Our church is an excellent place.
The Lord has blessed us in many ways. Hospitality is operating, love of the brethren is strong. We are outward focusing, considering and learning how to love our neighbors in such a way that they will come to worship Jesus. We have a liturgically-oriented service which even the little children can take part in and understand, we all joyfully come to the Lord's Supper every week. We delight in pregnant mothers and baby baptisms. Our little children dominate our church prayer times with their requests and offers to pray for this or that. And we sing like we mean it.
And the Lord has blessed us with quite a few of the next generation. I'm sure that half our church population is 16 or under, and many of them are very useful evangelists for the kingdom of God. We also have a growing number of young men who are serious about knowing God and seeking Him, and who are busying themselves with the building up of His kingdom.
We have a faithful group of men shepherding this flock. It is a great delight to me to work with such godly men, who have endured many trials for Jesus sake and have emerged with a better sense of humor than before. These men are serious about looking out for the souls of those entrusted to them by the Great Shepherd. They weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. And three of them are very good preachers!
And our wives and mothers are glorious! We have several large families in our midst, and many fruitful and faithful ladies running them, whose creativity and willingness to help others seems almost boundless. As the head of a family of ten, I have been in churches where we would NEVER be invited out. But here it happens all the time. And if a mom needs to be gone for a few days, one of these homes will be ready and willing to take in the mom's kids for awhile.
The Lord has granted us at least the basic outlines of a vision that goes beyond ourselves. We pray regularly for the other churches in our town that name the Name of Jesus, that their efforts for the sake of the kingdom of God would be fruitful, and that because of the labors of God's people many, many more of the currently-unbelieving folk in Grande Prairie would become true worshippers of the Tri-une God.
We meet currently at the Grande Prairie Christian School, but starting in the first week of February we will be meeting at the Golden Age Center, on 101 St and just north of 102 Ave in downtown Grande Prairie. Worship will be at 10AM. Come and worship!
Our church is an excellent place.
