Dear church,

I want to offer you two simple encouragements and some heart-felt sympathy. This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day. For many of us, it is a day of great joy. For others, it is a reminder of sorrow. And, for another large group, it is both. With that backdrop, I will begin with two encouragements. First, celebrate your own mother. I’m not a mother, obviously, but I have one and am married to one and I know how much a simple, but special acknowledgment means. Secondly, if you are a father, help your children celebrate their mother (especially young children). This will do two things: 1) It will instill in them, from a very young age, how important and special their mom is and; 2) It will teach young men how to honor women and teach young women what it means to be honored and, consequently, how to determine whether or not a man is loving her sacrificially.

For those of you who, from one circumstance or another, approach Mother’s Day with pain or emptiness, I want to say that I am sorry. I may know some of your circumstances, but I certainly do not know them all. Yet, because I care for you, I want to acknowledge the difficulty around this day for many.

How do you honor a mother on Mother’s Day? Perhaps, you could start with this verse: “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her” (Proverbs 31:28). I will help Piper to honor Holly this weekend, but this verse tells me I should honor my wife also. The fact that Holly is a mom is so precious to me that I want to end this letter by publicly honoring her and thanking her for being a mom.

A few reasons I’m thankful Holly is a mom:

1. Holly loves being a mom and I’m grateful God gave her that opportunity.
2. She made me a dad. I love being a dad and I couldn’t have done it without her.
3. I love Piper and, more than anything else in the world, besides a relationship with Jesus, I want her to have a relationship with a great mom; she’s got one.
4. I have a job with a demanding schedule and, like many people, I am away from home quite a bit. I’m glad Holly is there to be with Piper. There’s no one else I’d rather she be with.
5. Holly loves God and His Word and she is teaching Piper to do the same. She reads the Bible, prays, and sings worship songs with her.
6. Holly is not perfect and she makes mistakes. At times, Holly needs to ask forgiveness from God and others. She does this, even from Piper, and is teaching Piper to do that as well.
7. Holly wants Piper to love her home, make good memories, and treasure her childhood so she plans fun activities, takes lots of pictures, and makes good meals. I get to enjoy all of those things as well.

I praise God for Holly. She is a great mom!

Pastor Adam

Dear church,

I love our church. It is a great joy to be the pastor of Our Saviour. We have many great people who love sacrificially, serve whole-heartedly, and worship Jesus with everything they are. While I want to submit every thought and plan to God’s will, by faith I believe God has many exciting things in store for our church family. Our congregation has embraced the Three50 Initiative and we have begun to hear stories of God using the people of Our Saviour to transform unbelievers into followers of Jesus Christ. God has called so many people into local and global missionary efforts that we are well on our way to our three year goal with several exciting opportunities coming in the near future (more on that in another letter). Above all, we want to be faithful to the people and ministry God has entrusted us with.

Faithfulness to people and ministry involves two main areas of focus. First, we must position ourselves to love and serve those God has already put in our midst. Secondly, it means we must continually think of those who are not Christians and those who are not here…yet. In other words, as a biblical church, we must balance the tension of wise stewardship and hopeful expectations. I believe we are doing this well, but I also sense God calling us to expand our efforts. This is especially true in the area of our staffing structure. Currently, our ministry staff consists of myself as Senior Pastor, Brandon Myers as Interim Youth Pastor, Nancy Mau as Our Saviour Kids Director, and Rita Bruzik as Ministry Assistant. Rita and I work full-time, Brandon is paid for 20 hours/week and Nancy for 15 hours/week (though, each of us finds joy in serving beyond our paid time as an act of worship of God).

Recognizing that our current needs and the vision God has called us to would require more staffing, our elders proposed, and you as a congregation approved, a 2012 budget that included the salary for a full-time associate pastor. However, having just begun to serve as pastor in late August of 2011, myself and the rest of the elder council (of which I am one of six members) believed the wisest course of action was to take the first part of 2012 to pray and evaluate our current needs, seeking God for our future direction in regards to staffing. This would give me time to observe the operations of our church and assess our most pressing needs. Additionally, after several years of fluctuating staff and varying income levels, it would give us a consistent window to evaluate our giving and determine our budget capabilities moving forward. This time has been well spent and we believe God has clarified both our needs and His provision for some of those needs.

