Dear Friends,
"Each member of the church shall take time to serve your neighbor, so you may be Jesus' minister."
Service is the fourth Anchor to our work as a church. Here it is written out as an individual statement, a portion of what could become a membership covenant.
"Each member of the church shall serve…" There is no way around it. This is what the Session has agreed on, this is what the church professes each week, taking these Anchor Statements into our hands as part of our Worship Folder.
What does it mean to serve our neighbor? I do not believe that states the question correctly. Rather, what needs to our neighbors have? Taking time to know your neighbor, to pray for them, that is how the needs are identified. Once the needs are identified, how we serve our neighbor is how we fulfill those needs.
Wonder how? Matthew 25: 31 to the end of the chapter provide a good biblical baseline of needs that we can respond to. 1 Corinthians 12:4 begins a passage on the gifts we may have from the Holy Spirit to use in service of our neighbors. Indeed, pick a gospel, any gospel, and read about how Jesus served.
When we serve our neighbor in the name of Jesus, when we are a minister of Jesus Christ, then we have done a little more to build up our Neighborhood, our Community in the Kingdom of God.
When we serve our neighbor, looking out for their needs, instead of in at our own desires, we have modeled ourselves on Jesus, we are in imitation of Christ.
When we serve our neighbor, we are taking our church life to the next level. In that moment, we have dared to let the Spirit push through to the forefront of who we are and what we are doing.
This Program Year is a year where we will face real change in how we 'do church'. These are 'the rules of the road'. Frankly, it may offend some people, daring to put demands on people who have attended this church maybe for a lifetime.
But attending church is not enough. To claim Jesus as Lord and Savior means putting our lives into His hands. It means obeying His command. And our Anchors, our Core Values, are how we at First Church have agreed we will do that.
In Christ,
Rev. Peter Hofstra
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