Moving Time

This week we started a study on Abraham at church.  We also announced that we as a church are moving.  We are moving for many reasons, but primarily because our church is not in an area where we have been or possibly are able to be affective.  As I’ve said before I pastor an Indian church and the town we are located in has 119 total Indians out of the 17,000 residents in Westchester.  We already have 4 of this number attending our church and I have only met 1 other Indian gentlemen in the 3 years we have lived in Westchester.  Our church has been here for 19 years and we haven’t ever had people from the community begin going to the church.  Most of our congregation travels 15-45 minutes to get here and this makes it hard to do things to reach the community.  It makes things difficult in inviting our neighbors to travel over half an hour to visit a church.  It just makes doing God’s work more difficult.

 I want to be invested in a community, I pray for us to play a role in its identity and formation, I want our deeds to be known to people so that we can make God known.  We have a lot of work and a lot of habits to change even after we move, but I know that we can’t be sedentary any longer, we can’t simply waste more time shrinking as a congregation.  I pray we will wholeheartedly take up the Great Commission and live it out.  I pray that we to do this in a place that makes sense for us as a diverse but mainly Indian Congregation. I pray our neighbors to be impacted and easily invited to meet with us and with God.  I want to provide our people opportunities to put their faith to work.  And so it is in accord with these hopes and dreams for this community of God that we set out, for a place we don’t yet know….that’s the other thing we don’t yet know where we are headed.  We haven’t identified the area we are moving to.  (Though I have some ideas) And that is one of the reasons we are working through Abraham.  In Hebrews 11:8 it says that Abraham left everything he had ever known behind, “Even though he did not know where he was going.”  He just knew God said “Go. I have a plan for you Abraham to be a blessing to all people.  To take hold of it I need to you go, to take some steps on faith, to trust me fully and completely.”  So Abraham packed up his life and went.  He just started walking and when he got there God said here it is.  Abraham was able to trust and go, because “he was looking forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:10)  That’s our hope and prayer.  That we would go where God leads and that no matter what God is the author of this next chapter. That God is the one who guides and directs and moves this community to the place he has been preparing for us.   Amen.