Happy New Year to all of you my "blogging family," God has certainly been real good to each of us over the last 12 months. The reality is that we may not be where we want to be, may not have the type of church or ministry that we want to have, may not affect the lives that we desire to, but the truth is that God has kept us through this past year and we all ought to be grateful for the keeping power of the Almighty.
There have been a lot of things going on in my life since the last time we shared together in November, too numerous to mention today, but I will refer to a couple of them in this post. Our church is finally standing on the precipice of realizing our dream of securing a new location for us to worship in. This has been a two-year journey, filled with ups and downs, peaks and valleys, promises made to us, only to discover they were lies all the time. I wanted to give up, but the Lord led me to guide his people to this point, so I couldn't let it go. We stand today, approximately one month away from owning the building and roughly two months away from moving in and having our first worship service. TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!!
I have been inundated with schoolwork as I am two weeks away from completing my credits to receive my Bachelor's of Arts degree in Humanities from Thomas Edison State College, Trenton, NJ. Taking online courses have been a humbling and great experience, but I have decided to never, ever take classes online again, it is too much work!
The best part of that story is this; I have also been accepted into the Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies program at Drew University Theological School that begins on January 25th. This is a 44 credit program that will take about two years and allow me to apply for the PhD program in Philosophy by 2011. Please pray for me as I attempt to keep pressing with my education. I will be attending class so now I have to get used to fixing my schedule accordingly.
Yesterday we had a great time in worship at the First Mount Zion Church. The music ministry was off the chain, Jamaal really led us in praise and worship yesterday. Kadeem and Dayshawn were on their games as well.
This year as our church prepares to relocate, our focus has to be on the growth of our ministry. So our thematic emphasis for this year is "Just Jesus." Jesus provides us with the key to growing the church when he stated, "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." If we do our part and lift up Jesus, he will do his part to draw people to himself and to the church.
So on yesterday, we began a new series entitled "The Supremacy of Jesus," which is a study through the book of Colossians. This book focuses on the central theme that Jesus is sufficient and superior to any other being ever created. The Lord allowed us to preach Col. 1:3-8 which I labeled "An Appreciation For the Gospel", in which Paul is celebrating and thanking God that this church remained faithful to Jesus because of what they heard and believed through the preaching of the Gospel. There were false teachers in that church who were preaching a message of gnosticism, which was a combination of Eastern philosophy and Jewish legalism. Paul says that I am thanking God through my celebration for your continued commitment to Jesus based totally on your faithful to the Gospel.
Please keep our church, their Pastor and the new series in your prayers. I will be posting the outline from yesterday's exposition tomorrow.
