2009 Letter No 03
Each month Bill writes a pastor's letter for our monthly church magazine called 'The Messenger'. Here is the letter for March 2009:
This year Wednesday 25th February marks the beginning of Lent. This first day of Lent is often called Ash Wednesday because of the practice, in certain Christian traditions, of putting ashes on your forehead on that day as a sign of penitence. (This reflects an ancient custom, which is often referred to in the Bible, of putting ashes on you body as a sign of repentance. See for example Job 42:6, where Job says, "Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.")
Lent is that period of the church’s year when we prepare with penitence to meet with Christ anew at Easter. In fact Easter was the traditional time for baptisms in the early church, and Lent grew up as a time of instruction, self-examination and repentance prior to going through those waters of new life. But its relevance is not only for those preparing to be baptised. For those of us who have already been baptised it is a time to reflect on our lives and to recommit ourselves to the way of Christ. It is a good thing to recall the promises we made at our own baptisms, and indeed to recall the promises God has made to us. It is recorded in John 10:40 that Jesus, during a difficult period in his ministry, went back to the place of his baptism. Maybe he needed to call to mind the decision he had made to follow God’s ways and to reject the temptations of the devil. Maybe he needed to listen again to the voice from heaven declaring that he was indeed God’s beloved son with whom he was well pleased.
And Lent lasts for forty days, recalling the period Jesus spent in the wilderness after his baptism. There he battled against the temptations of the devil and committed himself to God’s way of being the Messiah, rather than opting for attractive and easy shortcuts. So Lent is a good time to reflect on our life, ministry and mission together as a church. The Church is a missionary organisation – a body of people called to be agents of God’s mission and purposes in the world, who bear his gospel message to any and to all. And on a number of Sunday mornings in Lent I will be preaching on missionary themes as part of our mission consultancy process. We need to reflect on what it means to be a missionary people.
This is a time for us to be seeking God concerning the future he has for West Bromwich Baptist Church. What is he calling us to do? Who is he calling us to be? And let us make it personal as well. Ask God, “What are you calling me to do and to be? What is my calling in particular? Help me to be faithful and equip me for everything you have in store for me.”
We will be having a special weekend with the mission consultants on Friday 15th May and Saturday 16th May when we’ll seek God together, first as leaders and then as a whole fellowship. Between now and then there will be three special opportunities to gather together to pray in preparation. We have designated three days of prayer and seeking – one in March, one in April and one in May.
· In March we are calling folk to a special day of prayer on Saturday 14th March, which is the day of our AGM. Why not make a special effort to join us for our 9.00am prayer meeting on that day, as well as taking opportunities to pray throughout the day?
· In April we will have a day of prayer culminating in an evening prayer meeting at 7.30pm in the church on Wednesday 22nd April.
· In May we will have a day of prayer on Saturday 9th May. Again, it would be good to make a special effort to be at our prayer meeting at 9.00am on that morning.
Let’s pray, and let’s seek God together. |
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