Faithful

Last night Jamie and I were laying in bed talking and she asked me how I was feeling about the church. I told her I felt very good about Living Hope. I still love this church almost as much as my own family and love being her pastor. I also told Jamie that sometimes it's easy to feel impatient, though. I know for some pastors things move lightening-fast. We hear stories of churches that grow from 4 to 4,000 in 4 years, or churches that had a vision for a big mission or ministry and God dropped a $4,000,000 gift in their laps and it moved from dream to reality overnight. But for the other 99.9% of us, ministry moves a little slower.

Even though I'm a big dreamer and fully expect God to blow us away with all that he'll accomplish in and through Living Hope Church, I told Jamie last night that I'm not at all discouraged by the slow pace. The reason is that I have this overwhelming sense that we're being faithful. I believe we are seeking the face of Jesus earnestly. I believe we are loving each other sincerely. I believe that we are serving this community and the rest of the world humbly. And I believe we give of ourselves and our resources sacrificially. In the end, that's what we're called to do. The question will be, "Were you faithful?"

That's not to say, that we couldn't write a 200 page book on all the ways we could improve our ministries and all the people that we're not reaching that we could and should be reaching. But I feel like we're serving God faithfully. We'll continue to allow him to change and improve us and we'll trust him for the increase. I would rather us be a healthy, faithful church that grows according to God's timeline, than for us to manufacture unnatural growth because we covet what other churches have.

I write all this to say, Living Hopers, if you're serving God faithfully, keep it up. Keep serving, loving, worshipping, giving, praying, studying, sharing, and dreaming! If you're not, then get on board, because we need you!