This Week's Update

Announcements

 Many thanks to all those who stepped up to help lead worship while Pastor Tucker was away!

 Across the Spectrum is this Sunday at 3pm in the Fellowship Hall.

 At Sunday school discipleship groups, we will focus on living life in the Resurrection, using a film series and exploring the upcoming lectionary texts.

 Pastor Tucker is attending Virginia Tech’s Autism Outreach Conference on Friday.

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Devotional

As we seek to grow in mission and ministry here in Radford, four key characteristics arise as central to all successful redevelopment congregations. Last week’s devotional explored the first, which is shared purpose. Along with that shared purpose, congregations that become vibrant communities of renewal also exhibit a willingness to change as they follow the Holy Spirit’s lead.

Ecclesiastes 3 begins this way: "There's a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens." This chapter commonly appears at weddings and funerals in our culture, in part due to its honesty about the changes inherent to life. No one stays the same for their entire lives, nor should they. We’re now embracing the change of winter into spring, along with the warmth of the air and the beauty of the blossoms. Change comes as a requisite part of life.

So, too, we must embrace change in the life of the church, but purposeful change. Change led by the Holy Spirit. Churches alive in the Gospel, churches that grow in ministry, don’t just change because they’re bored. Change comes because God compelled the community that a new mission field required the change. That’s the kind of change we’re beginning to see here with our new ministries at Radford University and to persons with special needs here in the NRV. That’s the kind of change we see in the installation of a lift and the welcoming of chairs and new technology in our sanctuary.

To embrace new life, we must continue to embrace that change, to follow the work of the Holy Spirit, to live in the season to which we’ve been called, to live in our time under the heavens.