I am writing this article to the LifeWay family New York City. To be a bit more specific, I’m writing from Brooklyn, New York. Patty and I are with our mission team working alongside some amazing Gospel workers in Brooklyn and in New York as they reach out to the college students on multiple college campuses in the greater New York City area. We have been blessed beyond measure this week, and we are not finished yet. Specifically, Josh and Sarah Bruyere are the CRU mission directors for New York. CRU is the title for what some of us might recognize as “Campus Crusade for Christ.” All week we are meeting with incoming students and attempting to introduce them to the ministry of CRU for the school year, which of course means we are striving to introduce them to Christ. I’ve been on many mission trips over the years. This place has inspired me greatly, and I need to report to you that we at LifeWay can be proud partners of such great workers in this spiritually complicated part of the world.
I am preaching this coming Sunday and I’ve been preparing this sermon for the last several weeks, and being in NYC has helped bring even greater clarity to this message. The title I am using this Sunday is “The Next Chapter for LifeWay Church.” If you have been with us all summer we have had a series of sermons called “The Gospel in Every Season of Life.” These messages were much more personal in nature and were intended to apply God’s truth to each of our specific life situations. This Sunday, as we end the summer and bridge our way into this next school year, I felt led to apply these chapter truths to the whole Church. It’s kind of fun for me too to address it this way because Tim and Cassie Kim are now with us. They absolutely bring to us a ‘new chapter’ in the life of our church. I just feel led to bring this message this Sunday bringing all these thoughts together.
So… here’s what I am asking you to do as you prepare for worship with your church family this week. Read and contemplate on this passage before you come: Deuteronomy 34:1-8. Moses stands on the mountain looking into the Promised Land, but God told him some important truths that we will explore this Sunday. Do NOT read into this that this is my last sermon at LifeWay! (well… as far as I know at least!). But it will help us explore how God uses us for our time, and how we can look ahead with great expectation about what God is doing.
Happy end of summer everyone! Happy Labor Day weekend!
