intentional because it means that we are interested in helping the next generation know Jesus.
This focus as the family church is a difficult and demanding purpose. It takes consistent thinking and refining. Our physical families are under attack. We are only kidding ourselves if we don’t believe that as a congregation we will have to deal with the same issues as those who aren’t Christians. The idea is that we have better solutions than those who are followers of Christ.
Topics like child abuse, spousal abuse, domestic violence, keeping our marriage vows, training our children, learning to love and respect our spouse, and sexual issues may all seem like things which should not be addressed in a congregational setting. But this is hiding our head in the sand. These are real issues that Christians deal with in the context of a family.
If we are to be the family church, we must be willing to allow these issues to surface—not to glorify them or embarrass someone but to truly be a family that doesn’t pretend to have it all together but who loves in spite of difficulties. So tonight we need to pray for our families and our congregation as the family church.
Follow Jesus
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