Friendship Community Church

Archive for July, 2011

“Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” And he went away and began to tell others throughout the region how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

Mark 5:19-20

When was the last time you told somebody something that the Lord has done for you? Sometimes as Christians, we believe that our relationship with Jesus is so personal that it has to remain private, but from what we learn in the scriptures, this isn’t the case. Our relationships with the Lord are deeply personal, uniquely our own; but what’s going on in our life of faith is not meant to be private. It’s meant to be something of which we are proud to relate to others, not bragging in ourselves, but bragging about what Jesus has been up to. It may be a recovery from an illness that the Lord has brought. It might be a peace and an understanding about a situation in our lives that was troubling us. It might be a newly found joy that had been missing before in our lives. It might be forgiveness for something that was weighing down our hearts. It might be a friend whom the Lord brought into your life whom you know is a gift to you. Whatever it is that the Lord is up to in your life, that is something to share with somebody else. The verses above are from a story in Mark when Jesus healed a man who had been possessed. Once he had recovered from this spiritual condition, he returned to Jesus and asked if he could spend more time with Jesus in his ministry. Jesus, instead, told the man to share what had happened with his friends in his own community. In other words, Jesus wanted this man to begin a ministry of his own where he lived. Supposedly, the ministry this man started in his home town led to the development of a tremendous Christian Church where future important leaders emerged in time of crisis almost 300 years later. As we prepare to start up our Friendship Circles this Fall, be thinking about which friends and neighbors you could invite to your circle. Which fellow members of FCC could you invite into your group to enjoy time together learning and growing in your relationship with Christ. Make time to pray about and consider what you could share with somebody about what the Lord is doing for you!

Pastor Michele

August Newsletter 2011 (in MS-Word Format)

August Newsletter 2011 (in PDF Format)