Pastor's Note

How might you prepare for Resurrection Sunday? We have not greatly emphasized Lent season as others have, but there is something beneficial in looking with anticipation to high points on our church calendar, and taking advantage of opportunities to practice greater reflection. And I am excited for our plans for Easter this year.

There's a vast gulf between useless and essential. For example, a church building is not essential. We could still function as a church without a building, and meet in a park, a rented space, and/or from home to home. We could still be a viable and biblical church. Yet while a church building is not essential, it is certainly not useless. We find daily benefit from having a church building to host events, meet for prayer, and most of all gather for worship on Sundays.

Have you noticed any changes around the church building? We've been working to make some upgrades and updates to our facilities, starting during last Saturday's workday, and in preparation for Easter Sunday. Thanks to all those who came out and helped (more than I could name here)! We'll have another workday on April 5th, and we'd love for you to help.

Who are you discipling? That's the question that will be at the heart of our vision over the next few years. If you were at the family gathering on Sunday, you heard that our vision is that by 2030, every member/attender of CBC will be equipped and trained to disciple someone else, and that by that date every single person (kids aside) in our church, when asked, will be able to answer the question, "Who are you discipling?" with a real and concrete answer.

Sunday evening we will gather for our semiannual Family Gathering, and I hope you will join us! In advance of and preparation for Sunday evening, please look at the document that you received in the CBC Weekly. In it are this year's ministry reports, as well as a graphic representing our proposed vision statement and new church covenant.

I studied biology/pre-med in college, and, as with any major, some courses were more challenging than others. Then there were other classes that were what you might call "filtering" classes. I remember talking to one of my hockey teammates about taking organic chemistry, and he remarked; "That's the class they use to weed you all out, huh?" He was spot on.

Last summer as we were in our Proverbs sermon series, we spent some time one Sunday on the topic of sexual immorality. It's a big theme in Proverbs, and we'll touch on it again this week in Romans. In that Proverbs sermon, I issued an invitation, that if any man wanted to take steps in freedom from lust/pornography, to get a hold of me. Several reached out, but I want to issue that call again.

Do you have any recent experiences that highlight God's grace? Do you have compelling ministry stories? Have you seen God bringing fruit through some of your gospel efforts? If so, we want to hear about it!

If you're like me, there are certain passages and verses in Scripture that have always jumped off the page and stuck with you. One of those for me is Colossians 1:28; "Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ." According to Colossians 1:28, how does Paul present everyone mature in Christ? By proclaiming Him (which includes both warning and teaching).

As hinted at by Pastor Russ last week, and as you might notice as you read this, the CBC Weekly looks a bit different this week! Led by Laura’s efforts, we’ve been working to update the CBC Weekly and Sunday Bulletin (something that we’ve actually wanted to do for a couple years). We are updating these because we found there was a lot of unnecessary overlap in information in the two pieces.