Nate and Gracie (this past summer’s intern) have had their baby! Willem Michael Waddell was born Oct. 5 and weighed in at 7.3lbs. Also: morning for ministries is November 10th — see the announcements for details. What are your gifts and passions? God gave them to you so you could use them in service to him.
There are certain moments in life that inspire wonder and ought to be savored, so I want to make the most of this moment. Years ago we began praying about the Hanon property (the white house on the street), not knowing how God might answer and how things would play out. I don’t know that I had enough faith to imagine Marge’s house soon belonging to CPC, the threat of a high-traffic, marijuana retail outlet (basically on our property) having been defeated, and two new education initiatives launched (Covenant Learning Center and Covenant Christian High School). It’s remarkable, and our current moment is one of trying to fully and rightly understand what God is doing with us — which is a good prompt to pray for the officers’ retreat next weekend.
There were lots of moving parts in all this, but a central part for CPC was the licensing of a tutoring center (Covenant Learning Center), which helped prevent the marijuana store (although other factors were also key). The tutoring center led to discussion of starting a High School, then the founding of a high school. Lots of people were involved and all were necessary, but Ed and Marcia Harper, and Sara Loudon, deserve special recognition.
Of course, owning a piece of property with an old house on it can easily be viewed as more liability than blessing. Demolition of the house and clearing of the property is beginning soon, with all the attendant site-prep and permitting costs (both for demolition and new uses). On top of those one-time costs is the burden of servicing the new debt.
The challenge before the officers — this is where we need your prayers — is to see this moment as God sees it. He certainly isn’t worrying over money, all of which is his. “The cattle on a thousand hills” may be an over-used Evangelical cliche, but that section of Psalm 50 is a wonderful, poetic explanation of God neither needing nor wanting anything from his people, except hearts filled with thanksgiving and lives that honor him (v.23). Everything else is, to Him, small beer.
And this notion is scalable, meaning it can be adapted to all lives and all of life: we’ve been given gifts and abundance. How do we seize the day, using all that we are and all that we have, in the way that pleases him best? There is an urgency attached to this question that runs throughout the New Testament: “What I mean, brothers, is the appointed time has grown very short” and “the night is far gone and the day is at hand” (1 Cor 7:29, Rom 13:12). Let’s get after it — and after Him. This is the real business of life. All that we do is some expression of pursuing him, whether work, rest, or recreation. Nothing else matters.