As our culture turns more and more away from its Judeo-Christian roots, we who follow Jesus will find ourselves on the outside of the “in crowd.”   And that is okay with me.

To be honest, the church gets lazy and soft if the culture is friendly and accommodating to it.  When that happens, we tend to think of ourselves are part of the main flow, friends of the world. The Bible has some rather harsh things to say about that!

If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own.  Because you do not belong to the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. (John 15:19 NRSV)

Do not love the world or the things in the world.  The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; (1 John 2:15 NRSV)

And yet,

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16 NRSV)

The bottom line is this:  you and I, all of us who follow Jesus from the “home base” of FVUMC, are missionaries!  Our church is a mission outpost in a world that is becoming hostile to nearly
everything we stand for, because God’s love for the world must be expressed through us.

This is our missional vision, to be “A Biblical Family of Joyful Servants, Sharing the Love of God in a Broken World.”

Let us be about our Father’s business!

Hallelujah!

Pastor Glen