09-28-23

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
September 28, 2023
This coming Sunday, I will continue to reflect on the importance of the ONE as we begin to seriously think about who God is inviting us to be in 2024. Yes, it is budget time. That’s the no-nonsense way of saying it. I would prefer to think if it as stewardship, specifically how Cypress Creek Christian Church can be a good steward of all its resources for the sake of the ONE. I so wish we could snap our fingers and resources would pour forth in abundance, yet as I write those words, I have a bit of a grin on my face as I think about how I have witnessed abundance amidst scarcity.

I think about the first church I served full-time, and in the first few years I was there, church attendance dropped pretty dramatically. To be honest, those kinds of seasons in the life of the church can be a bit debilitating for both the ego and the soul. Yet amidst a lot of sleepless nights and tough conversations about the budget and where we might go, resources showed up. Not always in cash, but someone who can fix plumbing can help save the church some money. And we had someone! We also had a retired lineman from the electric company who freed up resources that we thought we were going to have to spend on a fried electric panel. And though there were a few months where we were sweating bullets in regard to payroll, we found a way—or maybe, I should say, God helped us find a way. And in the following five years, we more than doubled in worship attendance and more than tripled our impact on the community. 

And since coming to Cypress Creek Christian Church, between bats and a flood, a pandemic, and a politically tense culture, we have continued to find a way forward and beyond. I believe it is because of the work we have done in honing our sense of identity, birthed out of 1 John 4:19, "We love because God first loved us," and then listening for the Spirit’s guidance in how that Love First Life is lived in a community of diverse people who love God and want to learn to love others a little more like Jesus. And what seems to happen is that people want to bring all of who they are to that work, often because they know someONE who, for whatever reason, has been made to believe that God’s love is not available. Our purpose, born out of a God who first loved us, is about that ONE, and I believe you are going to want to be a part of that ministry.

​Ok God, we trust you to bring together the gifts needed for that ONE who yearns to know of your love, a love best expressed through the hands and hearts, the lips and lives of the people who gather in your name. Amen.