Beginning Again in 2010

(From the January, 2010 Vision, Newsletter)

If you are reading this, God’s grace has been faithful to bring you through this past year and you have much to praise God for. In spite of the down turn in the economy and the tanking of the stock market, we still worshiped the Lord in 2009, we still shared the love of God with our community and our world, we still met needs in the name of Jesus, and we still made disciples. Aren’t you glad God doesn’t pay any attention to the news! Amazingly, this past year Hebron received a record number of total receipts, receiving over 1 million dollars for the first time in HBC’s history, and we have a long one. How could that be? It was a “God thing!” It also goes to prove that you receive what you expect and what you put your time and effort into. Because of our capital fund campaign, we worked and prayed for the finances to come in and you – the people of God responded! However, the down side of the year was that our baptisms were almost half of the previous year, not good. Now our challenge is to put the same fervor we did in our capital fund campaign into sharing the love of Christ with our community. And with a new year before us God has graciously given us an opportunity to begin again.

That’s why it’s a good idea at the beginning of a new year to remind ourselves of why we are here. So what is my prayer and desire for 2010? It is that we would make the main thing the main thing. Our mission – worship, evangelism, making disciples, ministering to needs – this is what should captivate our attention, our passion. Our mission should permeate every event we undertake, every committee meeting we sit in, and every Bible study and Sunday School class we attend. So how are we doing? And what will we do different this year to align ourselves more fully with Christ’s mission? By God’s grace we do have the opportunity to “Begin Again in 2010.” Let’s walk together through the open doors that God has placed before us.

Looking forward to serving our gracious Lord together with you!

Pastor Joe
“Phil. 1:3”