People People

I'm learning to look at the world as a bigger picture than I used to. For example, I used to look at worship only in the setting of what we are doing at Sunshine in our corporate worship service. But as I grow, and we grow I'm beginning to see that what we do as worship has taken on a much bigger meaning and is being looked at - rather closely - by those outside our setting. Let me explain something, I'm from the old school. My great grandparents helped establish our congregation. I've been here forever... but things are changing. There are faces I don't recogize and I don't even try to remember children's names there are so many. It's like you wake up one day and other people have moved into your house. Thank God I'm a people person! I like people in my house and there's nothing more thrilling to me than to hear "new" people say that when they came to Sunshine they felt the presence of God. Or they choose to worship here because we have godly men leading. When we reach out to Fathers-Daughters, help flood or huricane victims, provide flu shots, open our fellowship hall to the public, teach at VBS, tell the real story of Christmas, help fire victims, and much more - it is worship and we're being watched. But not for perfection! Not to see that we have followed the smallest tittle of the word, but to see that we are sharing the LOVE of Christ to a dying world. To see that we are reaching out to those who need Jesus' touch. So I'm tired of hearing from within our setting, that we are a program church... we are the church of Christ with an aim to reach out! And it's happening in our programs.

There are those critics who will pick at every move we make. How we deal with them is a challange indeed and we're being watched there too. But above all, we must not loose heart and stop reaching out. If we do, we will start dying ourselves.