There is lots to enjoy about the holidays, but if we could (collectively) pick one thing it might be meeting our friend's families.
Thanks for bringing your families to church. There's nothing sweeter than seeing a younger sister tugging on the arm of a dear friend. Or a mother or father who visits us every year or so...it's like a family reunion.
David shared this testimony last Sunday...
My first Sunday here was like nothing I had ever experienced. I was surrounded by some of the most loving people I had ever met and the sermon was drenched in the gospel. I decided that morning that you would be my new home and I never left. That was years ago.
Now God is calling me to serve in the Air Force and it’s difficult to communicate what you have meant to me. I certainly look forward to what God has planned for me in the service. And please pray for me!
Pray that God would bring me other Christians to fellowship with and that together we can be a light to the military community.
Some of you have become like mothers to me, others like fathers and brothers and sisters. Your love for me was part of how God changed me. I won’t soon forget.
I will also miss having the youth of this church running and giving me a hug every Sunday when they saw me. A single man needs to be part of families. It helps ground us. It helps us feel like we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Thank you for sharing with me. I won’t forget this either.
Please keep loving men like me. Make room for us in your lives and this church. God is using you. It makes all the difference.
Randomly selected Uhaul truck or Canadian propaganda, eh?
Paul: This is a hard question to answer. I originally came to Orange County to serve in an unrelated church plant. I love the everyone there; it was home for me and it’s where I met Andrea.
However, over time we found ourselves afraid to speak freely about our lives and struggled painfully in silence. The church seemed to value the appearance of righteousness more than being honest, and when we needed grace the most, we were treated harshly.
We felt hurt and decided to find a new church.
Andrea: I still remember our first few weeks. Strangers treated us like long-time friends and welcome us into their homes. It was so genuine. I remember sitting in a small group meeting where you were all sharing the ups and downs of your lives. Everyone was responding with grace and love. I decided I wanted to be part of this church.
Paul: Yet as time went on, the resentment and anger we felt against our previous church overwhelmed us and was impossible to ignore any longer. We began to fear the same thing would happen again and we left Sovereign Grace. I told myself that I would never go to church again.
Paul: By God’s grace, I soon realized how much I needed to grow and my heart longed to enjoy fellowship again. You (Sovereign Grace) had left an unforgettable impression on us. It was here that we found people living out the gospel in community. You embrace one another not according to merit but genuine love. I couldn’t stay away.
Andrea: Six months ago we took what we learned from you and applied it to our broken relationships at that prior church. We asked for their forgiveness and sought reconciliation and gained our old friends back.
Thank you for loving us twice.
Every once in a while one of our small groups goes rogue and decides to meet on a 5th Wednesday...despite our neat little church calendar that says 2nd and 4th Wednesdays only.
This month the Old Towne Orange groups arranged a scavenger hunt that included among other shenanigans: howling at the moon by the Plaza fountain, reverse trick or treating, performed "Thriller" as a group (in public), and sent a member into Cafe Lucca dressed as a mummy to order "booberry gelato".
On behalf of Mike and I, thank you for your encouragement. We are the recipients of what often feels like daily, if not weekly, words of kindness and thankfulness. And it is strengthening us in ways you don't even know.
We found the note pictured above waiting for us at the recent Sovereign Grace Pastors Conference and I (Eric) have to admit, I was unprepared for how much it blessed me. It wasn't so much that I was feeling weary or had forgotten all the ways God is at work in all of us. It was how "personal" pastoral ministry has become to us.
From Pastor Eric...
I wish I could have brought you all (or y'all) with me last Saturday. Sometimes it's helpful just to step outside your own zip code. I spent the weekend with our sister church in Nashville, TN.
They celebrated their one year anniversary two weekends ago and this past Saturday night they baptized their first new Christian, Hunter. I can't tell you what an honor it was to stand in what felt like the middle of nowhere (the church is outside the city of Franklin...which is outside the city of Nashville...which is in Tennessee...which is beautiful) and celebrate the liberating power of the gospel with these good people.
They love Jesus. They love their church. They love the lost and they are laying it all on the line to see God save their neighbors. You and Redeeming Grace are cut from the same cloth.
Thanks for sending me.
