Well, it happened again last night. About 15 of our youth gathered at McDonald’s
in Hudson to talk about Jesus and living as His disciples. Thoughts were shared. Ideas challenged. The Word of God was studied. Hearts were filled with God’s Spirit.
Awesome!
When I think about the work that is done here at Gloria
Dei, I am often in awe. Everywhere I
look I see God’s fingerprints in the opportunities He is giving us, the staff
He has assembled here, the skills and talents he has given our congregational
leaders, the gifts He has given to each of us He gathers here, and in the
blessings of forgiveness, life, and salvation He pours out on us week upon
week, day upon day.
Incredible! Our
God is so good!
You have probably noticed that the world has changed in
your lifetime. In fact, it is changing. The challenges we face as a congregation are
very different than they were years ago.
In years past people had a general sense of right and wrong, sacred and
secular, and even holiness and awe which was heavily influenced by the Bible. In that context mission and ministry often
meant feeding the poor, advocating for the needing, and meeting other needs in
places like Cleveland, Akron, and, especially, overseas.
All of those needs still exist, but it has become more
and more clear that there is a new mission field that has opened up, and that
the needs are pressing there too. That
new mission field is called, “Home.” And
the work that needs to be done is not so much economic or social but
spiritual. (The socio-economic need is
there too! There are 46 families in
Hudson that require the services of the food bank at Rejoice! Lutheran, and I
read in the Toledo Blade that the federal government will be cutting food stamp
aid in Ohio by $50 a month.)
God foretold of these days through the prophet Amos, “‘Behold,
the days are coming,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘when I will send a famine on the
land-- not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words
of the LORD.’” (Amos 8:11 ESV) The want
for food and basic requirements is a real, tangible, problem in our world. Out of love for our neighbor we want to meet
that need. Yet there is also a greater
need – the famine for hearing the words of the Lord – that we are called to
meet.
We acknowledge that calling in our mission
statement: Gathering People to Christ,
Building Believers in Christ, and Serving the World as Christ. We meet people where they are to share the
Word of the Lord, Jesus Christ, with them so they can have the salvation He won
for us and experience the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
Your prayers, efforts, and support are essential to our
work as a congregation. As we worship,
work, serve, live, and give together in Christ, God will keep doing His work,
gathering, building and serving, and, make no mistake, we will make a
difference here in time and in eternity.
Questions to
Ponder
Normally I focus on one of the previous Sunday’s
scripture lessons at this point of my weekly letter. This week we will look a little more at Amos
8:11 and at our mission.
-
How has the world changed in your lifetime? What is good and what is bad compared to your
younger years?
-
What effects do you think a famine of hearing
God’s Word has in a person’s life? How
does that affect society?
-
Have you ever felt hungry for God’s Word, either
to hear it or to receive it in the Lord’s Supper? Was your hunger satisfied? If so, how?
If not, what can be done?
-
Does Amos 8:11 lessen the importance of caring
for physical hunger, thirst, and basic needs?
Where to these fit in comparison to the need for God’s Word?
-
How are you involved in God’s mission to meet
people’s basic needs? Their spiritual
needs? How do you use your time, talent,
and treasures to support God’s work?
-
As you think about our mission statement, how do
Gathering, Building, and Serving meet both kinds of famine mentioned in
Amos? How important is it to meet both
the physical and spiritual aspects of God’s mission? Why?
-
Where do you see God doing His work?
No comments:
Post a Comment