Mission

Michelle Alston wrote a testimony that wonderfully captures how God meets us in a variety of ways through the body of Christ. Sometimes that grace comes to us through a counselor, sometimes a patient friend, sometimes a friend who gives an afternoon to fix our car, and sometimes through singing hymns with our brothers and sisters in Christ. All of that is the body of Christ in action and the grace that comes from it!

Over the last months, and years, our youth leaders and pastors have been prayerfully considering changes to our youth ministries to make them more effective. This includes our Sunday children's ministry and our youth group(s). We believe we have found the will of the Lord for our church for the foreseeable future.

On August 25 Marty Machowski will be doing a seminar on a new curriculum we are using in our Children's Ministry. He will also be preaching that Sunday morning (26th). To introduce you to him a little bit here is an interview he did recently on Bob Kauflin's website.

Encouraging stuff about the first Council of Elders meeting and foreign missions: The Priority of International Missions for Our Future.

We're trying to build a church here that has an effective "every-member ministry." Thus, we are excited for men like John–as well as women and children!–to do the work of ministry at SGC.

After a recent sermon I knew of a major change it needed even before I left the stage. Usually it takes at least a few hours, sometimes a couple days, but when I preached on God's view of work from Ephesians 4:28, I knew I needed to address in a more helpful way those who were unemployed or under-employed.

 One woman's testimony about her work with troubled teens in Cary, putting faith into action at an Equine Assisted Psychotherapy Program.

In some ways, yesterday was a bit like stepping back in time for me. Allow me to explain: God gave me the gift of faith in Christ for salvation 20 years ago under the gospel teaching of this church and the example of the extraordinary love the saints have for one another in this place. Yesterday was for me flashback to those early years, as Phil carefully dealt with the subject of ongoing Christian sanctification from the pages of Scripture.

On Friday the Sovereign Grace churches ratified a whole new way of functioning as a family of churches. We introduced a level of organization that far surpasses anything in our history together. That is, we have many more committees and structures than at any point in our past. The question could rightly be asked in the face of this new labyrinth, "Won't this kill mission?"

Yesterday Phil preached on reasons we give our finances to the church. To put it as snappy as Sam Houston did: "When I got baptized, my wallet got baptized, too." One of the sections of the sermon gave a rationale for why Christians should (at least) tithe.