Pastor

...The Pastor's Corner

The Linden Letter September, 2003

Plans for the Future: A Call to Prayer

"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord." Jeremiah 29:11-13.
My hope is that you, the people of Linden Heights United Methodist Church, will read these words and take them to heart. They are written for you as surely as they are written for Jeremiah's original listeners. This passage is about both God's action and our reaction. We are part of what's going on. We are called to active engagement. In order for God to work through us, we need to make ourselves available to God. We do that by prayer .

As we plunge into Fall and its potential for blessings, I urge you to call upon the Lord that it may be revealed to us how the Holy Spirit is working in our midst. As I
have spent time in these beginning months listening to you in the small group meetings and in individual encounters, I hear many people wrestling with where next God will take us as a church.

There is potential here for the Spirit to act in mighty ways. The temptation is to start doing lots of things so that there is a lot of activity all the time -which is a good way to look busy. However, our action will bear more and better fruit when that action is the result of God through us, rather than activity being generated for its own sake.

So, let this article be a call to prayer -fervent and intense, that the Spirit's power be unleashed here and that we be ready for it. Take Jeremiah's words to heart and hear them as meant for you.

Be assured -God does have plans for this church, plans, which include a future filled with hope.