It’s time to get the family together.
Last summer, Sandy’s family held a family reunion at the riverhouse. She
and her cousin Amy put an incredible amount of time and energy into drawing
folks together, organizing a potluck, a river float and activities exploring
their family history. They had a great turnout, and they had a ball. People
came from all over the country. They’d all known each other since birth,
but they learned things about their ancestors and about each other they’d
never known before. Time and work and life send people in lots of different
directions, and sometimes you need a refresher course in who you belong to,
what you’re part of, how to play together.
It’s time for the family of Good Shepherd to hold a reunion, too. We’ve
traveled a long way in the last twelve years or so. We’ve acquired a number
of new members and friends. We’ve built a brand new house for the church,
and we’ve been living in it now for over six months. These events have
pushed us in new directions, posed a few new problems, created many new opportunities.
We need to take a little time to celebrate what God’s enabled us to accomplish,
to consider what God may be asking us to accomplish next, and figure out what
tools we’ll need to accomplish those tasks. We need to set loose the Holy
Spirit among us, to set loose our God-given gifts for building up the Kingdom
of God.
Churches call that type of reunion a retreat. We’ve held a congregational
retreat whenever we faced an important juncture, a fork in the road; this retreat
will be our fourth. Our first retreat resulted in our mission statement, our
second explored ministry development, our third prepared us for the capital
appeal and building process, and introduced us to Natural Church Development.
At Church Council’s request, Bill Nicholas, Pastor Paul Kehnle and I have
been working on plans for our next congregational retreat, Saturday, March 13,
from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm.
Lutherans believe God speaks through the people of God. I hope you’ll
join us at the next family reunion. I’m looking forward to hearing what
God might have to say.
Pastor Jim
O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things. Psalm 98:1
From the Shepherd's Song Newsletter -- March 2010
Copyright 2010 by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Close this window to return to the list of Pastor's Thoughts.
E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at good.shep-holland@sbcglobalnet.