Note from Pastor Mike following Life Action Summit
I wanted to share something on my heart with you today.
“Back to normal.”
After the COVID shutdown in 2020 that was a constant plea, we just want things to go back to normal. And they never did. Normal is most often a romanticized notion of a perceived better time. The reality is we’re commonly resistant to change and we simply want things like they were so we don’t have to adjust.
As a church family we are coming out of a time of intense spiritual reflection and growth. God worked and is still working. I pray that we never go back to normal, I pray we continue to move forward in His power and presence. How do we do that? The answer is not hard, it simply requires our discipline, spiritual discipline.
Pray: spend daily time with God. Many of us prayed with more intentionality leading up to the Life Action Summit, continuing in that intensity and intentionality. As you do, are you praying for lost folks? One night we were challenged to write the names of 3-5 lost folks on a card and pray for them daily until they are saved. My card is in my Bible where I can’t help but see it. I read from a fellow pastor a few weeks back, “What if this Sunday God answered every prayer for the lost friends you are praying for, how many people would be saved?” That convicted me. Let us keep praying!
Read: read God’s word, daily. That seems so difficult, but examine your life and consider what activities you commit 30 minutes to daily. Television news, social media, surfing the internet… replace one of those with 30 minutes in God’s word, reading and listening to Him. It’s that simple to make time for His word.
Engage with your church family: This past Sunday morning our small groups were filled, even new people to the church family were in attendance. Praise God. Be in His house to worship and fellowship. Find a place to serve. Very soon we will have a couple of summer mission trip opportunities. Everyone can’t participate, but the ones who can should. Serve and encourage one another.
If we don’t want to spiritually get back to normal, we have to do things differently than we did before. This isn’t about activity, it’s about priority and desiring our relationship with God more than anything else. Is he on the throne of your life or is he misplaced?
Church, let’s pursue our God more than ever as a church family and continue to see what HE will do.
Let us not return to normal,
Pastor Mike