Newsletter July 16, 2008
From the Associate Pastor. . .
This past Sunday evening’s service was so sweet. If you missed it, we had it in the “old” sanctuary, now the “new” Schum Fellowship Hall. Being in this room with such a large crowd brought back memories of many encouraging and edifying moments . . . weddings, baptisms, sermons, testimonies, concerts, conferences, dinners, and other corporate gatherings that were of great benefit and blessing.
Recalling or remembering such moments is an exercise the Lord calls His people to do. The Old Covenant people were often commanded to do something to memorialize God’s faithfulness and provision (in Genesis 35:14 ”set up a stone”; in Joshua 4:8 ”take up twelve stones”). Samuel established a memorial or ebenezer to commemorate and recall God’s victory over the Philistines (I Samuel 7:12). The psalmist exhorts us to recall, recount and declare the Lord’s goodness (Psalm 71:16-18). The Lord Jesus tells us that as often as we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we are to do so remembering Him and His completed work at Calvary (Luke 22:19). And the Apostle Paul says a failure to recognize (bring back to mind) “the body of the Lord” at the Lord’s Supper brings judgment (I Corinthians 11:29).
The theme of Sunday evening’s service was essentially a report by some of our people who had ministered outside the United States this summer. Representatives of CPC’s Reynosa, Mexico mission team spoke. Bev Fowler shared about the value of such mission trips for whole families. Nathan Bowers addressed the need for deeds to follow the gospel message, using Reynosa missionary, Kelly Green, as a exemplary example of that. John Mark Griggs shared of his experiences with other American youth in Reynosa and how they connected with the Mexican youth through sports ministry.
David Close shared about a missions opportunity that he and his daughter, Kelly, had in Honduras in June. Ken Henry spoke about leading a group of students to Tanzania and their work with Habitat for Humanity. Dan Steere shared about his teaching opportunities at Israel Theological Seminary and his travels to west Africa for continued ministry.
Hearing our people recall what they were privileged to do on these trips, how they saw God’s kingdom being expanded in those places and how these experiences might impact them for years to come made for a wonderful evening. Those testimonies are now added to my bank of memories.
We hope to hear from others in the coming months who will make similar trips. Lewis and Anna Reid will travel to New Zealand for ministry in a few weeks. Dan Steere and Pastor Caines will be in Nigeria and Ghana for a couple weeks next month teaching pastors and church leaders. And CPC has a team scheduled for mission work in Haiti in the fall.
By the way, we, the missions committee, are so “pumped” about our senior pastor making this trip to Africa and the potential “trickle down” benefits to our entire congregation that we’ve given $1500 from our discretionary funds to aid in getting him there. If any of you would like to contribute to Pastor Caines’ missions trip account that has been established by our missions committee, you may do so with a check payable to CPC with “Pastor Caines - Africa” included on the memo line.
Pastor Mullinax