Connecting the Disconnected
A few times every year, the Pastoral Team heads off to Pacific Beach for a retreat to spend time together asking God what He has in store for us as a church in this next season. I love our times spent sharing meals, praying, going for runs on the beach, studying Scripture, toasting marshmallows, and huddling around the fireplace as the Pacific Ocean blows in another rainstorm.
I love it all, except… AT&T has (virtually) no cell service out there, and I am left (almost) entirely disconnected. At the home we stay in, there is one spot on the corner of the balcony where if you hold your phone with just the right grip (very lightly on the edges), at just the right height (about 8 feet high), it picks up just enough signal to sync up with the cloud and allow me to re-connect for a brief moment before the signal drops. Meanwhile, the more intelligent members of the pastoral team (the ones who went with Verizon) sit in their comfy chairs by the fire, texting and emailing to their hearts’ content, while I am standing out in the rain looking somewhat like an outfielder making a catch over the edge of the balcony.
Sometimes, I wonder if life’s circumstances can make us equally disconnected with God and His family—the Church. We can find ourselves in seasons where it can be hard to make time and space to connect with God both on a personal level and together as a community. Maybe it hurts too much, maybe it doesn’t fit with our schedules, maybe we just don’t ‘feel’ it any longer. I understand it; life gets hard, busy, overwhelming…
But it is not how we were designed. We were made by God in His image (Genesis 1:27), created as relational beings who are designed to be relationally connected to both God and to His people. And when we are connected to the Author of Life, we receive true life; when we are connected to the Body of Christ, we receive the ministry of Christ. And through those connections, our lives are transformed and we become the complete people God destined us to be.
That’s why we are launching a Saturday evening worship service this fall. We don’t want people in this church to live lives disconnected from God and His family, and we don’t want people outside of the Church to remain disconnected. We know that through being connected to God and connected to His family, true life can be found. And we believe that Saturday evenings will provide an opportunity for us to do just that, as we gather in a smaller, more intimate venue, for an opportunity to connect with God and with one another in a new way.
So if you are feeling disconnected from God and His family, we’d love to see you at 6.30 in the Memorial Chapel on Saturday nights starting September 19. And if you are passionate about connecting people who are disconnected, then we would love you to be a part of that service too, as we work together to present everyone mature in Christ.
In preparation for that, we feel called to a season of prayer on Saturday nights over the summer; praying that God would indeed connected the disconnected and use this worship service to do so. If you want to join us in prayer, we are gathering tonight (July 25) in the Memorial Chapel at 6.30 and will do so every other Saturday until the service launches. Please come and pray that God will draw people back into relationship with Him and with His family through this new worship service.
Ellis