Pastor’s Report—January 2015
Even as
I write the date, January 2015, I am stunned that this next quarter, God
willing, Mary Ann and I will finish our fifth year in Boothbay! The last
quarter of the calendar year is full of activities that kept many in our
fellowship engaged, including the “Trunk or Treat” outreach in October where hundreds
of gospel tracts were distributed as well as many Bibles and New Testaments
(along with food, candy, and refreshments!). This has become a popular event
for many families in our community.
Weather caused our Thanksgiving Eve service to be cancelled this year,
but we had an excellent month long celebration of the Advent season, capped by
a joint service with Boothbay Region Community Fellowship here at our church on
Christmas Eve. Once again on New Years Eve we read aloud through the entire
book of Revelation, and sang songs praising our great God and Savior, Jesus
Christ. Afterward those who could stay gathered for a time of fellowship at the
parsonage.
This
year has been an encouraging one in terms of the involvement of many in our
body in some aspect of ministry. Our
small but committed team of elders are working alongside our faithful
deaconesses and deacons to help in both shepherding our church and being
sensitive to needs in our community. We
are blessed to have a large percentage of our body engaged in some aspect of
ministry in the body and beyond. It’s been exciting to see many participate in
leading Bible studies, teaching Sunday School, participating in our music and
praise ministry, helping in Children’s Church, taking a turn in nursery, bringing
meals to the sick and shut-ins, volunteering time to maintain our buildings and
property, removing snow, providing transportation or other assistance to those
in need, and many other ongoing ministries that only the Lord knows about. This
kind of involvement is healthy Christianity and will over time have an impact
on both our church and our community.
I have enjoyed preaching Sunday
mornings, occasionally helping in Sunday School, and leading many of the
devotionals on Wednesday evening. I’ve
decided this calendar year to take a break from our preaching series in Acts
and to now look in depth at Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. It’s been
25 years since I did a series on this book, and I think this will be a
practical study, as in many respects the underlying issues in Corinth were not
too different from some of the key issues we are facing today. I appreciate your prayers as we look together
at this epistle. Our Wednesday evening service includes a devotional time in
which we’ve been working through the Book of Psalms, followed by prayer. Mary
Ann and I host an in home Bible Study on Thursday evening which uses the study
questions from our Sunday message. We’re blessed to have music, prayer, and
fellowship as components of that weekly meeting. Counselling for couples and
individuals continues to be an important part of my shepherding responsibility, and
I am blessed to be available to confidentially help when needed. We are to “bear
one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” This semester, with
the permission of the elders, I will be teaching a class on “New Testament
Survey” at New England Bible College. The college allows students to audit one
class for free, so if you are available on Wednesday afternoon you would be
welcome!
May we continue to grow toward
fulfilling our vision of being “a community of Christ followers rooted in the
Word, treasuring God as supremely valuable, and proclaiming the riches of His
grace to the world.”
Your
co-workers in Christ,
Pastor
Steve and Mary Ann
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