I do not know about you, but I sense an excitement and a passion among our church. While I can honestly tell you I do not judge success based on attendance figures, at times they can provide a helpful index for the direction of our church and its ministries.  Not everyone will like us, but a healthy church should grow. Over the past several months, we have seen an increase in attendance for our Sunday morning worship service, our youth ministry, our AWANA clubs, and many other key areas of ministry from their levels at this time one year ago. We seem to be growing slightly in some areas and significantly in others. This combined with what God is calling us to leads me to believe we need to slightly increase our staffing. However, our giving thus far this year has not met our approved budget (I am not scolding anyone, that is simply a fact). All of this brought me to the conclusion that God was leading us toward a compromise of more than we currently have and less than a full-time associate pastor. Again, we want to be wise stewards who are bold and faith-filled.

As I prayed about and considered our needs, God led me to the conclusion that an organic staffing position will best meet our needs at the present time and moving into the future. We hope to continue these trends of growth as well as refine our current ministries and press out in faith toward the Three50 Challenge. We need someone who can work in multiple areas of ministry. This must be a pastor who can preach and teach as well as someone who can build ministries and refine procedures. In short, we are looking for a fairly unique and talented man.

However, God has already blessed us with just such a pastor. Which finally brings me to an exciting announcement; our elder council is proposing that Brandon Myers be hired on a permanent basis as the Assistant Pastor for Youth and Ministry Operations. We are proposing this as a ¾ time position. Pastor Brandon has already proven himself to be an effective pastor to our students. Under his leadership, our youth ministry has grown and, much more importantly, I am confident that Pastor Brandon has implemented a Bible-saturated, discipleship-focused vision for ministry. In addition to his abilities in youth ministry, Brandon is a gifted pastor who is humble, loves God’s Word, and desires nothing more than to bring God glory and see people love Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. I told our elders that one of the many things that has impressed me about Brandon is his ability to learn and work in a broad range of areas, which I think makes him an ideal choice to fill this new position.

If approved, Pastor Brandon will split his time between 15-20 hours a week in youth ministry and 10-15 hours a week in ministry operations. Ministry operations will include working with various segments of our Sunday morning programs and other ministries geared toward adults, preaching and teaching, counseling, visitation, and assisting me with other areas of pastoral ministry. In the coming weeks, I would be happy to provide anyone who would like it with the full, proposed job description. In addition to his ministry at Our Saviour, Pastor Brandon still intends to complete his Master of Divinity degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School on time.

Here are a few details that will be helpful for you to know. As with all of our permanent pastoral positions, this must be affirmed by a congregational vote (One point of clarification: a change in budget will not be necessary because the budget was approved with another position in mind. This proposal will actually save money in the 2012 budget. The vote will only be whether to approve Pastor Brandon in this role.). In order to put you in the best position to make an informed decision, Pastor Brandon will have a candidating Sunday on June 10, 2012. He will preach a message from God’s Word during our worship service, there will be a Question & Answer session from 11:00-12:00 (following the worship service) with a light continental brunch provided and candidating activities will also take place during the Common Ground youth group meeting that evening. Following this candidating Sunday, there will be a vote during our congregational business meeting, which the elders have moved to June 11 to accommodate this exciting staff proposal.

I am excited about God’s provision in this area and look forward to all God will do through this move. I encourage you to make it a priority to be here for these candidating activities. If you have any questions or would like to know more about this proposal, please feel free to contact me by phone, email, or speak with me in person. Pastor Brandon is a humble, gifted man and we are excited to propose him to you for the position of Assistant Pastor for Youth and Ministry Operations.

For the sake of His name,

Pastor Adam

Dear church,

This has been a difficult week for many of you. For others, it has been uplifting and exciting. I am thinking of a few specific examples I know of on both sides of the spectrum, but in general I know this is true, because every week is like this for our church family. We have an awesome God who has overcome the world, but the ongoing effects of our sin still weigh heavily on us at times. Sometimes our hardships are more prominent than others, but in all things we can be assured that God loves us and His grace is sufficient. He proves this in who He is and what He does.

One of the most beautiful scenes in all of Scripture is the baptism of Jesus. As Jesus comes up out of the water, the Spirit descends on Him life a dove, and the voice of the Father affirms the love of the Son (Luke 3:21-22). It’s a profound picture of the Triune God of the universe preparing in unison to bring about the salvation of humanity. I love this picture because of the hope it brings.

God is perfect by Himself. The Trinity proves that. He is perfectly loving, perfectly fulfilled, and perfectly complete in who He is. Yet, out of the overflow of His grace, He creates the universe and everything in it as an expression of His glory and an object of His love. That’s the only reasonable explanation for my existence and yours, that God loves us. It certainly cannot be that God needs something from us. He does not. He lacks nothing. So why do we exist? So He can shower His love upon us.

