Another Fun Weekend…

Hi Restoration,

Hope you have had a great week.  I really enjoyed looking out over the lawn last Sunday evening and seeing so many of you munching and talking and chasing and laughing.  A beautiful sight.

This weekend, our bishop, John Guernsey, will join us to worship, to preach the Scriptures, and to lead us at the Lord’s Table.  Here is why I am thankful that God has given our church this particular shepherd:

• Bishop John is dependent on the Lord in prayer and has modeled for us what prayer-full leadership looks like.
• He loves the global Anglican church and always has stories of how God is working around the world.
• He is a thoughtful critic of culture and his insights help me to connect the dots between ‘stuff Jesus said’ and ‘stuff happening around me.’
• I really appreciated his blog post on the tragedy at the Boston Marathon.  His connection between people running towards the victims to help and our churches running towards those who are far from God was particularly inspiring.

On Sunday, Bishop John will be confirming a few Restoration people.  I love confirmation!  It is exactly what it says–  someone stands and says to their community, “I want to confirm the vows that were made on my behalf at baptism.  I want to confirm before my friends and ‘fellow followers of Jesus’ that I believe Jesus is the only one who can forgive me and He’s the best one to lead me.”  You will hear some of each person’s story.  These get me so fired up!  After they are done, Bishop John will put his hands on their head and pray these powerful words:

Strengthen, O Lord, your servant with your Holy Spirit; empower him/her for your service; and sustain him/her all the days of his/her life.

Don’t we ALL want someone praying these things for us?  That we would know God’s presence through His Spirit and that we would use our gifts to be a part of what He is doing.  Yep!

After the service ends, we’ll have dinner together.  The weather is supposed to be lovely, so we will eat out on the lawn–  lots of space!

Encouragement…

This has been an emotionally hard week for lots of us:  the tragedy in Boston, the tragedy in Texas, the hard fight about gun legislation (no matter where you fall, the fight took a lot of energy), the news about The Falls Church property, the challenges in our own vocational world, the complexity of relationship.  Over and over I have returned to these words from Peter:

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  [2Peter 1:3]

It is a comfort to know there are resources that are always available to me.  God has provided everything that I need to do the tasks and to be the kind of person that He wants me to be.

Thank you, God.  I’ll cling to you.

-David