Annual Church meeting

Shari and I took part in our first annual business meeting last night. The out-going chairman gave a good message at the beginning, and then Pastor Jeff gave a fantastic message at the end. In between was a bunch of business that could have been handled by the board, and nobody would have cared... except for voting in new board members and other ministry offices.

I am very excited about the changes in leadership structure that Jeff is making. Many churches that I am aware of use either congregational government or a "Pastor-as-CEO" form of government. I have always struggled to understand how people can view these as Biblical. Jeff is striving to steer the church towards a more Biblical model of elders and deacons, similar to the one modeled in Acts, and talked about by Paul and Peter (I & II Timothy, Titus, and one of the letters by Peter). We had a great discussion of this today, and Jeff has been talking with a variety of people in the church about this. I think it will truly help the church care for people in the future.


As I said, Jeff's sermon at the end was great. He called folks to get out of their comfort zones at church and start pursuing relationships with visitors. It was great, yet I realized how even I can get stuck in the rut of making church my time of fellowship with fellow believers instead of a time to equip the saints and reach out to the hurting and lost that come through our doors. It was a warning to me to be on my guard against complacency in living out my faith around others. I loved it. Thank you, God for speaking through Jeff to me and my family of faith at Lolo Community Church. May we take Your words to heart and actively pursue those who don't know you, who are hurting, who don't smell good, or who are just plain different. On top of that, may we take our relationships with each other serious enough that we pursue fellowship with each other... outside of the many walls of our church building and its programs, which are nothing more than artificial ways of trying to make it look like we're building relationships. Keep moving us towards You. Thank you, God.