I know many of you are in difficult places. I know that circumstances seem overwhelming and that important pieces of your life seem uncertain. In the midst of that, I pray that the supremacy of the Triune God gives you hope and assurance. He does not need anything you can bring, but He does give you Himself as a gift. Therefore, you may know that He has created you as an act of grace. He has not made you to bring you harm, but to show you joy in Him. That does not mean everything will be easy or simple, but it does mean He is good.

I love you, but more importantly than that, the God who is Love loves you,

Pastor Adam

Dear church,

I read a story this week about a nineteenth century Methodist preacher named Peter Cartwright who once preached with President Andrew Jackson in attendance. Before he got up to preach, Cartwright was warned not to say anything out of line or offensive. In response to that, he took the pulpit and the first words out of his mouth were, “I understand Andrew Jackson is here. I have been requested to be guarded in my remarks. Andrew Jackson will go to hell if he doesn’t repent.” Everyone present was shocked, but afterwards the president shook Cartwright’s hand and said, “Sir, if I had a regiment of men like you, I could whip the world.”¹

I think I would have liked Cartwright’s preaching. One of the things I enjoy doing in my own time is listening to Gospel-centered, Christ-exalting Bible preaching. At times, I bet my iPod has had more space taken up by sermons than songs. Of the many preachers I respect, all of them seem to have at least a few things in common. They love the Bible, they believe it is true, and they are direct with its teaching. I do not like preaching that beats around the bush, softens the Gospel, or shies away from truth. Peter Cartwright seems like he probably fit that mold, but I would love to hear John the Baptizer’s preaching. That man could bring it.

Listen to the first words Luke records him saying, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” That’s not exactly what we would call a “seeker-sensitive” message, but it is what God called him to say. Over the last century or so, that word “repentance” has been more closely associated with a caricature of a Bible thumping fundamentalist than it has been with compassionate, faithful, and responsible Bible teaching. While there might be a few good reasons for that way of thinking, it is also unfortunate. One of the central messages of the Bible and of Jesus’ own ministry was the necessity of heartfelt repentance in response to a merciful God. It’s all over the New Testament.

We might not be able to hear John the Baptizer preach, but God has graciously given us a snippet of his message in Luke’s Gospel and we will study it together this Sunday morning. Before that time, I would like you to consider a question: have you repented of your sin and are you trusting Christ alone for your salvation? Please don’t answer too quickly. One of the greatest dangers present in the American church today is assuming the Gospel has taken root and is central in our lives. Far too many people, even those who are faithful church-goers, do not trust the true Gospel for their salvation. This Sunday, we will study the pure, explicit Gospel. It will be well worth your time.

For the sake of His name,

Pastor Adam

¹The version of this story I read came from Luke (Volume 1: Chapters 1-12) in the Reformed Expository Commentary by Philip Graham Ryken.

Dear church,

I hope you were able to worship with us for our tremendous Easter celebration! He is stronger! It was a great joy to join you in proclaiming that truth and His majesty. I want to take a moment to thank all the people who were involved in making our Easter Sunday into, what I know will be, a highlight for us this year. From the ushers and greeters, to those who served in the nursery, the musicians and singers, to those who served the brunch, children’s church volunteers, and to many who served behind the scenes in technical and other vital capacities, thank you. Your efforts had nothing less than an eternal impact in the lives of many people. God is indeed glorified by your sacrificial service.

Today, I want to encourage you to prepare your heart and mind for worship this coming Sunday. If you are anything like me, there is a natural letdown after a big event filled with lots of emotion and energy. This can be so much so that other things often suffer or stagnate in the wake of major events. Together, let’s pray that this would not be the case this coming Sunday. Let’s ask God to remind us of the reality that we will again celebrate the resurrection this Sunday and it is worthy of celebration everyday! In fact, the resurrection of Jesus is the reason for and the basis of our celebration for all eternity if we are in Christ.

I believe that God has already begun to answer this prayer in advance as we have several exciting things happening this Sunday. In addition to singing for His glory and hearing from His Word (Luke 2:41-52) together, we will see the power of the resurrection through the symbolic act of believer’s baptism and commission a team of men and women for ministry in Haiti. God is active in and amongst our church!

I am already excited to gather together again and proclaim the glory of the risen Jesus. I’ll see you there.

To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. – Jude 25

Pastor Adam