April 2019 Newsletter Article - Pastor Roy

Pastor's Ponderings – April 2019

Well, come Monday morning it will be April, and with April comes the date of my having officially been with you all here in Lake City for four years.  It's gone extremely fast and I can hardly believe that it has been four years, it seems like just yesterday that Gail and I came to meet with the Search Committee.  But, we've managed to come a long way in those four years (though we remain to have a long way to go)... among other things, we've added the members of First Baptist Church to our family and we've become a dually affiliated congregation with both the Disciples of Christ and the American Baptist Churches.  This is without a doubt the greatest change/event for the Church in these past four years and thus far I think it has been the most significant and profitable.  Bringing the Baptist into our fold has been nothing but a blessing and I for one believe fully it was God's desire for this congregation.  Perhaps if I accomplish nothing else in the time we have left, this alone was why God called me here to Lake City.  I guess we'll all just have to wait and see what else the Lord has in store for us all in our time together.

On this anniversary month, Gail and I would like once again to thank you all for all you've done for us and for all the love and support you've provided to us.  We truly love this Church and Lake City, God Bless you all for being such a blessing to us!  Thank you and we look forward to many more 'adventures' with all of you in the years ahead.

This past month was a brutal one for Lake City in general and for all of us as a Church community, we had far, far too many deaths.  For us, at Woodlawn, we lost Lura Knipp who has many family members among our number, and of course, we lost Judy Stern.  Judy's funeral/memorial service is this coming Friday and I confess this has been one of the hardest funeral messages I've ever had to write.  How do you encapsulate Judy and her amazing spirit and devotion to her community, Family, and Church Family in mere words?  You honestly can't... Judy was almost literally always here, if we had a function going on Judy was always one of the souls that would be here.  She missed very, very few events or activities, when you needed a worker of almost any kind she'd be there with a smile and her dry wit ready and able.  It's been a very strange last few months without her here and now knowing that we won't see her again in this world, it is very difficult to accept.  We should all strive to live as true a Christian life as Judy did, as role-models go she was among the best I've ever seen in my Christian Walk.  God bless her and God comfort her family and all of us as well.

April of course also brings all the various events associated with Holy Week, look further along in this Newsletter for the calendar of events for Holy Week and mark your home calendars in order to take them all in... Easter time is such a wonderful time and one where we need to remember that this time of Lent which we are going through right now is a time to prepare our hearts, minds, and spirits in order to fully embrace the grace and gift of Easter Morning.

This Thursday night, I will be preaching over these verses in 2nd Corinthians 5:16-21:
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In these verses, Paul reminds us all that a major part of our walk with Christ and our duty as professing Christians is to be 'ambassadors for Christ' and to carry His message and goal of 'reconciliation' to the world.  We through this desired reconciliation are to no longer view each other from a 'human point of view' but we are instructed to see each other as children of the Most High God.  We are to be 'a new creation' and to see each other as 'a new creation'.  We all (myself included) need to constantly remember this in our dealings with each other... let us see the immortal spirit of the one with which we are dealing and not the frail and flawed human body that they are temporarily adorned within.

Be a blessing to someone today!
In Christ Alone, Pastor Roy