What is our purpose?  Why should we do what we do?  What significance does Friendship have?  What significance do we have in our community?  Is there a purpose for this church and its people? 

 Lately we have had many conversations about our significance as a community, our purpose, and the significance Friendship Lutheran Church has.  We have been reviewing what it means to do ministry and the way we do ministry.  We have asked ourselves these difficult questions in an attempt to answer Pastor Rushaw’s question posed to us in his book The Externally Focused Church: “If your congregation packed up and moved today would anyone in the community notice?”  Along the way we have quantified our ministries, and qualified them.  We have weighed our efforts and still have found ourselves wanting.  After several weeks of reflecting, Lent has brought to us a time of deeper relationships and faith. 

 For the past couple weeks we have, and for the next several we will continue to reflect on Isaiah’s encounter with the fires of God.  Spending this time intentionally pausing to reflect on God’s holiness, justification, purification, mercy, and love we are deepening our understanding of what it means to be a congregation centered and focused on Him.  And through our journey together we have discovered that we could be doing more: we could be more engaged in the Word, in worship, in service.  And the energy of this community has reflected this growing passion for Discipleship as we respond: “Here we are Lord, send us!” 

 Friendship Church is a growing and thriving part of the Body of Christ because its members are full of the Spirit and desire to serve.  I feel God’s presence strongly within our community that is getting deeper everyday as we move through our Lenten journey of reflection and seeking God’s deep forgiveness.  And through our reflecting on our purpose and praying for the strength to take responsibility for the ministries which God has given us, we are being transformed into a new identity in the world and greater Body of Christ.  These are exciting times and challenging times; indeed they are times held close to God’s heart.  We do not know the future plans that God has in store for us, we can only ask that we may be a part of them. 

Living In Faith Through Service,

Pastor Ron