Counting Our Blessings

Truth Fellowship has a lot to be thankful for as we celebrate our 2 year anniversary this coming Sunday. While this marks year one for me, Truth Fellowship actually began meeting in the home of one of its elders two years ago. Sensing a need for a reformed Baptist church which was committed to expository preaching and discipleship of its members, Truth Fellowship began with two families meeting in a home. While many may have thought they were crazy they were driven to trust God and believe that His Word and exaltation was of the foremost importance. Little did I know that I would actually come back ‘home’ to serve as its pastor. Like every church, Truth Fellowship has seen it share of ups and downs but the constant endeavoring force to its growth has been the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Notice I mentioned the word “growth.” Now if one were to grace the doors of our church you might see a ‘small’ group of families and say ‘growth?’ But what is growth? The mindset of many contemporary evangelical churches tell us that growth is in the numbers. Yet nowhere in scripture does God every determine a church’s growth by its numerical numbers. Rather, like king David, God looks at the heart of people. True growth and success (and I use that term loosely) is based on faithfulness. The measure of any work done for God is always and in the end determined by the faithfulness of the people. That’s not to say that we just sit around and do nothing but rather we trust in God to build His church His way.It is His church after all and He is the one who builds it, is it not? Of course Truth Fellowship would love for more people to attend but that really isn’t its goal or objective. Rather we seek to (1) be faithful week in and week out to study and unleash God’s Word. We seek to plumb its depth and ask God to use it in our lives to make us more like His Son Jesus Christ. The power of the gospel is in the Word and that is our program model. We will center everything around God’s Word rather than man’s opinion. (2) We seek to take personal responsibility to disciple those whom the Lord leads our way. This means that we get involved in their lives. They are not and we pray we never just be a number to us. This means that we take our shepherding of God’s people seriously. We seek to be godly encouragers and correcters in their lives and this means we have to ‘get in their kitchen.’ We don’t just want to get together on Sunday’s. We want to be involved in their lives and that takes time but it’s worth it. (3) We seek to evangelize the lost by living out what it means to be a godly man/woman. While we are not perfect we strive to live lives worthy of our calling. This also means that we must personally share the good news of the gospel. This is primarily built through relationships and that takes trust and time. Godly evangelism takes personal time and commitment to share the truth of the gospel and walk it out before those around us. These three foundations mark the reason Truth Fellowship exists: Exalting God, Edifying the saints, and Evangelizing the lost.

God has and we pray will continue to bless Truth Fellowship through growing its members in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we celebrate our two year ‘birthday’ we say “To God and God alone be glory and honor and praise, forever and ever. Amen!”