I love our church! As many of you know, it has been a challenging season in the Murray household. It has been a little over a year now since Nicole began her battle with cancer. A few months after she was diagnosed, our son Christopher started dialysis, and we began working towards kidney transplant. Through it all, the outpouring of love and support from our church has been incredible.
Nicole and I have just been overwhelmed by the expressions of love that we have received in this season. The prayers poured out for strength and healing on behalf of our family have been innumerable. The offers of help have been more plentiful than we even know what to do with. It has been truly humbling to be the recipients of such grace. We would be hard pressed to find the words to fully express our gratitude.
I was reading this morning from I Corinthians 13 in preparation for tomorrow's First 5 daily devotional. You may know that this is a chapter in which Paul describes the true nature of love. Here he reminds the Corinthian church, and those of us who read it centuries later, that nothing we do matters without love. You and I can possess great talents and spiritual gifts, we can achieve great accomplishments, but without love it is just a lot of noise.
Livestream production behind the scenes!
I praise God today that we are part of a church that is built on a foundation of love. I have observed this not only as it has been expressed to my own family, but to so many others in our church. For example, last week a good friend passed away after an extended battle cancer. I was awed by the way members of our church, and particularly his life group, supported he and his family as they walked this difficult path. During this Covid crisis I've watched people reach out in love to support many others who were struggling. If I had the time, I could share story after story of love and kindness.
Today I want to express my appreciation for all the ways that each of you are being “the church,” the embodiment of Christ in our world. In so many ways you are living out a phrase we regularly share at Rock Church. Love God. Love others. Do good. As we continue to move forward, I would encourage us with the same words Paul encouraged the Galatian church: “Let us not grow weary in doing good.” May we continue to reflect the love of Christ at every opportunity and in all we do.
I want to let you know that this Sunday, along with the livestream, we will have an outdoor in-person service at our Plaistow location at 9:30 am. This will be the closing service for “RockFest.” (our in-house Soulfest alternative). As such, the music will be led by our youth band and the message will be shared by one of our youth leaders Heidi Mongeau.
Have a blessed week.
Pastor Steve
PS. On Sept 13 we will be launch a new session of ROOTED. If you would like to know more about this powerful 10 week lifegroup experience, visit the info page at this link.