Baby Pools and Nerves

Hello Emmanuel,

I’m excited about the next couple of Sundays.  I want to extend a special invitation for you to attend and to pay extra attention to what God might be saying to us.

On July 20^th there will be some special sharing.  First, I will be preaching on what I think God is saying to Emmanuel about how to tackle the future.  I have hinted and talked about this in general ways the past year, but this will be the week to get a bit more specific.  I believe Emmanuel is now poised to push ourselves to listen more closely to what God may want from us and to go and do.  I will also identify what I see as potential ‘cages’ (from the recent series ‘Wild Goose Chase’) in which Emmanuel could get trapped and how to avoid those cages.

In addition, there will be significant sharing from our leaders about your recent Youth/Children ministries:  mission trips, camps and Vacation Bible School will have happened and we want you to know the highlights. 

On July 27^th there will be a showering of God’s grace… literally!  Have you ever seen a baby pool in the sanctuary?  4 baptisms are scheduled and as many as 5 people will be joining the church.  Services such as this are at the crux of disciple-making:  celebrating God’s grace and watching individuals and congregation commit themselves to a supportive relationship with one another.

In the midst of all of this, I will admit that I’m a bit nervous, not because of what is on my heart, but because of what challenges I may need to overcome in the not-so-near future.  It’s been a while since I’ve really been asked to stretch myself as a leader.  Much of what I’ve been able to do at Emmanuel has been a natural extension of what I learned as a leader in my previous appointment (i.e.  administrative structure, Small Groups, one-on-one mentoring) .  To go further as a church means that I’ll need to go further as a leader.  Scared?  Yep… me too.

But what I also learned in my previous appointment is that when fear and anxiety is overcome, blessings abound.  I have learned it over and over again.  You would think I’d stop being nervous about it.  However, our tendency is to rely on ourselves instead of relying on the One who is our true Leader.  This time, I think I’ll try harder to just let God be God and relax. 

God is Good,

Pastor Joe