In recent weeks, I have met with many of our established Sunday School classes. We have wonderful classes for most ages and stages of life. We have numerous circles for women, an amazing Bible Study with over 200 men, tremendous ministries for children and youth, recovery ministries for those walking through the pains of death and divorce, Emmaus reunion groups, discipleship opportunities for all ages on Wednesday nights, and so much more.
Two weeks ago, I went into one our older adult Sunday School classes and asked who had been in the class the longest. One of the precious ladies in her mid-eighties said she had been in that class for over 60 years. It occurred to me that she started attending the class when she was in her early 20s. She started as a young adult. Over the past 60 plus years that group has brought more than 100 children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren into our world and many of them into our church. They have celebrated untold numbers of birthdays, anniversaries, job promotions, retirements, baptisms, weddings, and funerals together.
Let me be perfectly clear, I don’t care what we call these groups: Sunday school, small groups, discipleship groups, life groups, recovery groups, Bible Studies, etc.. However, I do care that we are encouraging every person in our church to be doing life together in smaller groups of people. I don’t want to pastor a church WITH these discipleship groups; I want to pastor a church OF them.
This past Sunday, we kicked off a new young adult ministry for high school graduates through those who are in their early 40s. The picture below is of 35 of those young adults who gathered to begin doing life together in our church family. We expect this group to grow and give birth to multiple new groups in the coming weeks. They too will celebrate wonderful and painful events and moments together. They too will learn more about Christ and each other as they endeavor to share Christ with each other.
On Thursday, September 19th, I fly to San Jose, Costa Rica to represent our church and the Mississippi West Tennessee Conference at the Convening Conference of the Global Methodist Church. The decisions we make there will impact the church today and will lay the foundations for the church we are building for those young adults who will be the older adults 60 years from now, along with their future generations.
The old saying that the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago and the next best time to plant it is today is a true statement. We are a church that is blessed by the trees which were planted 60 years ago and will be a blessing to the church 60 years from now that we plant today. If you haven’t yet found a small group of people in our church with whom to be planted and do life, we want to help you find it.
8:45 am Contemporary Service
11:00 am Traditional Service
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