I am a little later than usual in putting out my blog because for the past few days I have been away at a pastor’s conference. The title of the event was “Deep and Wide.” I thought the timing of the event was interesting in light of the teaching series we have just begun entitled “Deeper.” The underlying premise of the conference dovetailed quite well with the overarching theme of this series. As believers we are called to be both deep and wide. We are wide in the sense that we want to share the love of Jesus broadly, reaching as many people as we can with the good news of his love. And we are deep in that we are called to grow continuously deeper in faith and in the likeness of Jesus.
Some of the hundreds of children that came through Sandown's Trunk or Treat
In order to truly live out the Christian life, we have to keep these two values in constant balance. If we only focus on going deeper, we may feel as though we have a stronger individual faith but we have done nothing to advance the mission of Christ, the salvation of the world. On the other hand, if we only go wide, sharing the good news of Jesus with many, but never maturing, we will remain spiritual infants all of our lives. If we do not grow and mature in our faith, our lives will resemble the parable of the house built upon the sand. When the storms of life come, our foundation is easily washed away and our faith collapses.
Being deep AND wide is important for us as individuals and as a church. Right now we are in the midst of a great teaching series that is helping (and challenging) us to grow deeper in our faith. But at the same time, we have opportunities all around us to go wide. Over the past week or so we organized three Trunk or Treat. These were great opportunities for broad outreach as hundreds of children and families visited our various locations. A week from Sunday we will observe our Veterans service. This is another great opportunity to go wide as we invite veterans that we may know to join us for that special service.
I’m very excited about this teaching series that we are in. Each week we are increasing our understanding of the many pathways by which we grow deeper in our faith. I’m equally excited about the outreach and invitational opportunities that are coming up. My prayer is that we will seize every opportunity to grow both deep and wide. I look forward to having you join us this Sunday as we experience and celebrate the love, hope and joy of Jesus!
God Bless,
Pastor Steve