Hebrews 10:24-25, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
If you’ve been around Faith Community Church (FCC) for a while, you’ll know that in some ways, it’s been a difficult last few years. Joy and goodness are always here because of Christ in and among us, but Covid and transitions have made it a more painful journey at times. Many people are weary and exhausted. Often this is the tension of God’s children - the hope that Christ is to His Church alongside the heaviness of a broken world; “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” (2 Cor 6:10)
A friend recently compared our covenant to the local church with the covenant of marriage. She said, “Now, we’ve entered a season as a church body that feels an awful lot like ‘worse’ and ‘sickness’”. We commit to love and support our spouse in sickness and in health, for better or for worse; we should also be loving and supporting our faith family through sickness and in health, for better or for worse. The Church is our related-by-blood family. Jesus bought us with His own blood, shed on the cross (Acts 20:28); and, if we’re joined to Him, we are joined to all other Believers.
We are, of course, to love everyone, but there should be a special burden for the brothers and sisters in our local church. I look around at the people of FCC and have a deep, Holy Spirit-given love for all of you. Because of that supernatural love, I want more than anything for FCC to move forward together - not just surviving but increasingly functioning well. I want us to be filled with strength and health. A church where we look like a living picture of the gospel, overflowing with forgiveness, grace and care. Something completely different from the world. “That you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world”. (Phil 2:15)
...not just surviving but increasingly functioning well. I want us to be filled with strength and health.
Do you hunger for that? If so, do you know that God already has a plan in place that would help us shine in a dark world? One major piece of His plan is that the members of the local body attach themselves to each other. We pull each other up and spur one another on to learn and grow into Christ - who is our head. In fact, God doesn’t just ask us to do this, He calls us to it. It is our job as Believers. This job is called mentoring (discipling) and it’s found throughout the entire Bible; not just in the Gospels or Titus, but in almost every book of the Bible - Old and New Testament.
Because mentoring is a vital part to the building up of FCC, the women's ministry will be putting out an ongoing blog for the ladies here. What does it look like, specifically among women, to create a beautiful local church community that is committed to God’s Word and to one another? Next time, we’ll look at Jesus’s life on earth and learn straight from Him how we should think about mentoring.
Love this! So much!