I realize that it is still winter but I must admit that I am already thinking about spring. Pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training in baseball and while I know that March can still have some cold weather I still always think of it being a time when we start to see signs of spring all around us. Spring signals new life and the grey of winter begins to turn to the colors of spring with green, pink, yellow and so many others.
I believe as a church we are approaching a season of spring, a season of new growth as we seek to follow God and reach out to this community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As I am writing this article I just had a young lady come by the church that had been helped in the past by some of our ministries and now that she is employed in a place that wants to give back to the community, she came here because she wants her boss to consider giving a gift to support what we do for the community. We should be impacting lives in our community for the Kingdom of God.
I have shared with you what the Vision Team has been working on for some time and what we believe God wants us to be about. Our mission is “To make known the glory of God in Gilmer County and to all the nations.” We believe that God’s Word tells us our core values should be; worship, fellowship, Biblical instruction, evangelism, ministry/service, prayer and discipleship. Our vision is to be: 1 Persistent in Prayer, 2 Honest in Preaching, 3 Authentic in Worship, 4 Intentional in Witness and 5 Sacrificial in Serving. If you were unable to be here the first two Sundays in February please be sure to go online and listen to what I shared with the congregation.
Over the next months we will focus on these two areas:
Evangelism:
Train people to share their faith.
Outreach events in the community. March 19th Easter Egg Hunt at the Recreation Department.
Affinity Groups (Using our hobbies and interests as a way to reach lost people).
Discipleship:
Sunday night will become a time for topical studies that are short term. (4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks, etc.)
Affinity Groups. When people are reached for Christ we want to grow them in Christ.
One on One, man to man, woman to woman intentional disciple ship and mentoring.
Pray for God to give you clarity about how you can be involved in this process going forward. God has us all here for a reason and we must be willing to move forward with Him.
Rev. J. Daniel Rosser