WE HAVE A JOB TO DO

Sermon Notes, June 25, 2017

Rev. Garry McGlinchy

          

           Pastor Garry gave his report, titled "We Have a Job to Do" at the Annual Church Meeting on Sunday. 

           He started by summarizing the great things that God has been doing over the last year.  Giving has increased!  Membership has increased! Our worship attendance has increased!  We have a nursery director!  Our Youth is increasing, slowly but surely!  We have new signs that were donated!  We have added audio recordings of our weekly sermons.  There are still some more bugs to work out; however, we have it!  We have a good relationship with our landlord, who has been good to us.  Things are moving forward in this church!

           Yet there is more that needs to be done.  Earlier this month Pastor Garry and the Church Board looked at every aspect of Hope Community.  He asked two simple questions: What are we doing well? and What needs improvement? 

           They looked at everything, from the facilities to him as the pastor.  We did this to help us focus on areas where we often fall short.  With that said, one of the things that you can expect to see from pastor and board is that we are putting together a team of people dedicated to reaching out to first-time visitors and people who we haven't seen in a few weeks.  So if you are the type of person that doesn't mind making phone calls, or writing letters,  please let the pastor or one of the board members know, and we will include you with this team.

           We have a job to do.  Over the last year, Pastor has started to work on his Master of Ministry degree.  Along with this, he has had the opportunity to take several webinars revolving around effective preaching and ministry.  One of the webinars was on evangelism.  In this webinar they had to ask themselves "What degree am I?"  Here's what this question means: on a scale from 1-10, where would you rate your level of evangelism?  Think about that for a moment.

           Over the last year, our District Superintendent, Dr. Fuller, has been asking pastors here in Virginia the same question.  At the Pastors Zone Huddle in the Battlefield Zone with 20 pastors in attendance, Dr. Fuller asked, "How many of you have led someone to Christ this year?"  Of the 20, three raised their hands.  Pastor Garry was not in attendance; however, if he had been, he would have been the fourth.  He dared to ask the same question of this church.

           Is one of the reasons that so many of us have not led someone to Christ is because we have not been trained how to?  With our society changing, the way we witness to this broken world is changing as well!  We have a job to do!  Have we forgotten the words of our Lord?  Matthew 28:16-20, the Great Commission says,

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”