Skip to content

Church-Community

I remember as a child, the church was a place where I loved to be.  It was a place where I felt comfortable.  A place where I felt safe and a place where I wanted to be.  Even as a teenager and a young adult the same was true. Church was a place where I spent a lot of time. Even though it was a large church it was a place where I felt apart. Although I had a very close family, my family was a part of a larger group and it was my church. It was truly ‘family’.

In recent years it has become more difficult for churches to have that ‘community’. I believe that there are many reasons that this has happened. For one, families are so busy with other activities that there is not enough time in a day to get everything done. We are much more mobile today than we were years ago.  Years ago, the church was the center of our social activity. In fact, the church was the center of just about everything we did. Today the church is one of the many choices that we make in our weekly schedules.

Because of these changes, it is important that we work hard on building ‘community’ in our churches. The smaller the group, the easier it is for people to ‘fit in’. Therefore, our Sunday School classes, are a good place to get to know people in our church.  If you are not in a Sunday School class, find a class and get involved. We have classes for all age groups and it is a great place to get to know more people in our church.  Let me encourage classes to invite those new to our church to their social gatherings. Classes need to actively plan social events to give new members opportunities to get to know more people in the church. 

As a staff, we are trying to focus on having activities that will help build community in our church as a whole.  The next activity that is designed to do that is our Movie Night.  We have rented a theater at the AMC Festival 16 Theater on the corner of Vaughn Road and Taylor Road on Sunday, January 30, at 4:00 PM. The movie is “American Underdog”: The Kurt Warner Story.  Tickets for this event are $5.00 and the concessions will be open.  You can purchase your ticket on the church website www.easternhills.church or through the church office. Tickets are available for purchase on Wednesdays and Sundays before and after services. This is a great opportunity to bring a friend and introduce them to the people at your church.  

Pastor Dan

Share this post

Related posts

FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

God Leads Us

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge…

God is Enough

Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.…