Hello FBC Friends,
I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.(Philemon 4-6)
Philemon is a short but powerful New Testament letter. “Philemon teaches us simply yet profoundly that the gospel transforms us from the inside out. God’s grace in the gospel therefore has the power to reconcile people and transform relationships… Because of Jesus, the ultimate reconciler who made peace on the cross (Col. 1:20), we must let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts in all of our relationships, since we are one body with Christ who is our head (Col. 3:15).” (“Introduction to Philemon,” The Gospel Transformation Bible) It was interesting to me that this was in my reading today, on the same day that one of my Psalms readings included Ps. 133:1 — Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! “The unity of God’s people has been, and continues to be, a sign of God’s rich blessing. Here the psalmist reflects on those who are bound together in the worship of Yahweh at the temple, and he revels in their union in faith and practice as the true people of God… As believers on this side of the cross, our minds are naturally brought to the unity we have in Christ (e.g., John 17:21-23). The basis for our unity is even greater now that the fulfillment of those priestly laws has come, and the true Mediator of God’s people with their heavenly Father intercedes for us. If there was beauty in the unity of God’s people at the temple, how much more is the glory of our union shown as we, in Christ, display our devotion and love for Him” (notes on Ps. 133, The Gospel Transformation Bible).
I personally found those passages and the notes that went with them to be both encouraging and convicting. I am encouraged by the hope that the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us that we can be not only reconciled to God, but brothers and sisters can be reconciled to each other. I am convicted because I have not always done everything in my power to pursue peace and unity with everyone. This Sunday Randy Waldie will be preaching on “Unity Among Believers”, which is one reason I was especially interested in what I read this morning. I’m sure Randy will have a powerful message for us Sunday.
The reason I won’t be preaching Sunday is because Elizabeth and I are going with a group of 10 junior high students to Camp Tadmor for the Growth Getaway this weekend! Please pray that God would work mightily in the hearts of these students. It should be a great time of helping them grow deeper in their faith. Also, please pray the same for the group of high school students that left today for the Northwest Youth Conference in Portland, with Chris & Lora Meek, and Devin & Stephanie Vian. Pray that they will have a great time and most importantly that the messages and music and time together will have a strong impact on their spiritual lives!
Please mark your calendars for Wade Doerfler’s memorial service, which will take place at Central Linn High School on Saturday, Nov. 14, at 1:00pm. Please pray for the service to be a comfort for the family, and for the gospel to have a powerful impact on the community through the message. Thank you.
On Nov. 15, we are receiving our special love offering for the mission projects chosen by Global Outreach. This will be a separate offering from the regular general fund offering. Please be in prayer this week and consider a generous gift next Sunday. The three projects we will be giving toward are:
1. Teen Challenge – Our local branch of this great ministry is located in Shedd. It has had a major impact on many lives in our area. TC reaches those who have been caught up in the web of drugs, alcohol, and other addictions.
2. Haiti Foundation of Hope – As many of us heard a while back, they are raising funds to build a new cafeteria to help efficiently feed the nearly 1,000 school children every day.
3. Refugees in Turkey – We will give toward both Frontiers, and World Horizon. Both are raising funds to help with the enormous humanitarian crisis due to thousands of families fleeing Syria and Iraq.
Let’s consider being a great blessing to these groups!
Speaking of blessings, I want to tell you about a great blessing that FBC recently received. Someone graciously included the church in their estate planning, and we were given a large gift in the amount of $190,000. We as elders have been praying for God’s wisdom on this for a couple weeks now. A large donation like this can be a huge blessing to a church, but it can also sometimes bring about problems. So I wanted to let you know about it today so we can all be praying about it together. First of all, we need to give the Lord thanks! He has been so gracious and generous to us time and again! But let’s also be praying for how we can best glorify Him with the wise use of the gift. The elders and trustees have all been aware of the gift for a couple weeks. Of course there are many many ways it could be used. After much prayer and discussion, the elders would like to make a recommendation, and have the members vote on it at our Annual Meeting on December 13. This is simply a recommendation, and we are open to other ideas. What we are recommending is that we have a vote to give 50% of the gift to Missions, and 50% to needs of our local church. If that is approved, we have a few specific suggestions for Global Outreach to consider in the use of the funds, including the Haiti cafeteria, and the Lebanon Pregnancy Alternatives Center’s mobile clinic project. We’d also suggest some be set aside for any emergencies that may arise from one of our supported missionaries. As for the needs of our local church, there are a number of possibilities, including a building/remodel project, the children’s playground, the A/C for the classrooms and fellowship hall, and possibly adding a little bit to the Family Pastor fund to help us through the transition as we add a new staff member. There is a bit of a risk in putting these various ideas out there, because in a church our size there is certainly a variety of opinions and strong feelings about certain projects over others. But I wanted to be open and up front and have us all be praying together that we would exalt Christ both in the generous and wise use of the funds, as well as in how we go about making the decision as a family in a loving manner. So if you have thoughts, ideas, suggestions, or concerns, please let me or one of the other elders know. The main thing I wanted to communicate was to pray about the possibility of following the elders’ recommendation of a 50/50 split of the funds.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. (Philemon 25)
Love From Your Pastor,
Michael