A Church That Gets It

Our last Sunday of 2009 was a great experience of family worship. I thought Tim and the band did a terrific job in leading worship and it was great to have all our kids up on the stage helping them. Chris Wall did his usual great job in taking us through the last in our series on the genealogy of Jesus- I especially liked his story about the guy who dropped his wife and kids off and then did a few spins on the ice covered CUBE parking lot. I don't know who the guy was but I know a lot of likely suspects!

As I sat through worship Sunday I thought how blessed I am to be a part of such an awesome church. I Thank God every day for the privilege of being the pastor of CRBC. I thought about all the terrific discipleship ministries we have for Preschool through High School. I thought about all of our fantastic connection classes and their many community groups we have in place. Watching the kids on the stage sing the songs they had learned in Third Floor Live was a great reminder of our ongoing ministries to children. Hearing the testimony of one of our High School students of how she was reaching out in ministry to her friends at school through the CUBE was also a great picture of what God is doing within our body. I thought about all the great ministries we have going in our community and around the world about which our church is becoming increasingly passionate.

Last week I rushed to the hospital when I heard about one of our members beings sent to the Emergency Room. When I walked in the entire hallway was packed with his community group. They were there, surrounding and praying for the family and doing what they could to meet their needs. I thought, "this is the way church is supposed to work!"

I got a letter in the mail last week from a woman in our community who had received a Thanksgiving meal through our Families Loving Families. It is typical of the kinds of letters I get from people in the community from time to time:

"I want to thank you and your church for the wonderful meal. What a blessing it was to my whole family. It was the first meal in 28 years that someone else had cooked for me. It was so delicious...."

After one of our worship services a few weeks ago, I had three different church members approach me to tell me what God was doing in their lives. One had just completed the purchase of land to begin a ministry to help abused teenage girls, the other was excited about a new ministry he was a part of that has a desire to reach into every prison in Oklahoma and the third was a guy who has recently started a ministry for inner city kids utilizing martial arts. I told Teri on the way home, "How great to be a part of a church that gets it!"

I will go into greater detail later, but it seems to me that God is continuing to move our congregation towards three primary objectives that I want to highlight in 2010:

1. A heart for worship
2. A hunger for His word
3. A compassion for the poor
4. A passion for the lost

I believe these are the four values that encompass what God has called us to as we strive together to love all people to Christ and help them on their journey with God and others.

Please continue to pray for our budget needs as we close out the year. The administration office will be open until 5:00 p.m. New Years Eve.