DEVELOP-MEN-T

The church of Jesus Christ has grown from a little mustard seed of 12 apostles and a few hundred followers in the city of Jerusalem, to a flourishing plant that shadows the globe today 2000 years later.  Over 2,000,000,000 believers in Jesus Christ are present in just about every country of the world.

A part of the reason for this spread is that God calls pastors and missionaries to lead the expansion of the work of the Kingdom, to keep the gospel of Jesus Christ alive and growing.  Each generation has seen God’s call on men and women.  CCC is no exception.  Many of our young people are serving the Lord in full time ministry positions around the world.

One of our core commitments as a church is to develop our young pastoral leadership.  We are blessed to have four godly, committed and gifted young men on our pastoral team.  As we look to the future we want to help them develop the gifts and passions God has given them to prepare them for their next steps in church ministry.  One of the areas we are committed to helping them develop is preaching.  So throughout 2013 each will preach on Sunday morning at least twice throughout this year.  They are the next generation that will be advancing the Kingdom of God and we are so blessed to have them at CCC.  Pray for them, that their heart and skills will continue to be shaped by God.  I know God will use them to bless us.

LIVING WITH YOUR GUARD UP

Though I’m not an advocate of boxing there is a good principle attached to it.  Keep your guard up!  It keeps you from getting hit by your adversary who is always looking for a way to deliver a knockout punch.  In addition we have all heard the adage, “act in haste, repent in leisure”.  Combine these two and you realize their value.  In a day and age where we can get so tied up with activity, stressed out with demands, pressure build up, and running on empty, we may find ourselves letting our guard down.  It takes the form of a careless word or an inappropriate action and can cause an ugly turn in our lives.  A harsh, condemning word that injures a friend or gets us fired from a job.  An action that hurts, disappoints and creates pain in a valued relationship.  All too quickly spoken or done unguarded moments lead to consequences that allow plenty of time to repent, think and regret.  We realize there is no “undo” button that allows us a do over.  We can find forgiveness from the Lord, but the consequences still remain.  Damage has been done.  How well guarded is your tongue, are your actions?  If we don’t keep our guard up we can find ourselves with plenty of time to repent in leisure.  Let’s keep our guards up!!

LATE CHRISTMAS/HAPPY NEW YEAR

I had a late Christmas with my North Carolina family this past weekend.  My twin grandboys, Luke and Sam, got another round of presents.  One of them was a cool kit of Lego blocks in a plastic container.  The 15 blocks could be made into 4 farm animals.  I thought the contents of the container were incredibly cool and loved putting the sheep, chicken(especially cool), pig and cow together.  Sam, however, saw no value in the contents.  He was absorbed in the plastic container.  He played endlessly with it, waving it around, folding it shut and then pulling it open.  “Sam”, I said, “Look at the cool animals we can make”.  No interest.  He only had eyes for the container.

It seems to happen that way with kids.  So often the package is valued more than the contents.  The box has more intrigue than what’s inside.  That’s okay when you’re a kid.  People think it’s cute that you’d rather play with the box instead of the present, but you get to an age where that would no longer be cute, it would be concerning.  Have we gotten to that age with God’s gift of Jesus?  Hopefully we’ve moved past valuing the “packaging” more than the gift.  Jesus gets wrapped up with a lot of stuff each Christmas, wrappings which are decorative, tasty and delightful.   But the substance of value is Jesus.

I like that Christmas is Dec 25^th.  It lets us end the year being reminded of the incredible, invaluable gift of God’s Son.  That in turn lets us begin the new year embracing that gift and having it enrich and direct our lives.  Have we come of age?  Happy New Year!