Our Blog

Spare Change January 2018

2017 has been a roller coaster of a year.  There have been many good things that have encouraged and uplifted me-- like my life group, my d-group (discipleship group), personal growth as a husband and father.  There have also been some bad things like deaths of treasured saints, death of a colleague, and other various ministry related personal issues;   however, through all the ups and downs God has taught me a lot.

1. Never Stop Personally Growing
Albert Einstein is famous for saying, “Once you stop learning, you start dying.” This past year has been a huge year for me in personal growth.  At the end of 2016 I didn’t like the person I had become so I challenged myself in the areas of leadership and temperament.  I have grown, and have more growing to do, but it dawned on me that we should never stop evaluating and growing.  We can’t think we have arrived, because we never do.  I challenge you to take a hard, honest look at the person you are, including your flaws.  What areas do you need to grow in?  Pray about it, ask others to help you, and read books.  Remember, you control who you are becoming.

2. Remain Positive
Wow, this was a revelation to me.  I had a friend notice that I had become increasingly negative.  Always seeing the problems with any idea.  I had lost my imagination and capacity to dream.  I had become a real-life Debbie Downer.  So, I took another hard look at my life and committed to try to be a more positive person.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t buy into the power of positive thinking/new age/dream board kind of thinking; however, I do feel that you can accomplish more, have deeper friendships, and be an overall better person if you try to be positive.  Just being open to new ideas and seeing how they might work will help you to be happier and more productive.

3. Remember What is Important
It is easy to lose sight of what is important and focus on the wrong things.  There are so many temptations to focus too much on things that really don’t matter.  One trap for many people is to focus on the hurts of the past instead of the blessings.  Charles Spurgeon once said, “… we write our benefits in dust and our injuries in marble, and it is equally true that we generally inscribe our afflictions upon brass, while the records of the deliverances of God are written in water.”  Do you forget the blessings in your life only to remember the afflictions?  We have to focus on what is truly important in life.  For me that is my faith, my family, and my friends.  Everything that is important to me revolves around relationships, so you could say that relationships are truly the most important things.  For a task-oriented person and recovering control freak, this can be difficult, but God has taught me through the painful lessons of friends dying over the past couple of years that it's people that matter.

4. The Pain of Death is Healed by the Gospel
As I said before I have experienced a lot of death over the past couple of years.  Double digits of faithful saints have passed away in our church, many that I was close too.  One person in particular I miss dearly, I often wish I could call her up so she could pray for various situations in my life.  I also experienced a painful loss of a colleague that shook me to the core.  If not for my faith, my family, and my friends I’m not sure I would have been able to cope with it.  This leads me to conclude that one of the worst things we can experience in this life is death.  Every time someone close to me dies, it feels like a little piece of my heart goes with them.  Their absences leave a little hole in my heart.  Thankfully, that hole is filled by Jesus.  Death does not mean the end for me or anyone that has the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  That is why I have resolved, in the face of death, to be more open with my faith than ever.  This pain is being transformed into a boldness to tell everyone that Jesus is our ONLY hope in the face of such pain and suffering.  I know I will see my beloved friends again.  I know even in my death I will be held fast by the righteous sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  HE IS MY HOPE!!!

Student Ministry January 2018

Dear Church Family,

 By the time you read this, Christmas will have been long behind us; at least a week or so anyway. I hope that you and your family had a great time together celebrating the coming of our Savior to the earth. I pray that there was little-to-no family drama, and that all the presents were exactly what they wanted. I hope that you were pleased with your presents too, of course. But I wonder, did you struggle at all to think of gifts that you actually wanted? I mean gifts within reason. I always ask Kayla for a brand-new Corvette every birthday and Christmas. That’s an easy one… and one I’ll probably never get, haha! But was it hard to think of things that you wanted for Christmas that you knew they could actually get you?

Some of you have no idea what I’m talking about, and that’s totally ok! But others know what it’s like to try to think of something you want, or even need (other than socks), to ask from others. Most of us living in the U.S. already have everything we could ever need. We also have many things that we simply want but don’t really need. If you’re like me, that can make it difficult to think of things to ask for from others. Did you find yourself thinking, “well no, I’ve already got one of those. Don’t need that either. Hmm, what do I want for Christmas?” I doubt that I’m the only one who had this experience.

Here’s my point; I find it interesting that we are not more aware of our extreme abundance at Christmas time. There are many people who feel their need the most at this time of year, but most of us have all we could ever truly need or want and more. Why aren’t we more content? Think about the new year that is upon us. People are far from content at the beginning of the new year. Instead we want change. We want things to be better. We want to be slimmer and manage our finances better and acquire more belongings that we think will make us happy. Did we not learn our lesson? Have we     already forgotten to be thankful? Have we forgotten that God has given us Himself in Christ so that we can have ultimate fulfillment through abiding in Him?

New Year’s resolutions can be quite helpful. But what kind of resolutions are we really making? Are we making a     resolution that finds our happiness in Christ, the One who’s birth we just celebrated? Or are we looking to the world for resolutions that it deems worthwhile? We cannot expect life to be very fruitful if we are making resolutions that are not first and foremost centered on Christ. Want to lose some weight? That’s great! But are we losing it for ourselves, or so we can be good stewards of the body God has given us? Want to have better time management? Superb! But why? So we can use time to be less stressed and more comfortable, or so we can use our time for God’s Kingdom and growing in Him and making Him known? Resolutions aren’t bad, but our motives matter immensely. What are your resolutions for this year, and how are they centered on Christ? I’ll tell you that our students need to see us adults be resolved to spend time in the Word and share the gospel. They need examples of godly resolutions. Will you help me be resolved to show that knowing Christ and being known by Him is better than all other resolutions?

Sincerely,
Brian Van Doren