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MESSAGE
FROM THE PASTOR
August
2006
Pastor
Jeff Stanfill
Sacred
Spaces
Driving
up to north Louisiana last month for a speaking engagement,
I chose to travel through some small towns and villages
I had not seen in several years. It was a trip off
the beaten path. (No cell phone service!)
One
small village was my Dad's first pastorate (Montgomery,
LA). As I came into the outskirts, I thought of the
storefront building where we met for services for
a time. As the church later grew, it was able to build
a small facility of its own on the same lot. I decided
it would be fun to find the church as well as test
my childhood memory.
I
drove through the few streets of the place looking
for the building. After a few passes, I found it.
It has since been purchased and converted into a parsonage
for another nearby congregation. I sat in front of
the building thinking that this is the place where
I first came to understand who Jesus is (the Son of
God), what I am, (a sinner in need of salvation),
and the answer to my problem (Jesus' death on the
cross). It is where I first came to learn the manifest
presence of God.
Space
and location is only made sacred by the presence of
God. But in that brief moment, this became a sacred
place for me. The moment became an emotional experience
as I could understand better how I was found there
by the Holy Spirit. I thanked God for reaching me
and rescuing me not from a small, out of the way place,
but from sin and a potential lifetime of rebellion,
depravity, failure, and eternal loss.
A
moment like that one convinces me more that salvation
is real, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is real, and
that the call of God is real. We are not moralists
trying to make everyone goody-two-shoes. We are not
entrepreneurs building our own enterprise. We are
not jihands on a campaign of conquering. Rather, we
are believers converted and transformed by the power
of God by the Holy Spirit; we are heralders of good
news that there is abundant, eternal life for us in
Jesus Christ; we are bearers of the Light that has
come into the world; we are the chosen people of God
empowered by His Spirit and not by our own devices
and efforts.
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