Hello church family and happy February to you! This month we are continuing in our Cultivate series as we focus on being disciples of Jesus Christ who make disciples by loving people well and cultivating God’s work in their lives. This work of cultivation starts with just the seed of God implanting His Word—maybe through your testimony, or a specific scripture he puts in front of a person-- and then the Holy Spirit starts the work of making that seed take root and begin to grow towards salvation and then ultimately sanctification and union with Christ. Our part is to be people in lockstep with the Holy Spirit, speaking to the hearts of those God is cultivating and walking faithfully with them. If we are faithful to be willing to be used by God and to seek those whom He is seeking, we will see the Holy Spirit move through us to take someone from seed, to sprout, to plant, to bearing fruit for God’s glory. This is our focus this month and I hope you will take personally God’s call to be a cultivator of others and look for the specific ones to whom God has called you, to see them grow into disciples of Jesus.
Also, this month we are embarking upon the “dating” process with Harvest Church. For the past 18 months we have had the idea before us of possibly working with or joining Harvest Church in the future in order to do ministry more effectively together. This past month our church voted to start a six month “dating” process to get to know them better and see if we felt God was leading us toward becoming a campus of Harvest Church in the future. This dating process will be ongoing until July when we will vote whether to go further into the relationship of becoming a Harvest campus or remain independent. One goal of “dating” is to deepen our relationship and get to know each other more. So, in the next few months there will be some Harvest folks over here to do ministry with us—whether guest speaking on a Sunday, leading on a worship night, or helping at our Easter Egg Hunt—and I will be inviting us to go to their campus to get to know them better as well for various events like Spiritual Life Conference and other opportunities. Our second goal of this process is to answer essential questions of how joining together would work; from leadership, to decision-making, to finances, to day-to-day operations and so forth.
I ask that during this process we approach this potential relationship prayerfully and full of faith, confident that no matter what happens we know God is in control and is leading us! So, let’s be asking for His wisdom and direction as we consider this option and let us all be fully engaged in this process. Second, I want to ask you to give any questions you may have to the Vision Board, and it will be our goal during this process to work through all the questions and gain clarity on what becoming part of Harvest would look like if that is what we choose.
In any case, I want to invite you to be engaged and involved here at Heritage this year! God is doing great things, and He wants you and I to be fully alive as His church sent into the world! There is no better time than now for us to be transformative, loving, and faithful church God desires. Let’s seek him together and see him grow us as a family of faith! Have wonderful February.
In Him,
Patrick
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