would anyone miss you?

(There’s an invitation to Bible in Community groups at the bottom of this letter.)

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Messiah, the one who walks with us and shepherds us as we learn to follow him in faith.

With summer in the rear-view mirror and a new church year underway, I’m reflecting on what it means for us to be the church in this community. If you’ve known me for even a short time, you know that talking about the church is one of my favorite things—it’s not an overstatement to say that I love the role of the local church, especially downtown churches.

Center-city churches work differently to suburban or rural churches. We have more traffic around us, even if sometimes people stop making their way into town for worship on Sundays. We experience some disruptions that don’t happen everywhere, like the guy who walked through the Sanctuary this past Sunday just as I was getting to the good part of my sermon! Even the economics of churches like ours is different. Costs are generally higher, and so often times it takes some visionary leadership to see how a facility can generate revenue (more on that later in the year).

Alongside the challenges, there are so many possibilities and opportunities for churches in busy places. Our church serves the neighborhood in all kinds of ways: 40 Prado, SLO4Home, and Literacy for Life, just to name a few. It reminds me of a critical question that all churches should ask themselves:

If your church disappeared from your community tomorrow, would anyone miss you?

It’s a harsh question, but a necessary one. Christians aren’t called to gather and hide from the world, we’re called to go out and serve it—to love and care and sacrifice for the world, just as Jesus did. That’s why we get to call ourselves the Body of Christ.

I like the answers we could give to that question, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop looking for ways to serve. In this coming year we’re going to look hard at the Mission Study that our team created using your comments. We’ll use it as a road map—more than that, we’ll use it as God’s voice and leading, coming through the combined comments of everyone who participated in the process.

And so welcome to this new church year. I can’t wait to see what we do, and what God does in us and through us.

Blessings to you and yours,

Pastor John

Bible in Community groups are back!

Bible in Community groups gather to reflect on the texts for upcoming Sunday messages. If you’d like to participate, or even to host a group, contact me in the church office or by responding to this email. On the 11th of September I’m starting a new series called 20 Questions With Jesus, a look at some of the questions Jesus asks people during his earthly ministry. The texts for September are below.

11       Mark 8:27-30 “Who do you say that I am?” (Fall Kickoff)

18       Mark 10:46-52 “What do you want me to do?”

25       John 14:9 “Don’t you know me?”