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Dear Grace Family,
What is your response when you crest a ridge and see before you a scattering of majestic peaks and towering pines? What is your response when you witness a magnificent sunset and soon after stars and planets at distances unimaginable? How do you respond to the miracle of birth, the miracle of love, the miracle of friendship? For many of us, our response moves us beyond ourselves. Even in the unspoken thoughts of our mind and soul, we acknowledge a power beyond human power. And we worship.
This Sunday we are in the second of a seven-week sermon series taking seriously the question, “Why Church?” “I can worship God on my own hiking in the mountains, swinging a golf club, drinking a cup of hot coffee or downing a cold beer. Why do I need the church?” Are there good God-given reasons for the Church? Because making a commitment to a Church community is not for the timid, especially in our current day and age.
This Sunday, while a large percentage of Americans still self-identify as Christian, more and more believe the church is unnecessary. Some even see the Christian Church as a hinderance to social progress, a place that is hate-filled, a place to be avoided. Those are conclusions reached by those who misunderstand the Church, and God’s intentions for the Church. Is the Church, including Grace of Christ, imperfect? Yes! But the Church, Grace too, is still God’s chosen organism to bring the hope and love of Jesus to a world desperate for real truth, love, compassion, and relationships.
This series is not an act of desperation. It is not an attempt to beg, badger, or argue, in order to convince people to come back to, or begin to attend, church. It is meant to be an intentional, scripture-based, communication of God’s desire for the church and our part in it. The entire story of God creating us, rescuing us, calling us into a relationship with Him, is about “we” not “I”. Christian life is contra-American individualism. Christian life is an invitation to community.
In Christ,
Pastor Curt McFarland
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