Gifts for the Journey
Posted on August 30th, 2010
Pastor’s Column published in The Informer (FBC’s Newsletter for September, 2010)
In recent days, I’ve heard stories from church members who are wondering: “So what’s up with our Spiritual Transformation Journey? Are we done?” I know that for some of you, it feels like our spiritual journey has stalled. While it is true that I have not talked or preached much about our spiritual journey this summer, it isn’t because we’ve ended this journey with a whimper. Far from it! My relative silence on this topic is due to the fact that I myself needed to go through a period of discernment and “incubation” so that I might be clear about what God is asking of me in this new phase of our journey. I spent parts of this summer reading, learning, praying, going on personal retreats—all for the sake of allowing God to reveal to me a clearer vision of our future.
As the summer draws to a close, so too ends my time of personal discernment. And today, I’m happy to announce that I’m more excited about our church’s spiritual journey than ever before! I might even dare to say that, during my time of discernment this summer, I feel like I have seen the Promised Land! I now have much greater clarity about the next steps of our journey, and I am excited and eager to lead the congregation to discern the specifics of what it means for Farmville Baptist to be the presence of Christ outside our walls. And I plan to share in detail my current understanding of God’s future for us in my September sermon series called “Gifts for the Journey.”
One main premise of “Gifts for the Journey” is my conviction that God has already gifted or is presently gifting us with everything we need to live into God’s future for us. God has gifted us with Jesus’ own mission to bless and redeem the world. God has gifted us with a “divine discontent” that refuses to settle for the way we “do church” today. God is offering to us the gift of knowing and befriending our neighbors through lives of radical hospitality. And God is inviting us to offer to our neighbors the gift of our lives—our time, our money, our listening ear, our helping hand—so that we might truly learn what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves. As you take steps to live out God’s gifts for the journey, I am convinced that God will reveal to you your role in God’s future story for Farmville Baptist just as God is revealing to me what my role will be. I have already come to realize that my role will NOT involve telling you what God’s plan is for you. My role as Pastor is to encourage you on your journey, to help you discover God’s plan for yourself, to equip you to follow that plan, and then to bless and release you to actually live it out!
Speaking about gifts for the journey, I also want to acknowledge how we have been blessed by the gifts of Anita Lynn in her role as Choir Director. She will be stepping down from that role at the end of this month so that she can focus on her new teaching job. Let us take the time to express our appreciation to Anita for her leadership with our sanctuary and bell choirs. Let us thank Sandy Yeatts for her willingness to serve as our interim sanctuary choir director. Let us pray for our Personnel Committee as they search for God’s person to lead in this role as we enter into a new phase in our church’s spiritual journey!
Journeying on, Michael
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