A Beautiful Church!

What a wonderful weekend we have shared as a Church family over these last three days! Friday was a happy and blessed time of reflection, remembrance, and fellowship. We enjoyed each other, a great meal, and an encouraging message from Don Lusk.

Saturday was exactly as advertised, "A Party!" Well over one hundred people come together to play and eat and to share our thanks to God by giving gifts to the people of our Community.

Today, was as expected, "the icing on the cake." We shared a wonderful day of music and singing, three baptisms, a great passage of Scripture, and, we tossed our copies of the original mortgage into a burn barrel and thanked the Lord for enabling us to pay off our building debt more than four years early!

On each of these special days, we had great fellowship among our faithful members and we enjoyed the presence of several visitors!

This afternoon I have been thinking about the lessons from this weekend, and one stands out more clearly to me than any other: OUR BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS ARE NOT OUR CHURCH... WE ARE!

Yes, we went into the Sanctuary to sing and give thanks to God on Friday after watching a video of it's construction; but, I realized that we had not been watching the building of a Church, but we were watching the Church building a building!

We were in and out of the fellowship hall, kitchen, and foyer on Saturday as we set up outside for the Block Party; but, I realized that we were not going in and out of the Church, the Church was going in and out of the building!

We gathered together in the Sanctuary this morning for worship; but, I realized that we were not worshipping in the Church, the Church was worshipping in the building!

Thank God for our three beautiful, useful, and debt-free buildings; but, these buildings are not the Church - we are! How we thank God for each other, for being family, and for the profuse and public love that we have for one another.

People often comment about our facilities, "this is a beautiful church!" I instantly agree with them and quickly add, "and the buildings are not bad either."

We are a beautiful Church meeting in a beautiful place. I love you, I thank God for you, and I rejoice in the happy providence of being your Pastor.

Lesson learned. God bless you.