Are We Listening?

As we come to Fall and begin our program year for 2018, I am really excited. We have a wonderful opportunity. It is a great time to reflect on our purpose and what it is that God wants to do in and through us. You see faith is really all about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Are we as a congregation feeding our members’ relationships, as well as fulfilling our communal calling? What is it that God wants us to be, and how are we doing at being Christ for those around us?

To  the first question we  are all called by God into  a personal, loving relationship in  which we are to grow more in love with God. It is through living out our faith each and every day and in each and every circumstance that we see the power of God at work; we come to experience His infinite Love and Grace. It is through this experience that we truly know and can share with others all the wonderful things that God is doing in our lives. It is this personal loving relationship that calls us into action. We then want to share this with others and we take what we know to be true and we pass it along through our words and actions. It is also this relationship that calls us to continually look for new ways to share what God is doing in our lives. He has truly blessed us and has called us to bless others. We, through our baptismal calling, are called to grow in our image and likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. To the second question, it is an on going relationship that is ever changing and always has new opportunities to grow, with the particular situations that we find ourselves in and the people that God has put into our lives, both as a community of faith—Union Church and as each of us individually, in our daily lives.

I am serving another church that is paying an outside consultant big money to tell them who they are and what they need to do and it has gotten me thinking and the above reflections are who we are and what we are all about. We are called to be the best we can be at reflecting Jesus Christ to those around us. And this starts at home first with our family and then our church and then our community, our workplace and the world in general.
A professor I had  in seminary use to put it best:

“Good, Better, Best, never let it rest until the good become better and the better become Best”

How are we doing both communally and individually at the calling that we have received at our Baptism??
 
Many Blessings,
Pastor Steve