Follow up

Hey all,

It’s been a little over a month since we were together and the Lord has certainly been keeping us and working for us in this New Year. After getting over the weeks of sickness and make up homework we are looking forward to the spring. We finally got around to taking our christmas tree down last saturday! Jacob turned 17 yesterday and we had my sister and her family over for dinner to celebrate. Anyway, I wanted to express our thanks again to all for your hospitality but especially for the fellowship in the Lord we shared. I was and am still encouraged by our conversations and wanted to let you know some things the Lord has brought about for us in the meantime for which we could use prayer:

I have been asked to lead a Bible study at a low income/welfare apartment complex which is located next to our church in Willow Grove. The associate pastor knows a few of the residents who are willing to host and who have tried to gather in the past. So this isn’t starting completely from scratch although I personally don’t know anyone.  I hope to begin easy with the gospel of Mark and keep Jesus as the focus of the conversation while getting to know everyone.  I plan to bring Jake and Joe and see if there are other teens who may want to be a part of the study.  Please pray that God will bless this.  Of course I will be entering a different culture in that the residents are all Philadelphian African Americans. Our country has recently been more whipped up then ever in our awareness of the division of race and class, have’s and have nots etc. Please pray that the Gospel of reconciliation makes a difference in a few of our lives! We prayed when last together as families that God would make us useful to the purpose of his kingdom.  He answers prayer! The study starts this coming Thursday and I’ve got some preparing to do. Any suggestions or guidance is appreciated!

The first Sunday after we returned from Lookout Mountain our pastor preached a New Year themed message from 2Peter 3:18: “Growing in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” I began working on a response sermon that week which I have just finally finished. Gee, I wonder who I know that does that? However I don’t have Gary’s ability to whip out a precisely pointed two or three pager between sips of water at the racket ball court.  I was hoping to connect the dots from some of our discussions and address how  Christ-centered preaching aimed at the heart might address the urgency of the mission of the church, obedience to God’s word, ignorance/indifference to who our Savior is, spiritual lethargy of our day,etc.

Meanwhile a suggestion made in an “evangelism committee” meeting at my church has been implemented in our worship service (only one session member out of 10 -15 congregants in the committee). We all now take a moment for silent prayer before the corporate prayer in order to pray for three of our unbelieving friends to come to know the Lord. This is a few weeks after “super bowl Sunday” when nonbelievers were invited to bible study group – hosted super bowl parties in order to “outreach”.  By the way I am for outreach. My concerns between the lines here are basically that we can’t lead in the gospel if we aren’t living out the gospel. I thought I would pass my cover letter and response to  2Peter3:18 on to those of you who were part of those holiday conversations via e mail and share with you my request in the cover letter to the pastors of the church for a solution to the larger problem. I understand that we (all of us in our extended family) won’t agree on every last thing but we are loved by the same Lord and so I value the way we can encourage one another in our callings and to advance God’s Kingdom.

Adam

p.s. I hope the emails on the blog are current.