I know that you continue in thought and prayer for our church and specifically for our elder selection process.

This Sunday will begin a crucial part of this process. Affirmation forms will be handed out and will begin to be collected by the elder selection administrative committee headed by Chuck Hummel. The affirmation forms will also be emailed out to our members.

The deadline for returning these forms is Wednesday evening, July 23^rd.  

Be prayerful for our church family, and for these four elder candidates and their families:

According to Jesus’ life and teaching, leaders of God’s people are servants. That’s not typical in our culture; but it should be the only way in our church.

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:20-28)

While that doesn’t make much sense in the popular culture of our day, it makes perfect sense in light of the cross. And our shepherds are the ones who lead the way in serving others, just as is made clear by one of their own, by their fellow elder, the apostle Peter, as we saw this past Sunday in our look at 1 Peter 5:1-4. Among other things he tells shepherds to be eager to serve the flock and to lead God’s people by example rather than by lording it over them.

Our current culture is much more familiar with leadership by “lording over” than servant leadership. But then again, ours is not the first contemporary culture to have trouble understanding the power of the cross.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor. 1:18-24)