MAY 2017 PASTORS POINTS
Dear Church Family,
I love you! I mean that with all my heart. I love my church family! Every single one of you! I never want you to doubt that. Ever! For almost eleven years I have been at this church as pastor and I have signed every letter by ending with… “I love you and I love being your pastor.” And, that has been true every time I have written it. You know love for one another is key for a church to be vibrant, growing, and healthy. It is not optional for me to love you. It is not optional for you to love me. We must make it our aim to show and give love to all those who are in our church family, as well as those we are trying to reach.
This week I was reading a devotional by James Mac Donald and in it he shared these words…
“I did not feel loved in the church that I grew up in. Not at all. Oh, there might have been one or two exceptions. But most of the time, I felt inspected, I felt measured, I felt judged, I felt sometimes excluded, but I did not feel loved in the church when I was young. I could quote verses like, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35), but I wasn’t seeing it or feeling it. Now before you conclude I’m piling on my childhood church, let me confess they didn’t get a lot of love from me either. It took me a lot of years—I mean, I learned to love God, I learned to love God's Word, but I did not learn how to love people in the church that I grew up in. It doesn't surprise me that there are many people that feel that way. Now, that is an awful tragedy. Jesus says this is like the big deal—loving one another. You've got to have this! It's a rough world out there. Church must be a place where I come and feel loved by people with authentic love.”
Mac Donald then shares his heart for his church when he writes this…
“I want to declare this. Our church is going hard after loving one another. You are loved here—not perfectly, but permanently you are loved here. Not 100% faithfully, okay, because we're all sinners, but you are loved fervently here. We want Jesus’ words to come true and be true among us! I believe with all my heart, we must embrace this as job-number-one, horizontally speaking. People need to see and they need to experience directly the way we love one another! That’s the first step in the second part of the great commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself.”
And I want to declare this for our church as well! May our love grow for our God and for one another so we can fulfill what God has for us to do!!
I love you and I love being you pastor!!!
Pastor Alan