Church Family,
As I am writing this, it is the first day of summer for my three kids. I can’t believe the school year is already over…time has flown by! With summer now here, I wanted to share with you some exciting things happening in the life of our church.
First, we are going to spend the summer diving into different parables that Jesus taught. What is the main reason behind Jesus telling parables? I can distinctly remember being taught that parables were stories about how we should live. That we are supposed to be good, moral people.
However, we make a mistake when we equate parables with fables, stories that are just giving us a good moral lesson. Jared Wilson, in Storytelling God, writes, “The parables function in Jesus’s ministry as representative stories about Kingdom of God.” He later adds that they are “postcards from heaven” and that the stories “contained the mystery of eternal life.”
I love parables being described that way. Stories that give us a glimpse of how God’s Kingdom is supposed to operate. It’s time for us to move past our preconceived ideas of the parables just being good stories, and instead, seeing them as stories about the Kingdom of God.
Our summer sermon series will be all about the parables. It’s going to be called “True Fiction,” because these are fictional stories that Jesus shared in order to communicate deep biblical truth. It is my prayer that it will help shed new light on this stories that we all have heard before.
These parables were told by Jesus not to direct us to be good and moral, but to drive us to worship him as he exposes how his will should be done on earth as it is in heaven.
When it comes to knowing his will, we all know of God’s desire for all people and all nations to come to know Him. Missions really is God’s heartbeat! Throughout the summer, you are going to get the chance to pray for and to participate in local, national, and international mission opportunities.
Internationally, we are going to be taking a team back to the Dominican Republic in July. To help this team, we are going to be collecting different colors of sharpies (not just black!) and flip flops to take with us as we go and serve in San Pedro de Macoris. Please pray for this team, and also bring some supplies as we go to bless this community that we have partnered with for 5 years now!
Nationally, our youth are heading out to Washington, D.C. in June. Please be praying for them as they go to share the Gospel and serve in our nation’s capital.
Locally, we have the most important outreach opportunity of the year coming up in July. It is the most effective local missions event that we do every year. Do you know what it is? Vacation Bible School! More decisions are made for Christ at VBS than any other outreach event. We can change lives for eternity at VBS! Please be praying for our VBS, and pray about how you can serve that week!
I can’t wait to see how God moves over the next few months. Please join me in praying that our church continues to build our lives on Jesus and pursues the good of our community for God’s glory this summer!
In Him,
Pastor Zach Crook