Category Archives: Fellowship

Fellowship, Uncategorized

Memory Lane

I am back after an amazing weekend journey back down memory lane.  This past week I finally took a Sunday off from the Northwood pulpit to return to my first church pastorate – Shamrock Bapitst Church in Bethune, South Carolina.  Shamrock was celebrating their 100th Anniversary and invited me back to deliver the “Homecoming” message.  Joy and I had a blast showing the girls were we used to live and remembering some of the funny stories of our beginning days of ministry and marriage.  It was really great to see everyone and I was amazed at how so many of the folks had not really changed a bit.

It is amazing to be gone from a place for over twelve years and get the opportunity to go back and feel as if you never really left.  The love, lessons and life that Joy and I were blessed with in our ministry to that first church family is something that words cannot even come close to explaining.  The most exciting part for me is seeing that a church that I had the joy of serving is continuing to grow and be effective for God’s glory!  I thank God for that congregation of Believers and for all that they have meant to so many, especially to me!  Every where I go, I will always take some of Shamrock with me!

It is great to be back at Northwood!  It is nice to get away and enjoy memory lane, but I sure do miss the family of Believers and community of challenge that God has given me to pastor in Greer.  I love living, teaching, sharing, growing and becoming together.  God has some amazing things in store for us and I can’t wait to see Him accomplish some of the things that He has put in my heart and head.  So with that said – I’ve got lots of work to do, so I’ll get busy and talk with you folks later!  May continue to bless, as we keep it real!

Fellowship

You Are Something!

God is good!  And when I stop and take a moment to think about it – I can’t help but realize that God has been so good to me!  He really is – so much better than I could ever dream that I deserve!  I love serving Him as a pastor of His Church!  There are days that the politics will threaten to make you crazy, but even with all of the mess that we people can make of a good thing – God is still in control and still manages to accomplish amazing things for His glory and our blessing!

 I believe that Northwood has ahead of it – it’s greatest days of ministry and community impact.  I just can’t wait to see what God is going to do next!  A few weeks ago I was preaching from Acts 2:44-47 (one of my favorite scriptures)  It’s where about three thousand where added to the church that day, because they had received the Word!  It then goes on the tell us that those that made up the church – devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and fellowship!  The result was that everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, as many wonders and signs continued to take place!  The Believers were together and had all things in common, so they started to look out for each other an take care of one another’s needs.  They loved being together, they loved giving God the praise, they had the favor of God and the people and they grew everyday!

This is a beautiful picture of the church – working as it could and as it should.  A picture of the church without all of the junk of personal politics!  This is a picture of fellowship – people coming together with all of their differences because of the great thing that we have in common – our relationship with Christ!

Our relationship with Christ allows us and even motivates us to have relationship and ongoing fellowship with each other!  When we allow God to bring us together and keep us together, we will get past ourselves, our small agendas and personal politics.  When we get past that stuff, we can really enjoy God, each others and the difference that Church can and should make!  I am glad that I have a realtionship with God, because that means that I can have a relationship with you!  And you really are something special!