What Stays the Same
This has been a busy month for our church. From voting on a NextGen Pastor candidate to a business meeting in which we covered a lot of ground, many things are happening at Fee Fee. And to top it all off, we have launched an initiative to invite 10,000 unchurched people to join us at one of our gatherings this year. As the Holy Spirit moves through us in our gospel conversations, more things are likely to change at this church. We’ll see more people in our gatherings. We’ll expand our Sunday school and small groups. We’ll have logistical issues to figure out. And while change is not inherently good or bad, at times it can feel overwhelming.
In exciting but change-filled times like these, we need to hold on to two truths as a church: our God never changes, and neither does our mission.
God repeated the idea that he never changes multiple times in Scripture to several different audiences. Through the prophet Malachi, God reminded the Israelites that he doesn’t change (Malachi 3:6). In Psalm 102:27, we see that God is constant and that his years have no end. In Hebrews 13:8, we learn that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If you’re somebody who doesn’t like change, then I have good news for you: we serve an unchanging God.
Additionally, while our church looks very different today than it did in 1807, we have an unchanging mission. We have always existed as a church to connect people to the unifying and life-transforming power of the gospel. We may not have used those words, but for over two hundred years, we have been a gospel witness to the Bridgeton area and beyond. It’s never been about the programs or the “way we do things”; God placed us and has sustained us for centuries so that people in our community and around the world can learn of the salvation available to them through Jesus Christ.
While change can cause us to feel disoriented and uneasy, we can stand firm on the unchanging nature of God and our unchanging mission as a body of believers. Moreover, our unchanging God has done some amazing things over the past two hundred years through our church, and I cannot wait to see what he does through us in the coming months and years as we continue our unchanging mission to connect people to the gospel.
In Christ,
Pastor Britton