Skip to content

Pastor’s Paragraphs – September 19, 2014

Dr. Rick MarshallWe are so very happy for Mark and Meredith in their upcoming wedding on Saturday. Certainly it is their desire and mine that you will join in the celebration of their marriage with your attendance if at all possible. It is not often a church has the unique privilege of sharing in this very special occasion in the life of a minister. Most of the time when ministers come to a church who are not married, it is as an intern or early in full-time ministry. Not only is it a blessing for Mark and Meredith, but this has been like a learning lab for our students in particular, as well as other single adults. They have shown clearly what it means to wait upon the Lord and to have a relationship prior to marriage which honors faith commitments to the Lord.

Therefore, we rejoice with them and pray God’s most wonderful blessings to accompany them for the rest of their lives as husband and wife after Saturday. We are fully convinced that God will continue to use both of them in ministry to students and others. They will be able to do more for God’s Kingdom in ministry as one than either could have done alone as two people.

We praise the Lord for additions to our church in recent weeks. How exciting it is to see several professions of faith as well as other additions. I am especially pleased to see students and young families coming to our church. If this seems redundant to you, please forgive me. I need to remind you that the best way to grow the Lord’s work and our church is through positive relationships. Unchurched people are far more likely to come at the invitation of someone happy in his or her church than for any other reason.

Also, let me mention a statistic we should not take as unimportant for the church in today’s world. It was reported last week that the single adult population in this country has now surpassed married adults for the first time in our history. Churches, including ours, should take notice and be open to ministries that touch the needs of single adults, both never married as well as previously married, as well as those currently married.

I look forward to seeing you on Saturday as well as Sunday.

L. Rick Marshall

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.…