Blog

We’ve had a lot of weddings this year. I have asked this question many times, “Do you promise to love, honor and trust him/her in sickness and in health, adversity and prosperity, and to be true and loyal to him/her so long as you both shall live.” The expected answer is, “I do.” It would be quite unsettling if the bride or groom said, “No way.” Weddings are about promises made before God and “these witnesses.”

Our mission is to glorify God by developing followers of Jesus for life. That is not only our mission, that is the mission of the church. Missionaries are those individuals that go to unreached people groups for the purpose of evangelism, discipleship and church planting. That requires a huge support network that we refer to as missional partnerships.

We’ve been studying the parallel and interwoven stories of Saul and David. They worked together. They had conflicts. They both had lapses in faith and at times, lived contrary to God’s good ways. In some ways they were similar but on a heart level, they were different. When David was confronted with truth, he repented. When Saul was confronted, his heart became harder.

There are certain geographic locations that remind us of difficult times but there are also places that remind us of grace. Hopefully you have a place or two that evokes memories of God’s goodness and kindness toward you. We often refer to places like that as “Bethel.” Bethel means “house of God,” it’s the place where Jacob met with God.

Is it possible to grow in faith? The words of Jesus to His disciples imply that this is possible. We have Biblical record that He sometimes said to people who believed in Him, “O ye of little faith.” Sometimes He said, “Where is your faith?” One guy said, “I believe, help my unbelief.” Jesus didn’t rebuke him for saying that. What would a growing faith look like? People have been writing about this idea for a long time, and their writings are profitable.