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Serving Locally

I have a friend who works for a construction company that builds custom homes. Specifically, his job is to oversee all the various contractors and vendors involved, each of which is responsible for a different piece of the project. It’s his job to keep track of all the different steps involved until the house is complete. He makes sure the plan on paper becomes reality.

I remember once he took me to one of his worksites and showed me around the “house.” I put house in quotation marks because it was still months away from being finished. At that point it was just a giant hole in the ground – which would eventually be a basement. The foundation was laid and that was all I could see. My friend, on the other hand, looked at the foundation and saw the house that was yet to be.

The fourth goal our session set out last year was identifying one to three local ministry opportunities in our community that become a high priority in the life of our church. In short, we want to be a church who serves locally.

The house is still under construction, but it is coming together nicely. The foundation is laid and the wooden frames are going up. Earlier this summer, the session put together a team of people to brainstorm ideas and come back with some recommendations about what serving locally might look like. How can we as a church engage our community?

The team began by getting a lay of the land. We had a long discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of our congregation. We wanted to get a better sense of who we are as a church and what we can bring to the table. Then we considered our neighbors. What kinds of needs exist in our community? What are some obstacles that separate us from them? We don’t just want to know who we are; we want to know who are neighbors are too.

The next step in our construction is brainstorming specific ideas for how we can best serve our neighbors. Lord willing, we will have some concrete recommendations for those one to three service opportunities to send to the session by the end of the year.

Please continue to pray during this process. Construction can be frustrating. Projects don’t always stay on schedule. Things don’t always go according to plan. It’s easy to become discouraged and frustrated. But the Lord is building this house. He’s the one who guides our steps and empowers our efforts. Don’t lose sight of the house during the construction process. The Lord is making us into a church who doesn’t exist for ourselves – and we’re still learning what that will look like. As Jesus loves us and gave himself for us, so he is leading us to love our neighbors and give ourselves for them.

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