2004 Reflections

Below I’ve detailed the more evident blessings of 2004 within the five basic functions of our church. Please join me in recognizing and praising God for his goodness.

Worship:
Along with giving our church record attendance and record offerings, God has blessed us with two gifted, committed individuals who have contributed selflessly to heighten our Sunday morning worship. Kelly MacGregor provided outstanding leadership and guidance for the worship team this year. For her diligent week-after-week preparation we are most grateful. The huge amount of time and energy she put forth every week helped foster a Christ-centered worship environment essential for our congregation. We were blessed to have Richard Horner provide good oversight for the worship service during the first half of the year. And while these members have been an exceptional blessing for us lately, may I take this time to again thank and appreciate the growing number of volunteers (musicians, technicians, ushers, etc.) who make our Sunday mornings happen. Kelly will be focusing on other areas in the life of Christ Community this semester, so she’ll be easier to find in the congregation and thanks for her leadership in 2004.

Education:
We experienced our best year in Christian Education.

Children Rebecca Schackow is beginning her second year as our part-time Director of Children’s Ministries. Her giftedness has been an asset to the children’s department. We’ve had 7 births this year bringing the total number of children at CCC to 43!

Wonderful teachers…
It takes about 50 individuals to provide both childcare and teaching for our children. A BIG thanks to all those who have given of their time and faithfulness to teach our children.

Perhaps no better testimony could be given about the work of God in our children’s lives than was given at our December 26th service. For those of you who were there, I’m sure it will be etched in your memory for years. For those of you who missed it, ask someone about it!

Youth: During 2004 the youth group had another Beach Retreat at Crescent Beach. Many one-to-one relationships between youth and volunteer leaders grew and provided much-needed encouragement for both. Lorraine Martin and Margaret Thaler deserve great thanks for their efforts to create an atmosphere in which youth can grow in God’s grace.

We hope the new year will bring more presence to this ministry. February 25-27 is our Middle School Retreat with a dozen other churches in Florida. It will be held at Southwind, a Young Life facility near Ocala.

Adult Class While the kids are doing quite well, the more stunning success story within education is our 9AM Adult Sunday School Class. In the first half of 2004, we held classes on the topics of Friendship Evangelism, Spiritual Gifts and A Purpose-Driven Life. More recently, we spent 10 weeks going through the very practical topic of Biblical Conflict & Resolution and ended the year with a short theological series on the Incarnation. Sunday School attendance among adults is up an estimated 600% (6 adults in January to now 40 in December) to our highest level of participation ever!

We want to especially recognize Billy Crow who is chairing the Education committee that is doing such excellent work and Steve Lammers who is providing needed elder oversight and leadership in this area.

Fellowship
From 1 John: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother… How can you say you love God who you cannot see when you don’t love your neighbor?

§ Lunch on the grounds
§ Summer Get-togethers
§ People hanging around after events, particularly the evening ones at Hope Church
§ Women’s activities
§ Children’s Easter Egg Event

At the end of 2003 our membership was at 40. Now at the conclusion of 2004 we have 72 members!

Evangelism
Christ Community has always been a place longing to be used of God to bring His people home. We had several people join our church this year upon profession of faith in Christ. Many of you were favored to hear their stories in various venues. It is always sweet to see God creating new life in Christ. May He do more in 2005! As one of our members challenged us in our “open mike” time during the December 26th service, “Let’s go out there and find those lost sheep and bring them home.”

Mercy
God has made abundantly clear that for His kingdom to come and His will to be done means for His people to help people in need. I am continually reminded that God has put a number of people in Christ Community who love to be of help. From involvement in meals-on-wheels to personal ministry with single-mother families, much good was done in the name of Christ this year.

There are three other things to be discussed…
I. Leadership:

1. How God has provided
Larry Eubanks, Richard Horner, and Steve Lammers are our first session of elders at Christ Community. Their shepherding leadership has been of great value and service.

Success of broadened leadership

Prior to my sabbatical this summer, a team of individuals came together to form a Lay Leadership Council. The (LLC) did not fail when it dissolved in October. Rather, it completed its purpose. I want to take time to acknowledge their efforts (leadership during summer, new directions for staff, shaping our strategic vision, summer fellowship, education committee, first missions committee, first-ever budget, being a voice for the congregation, etc.). The end of the LLC is a victory. We have reached the next stage in our growth and are closer to our long term goals (Elders, Land, and diversified leadership). We should all remember that through their efforts we experienced and extended the Grace of Jesus Christ.

2. How to pray
The vision for Christ Community, and a key to her long-term health, is the raising
up of elders from within the congregation. Please pray that the efforts of the current elders would result in the ordination of other lay elders for our church family.


II. Land
After being sorely disappointed that the land we tried to buy on Newberry Road was not God’s plan, we are excited to be on the verge of acquiring a 5 acre site on Parker Road. You will hear more about this at our Sunday evening meeting on January 9th. Ronnie Neder leads a hard-working Land Team.

III. Commitment to Impact Gainesville and Beyond
Feels like a Buzz Lightyear statement, “To infinity and beyond!” Anyway, it is a reality that God has strategically used Christ Community to do His larger Church a lot of good. This was brought back home to me as I received Christmas cards from people who have moved away and expressed that Christ Community was the place where God did a major work in their lives, either of conversion or growth in grace. In other examples of our expanding impact, this year we specifically saw:
a.) A rise in our influence among undergraduate students. Several hundred students passed through our doors this semester, many of whom have found us through the campus ministries of RUF, Campus Crusade, Young Life, FCA, and others.

b.) The welcoming of our first pastoral intern, Ray Treadwell. Having volunteered during the Fall on a part-time basis, this January – due to a generous scholarship from an out of state friend of Christ Community – Ray will be full-time with the church until July. His functions will include general office support, assisting me in and out of worship, teaching class occasionally, and discipling younger men in the church. His exposure to pastoral ministry we hope will enable God to extend the grace of Jesus through him for years to come.

Budget process:
Last of all, in May I asked Jason MacGregor to guide us through a budget process for 2005. We can’t thank him and all the players in this process enough for all the planning and hard work they put in. The results of that task are enclosed with this letter. Our completed 2005 Budget is one more benchmark of God’s hand in our steady, stable growth.


This by no means exhausts all the great things God has done for us in 2004. No letter could. Some of you had a deep renewal in the gospel this year. Marriages were strengthened, relationships healed. Joy was restored; sin lost its power, etc. Those things don’t show up on a spreadsheet and yet they are key elements of a gospel-driven church.

www.robpendley.blogspot.com
A good place to visit weekly, if not daily, to stay up on life in this church family

Was Simon Mangus a Christian?

Forgive the formatting, this is from Tim Keller and John Stott:

Verse 13 says that “Simon believed and was baptized”, yet Peter says later that his heart is
“not right with God” (v.21), which means that he is not a Christian. Some would say that Simon
had been converted, but had fallen away from grace, had lost his salvation. But Peter’s words in
verse 23, “For I see you are (lit.) in the gall of bitterness and captive to sin” has the sense of
“now I perceive your true state”. The best way, then to read v.13, is the Simon intellectually was
convinced of the truth of Christ, but there was no real change of heart, no new birth.

Why? Verse 19 shows that his interest was “this ability”. He saw the power to heal people
physically and spiritually, and he wanted that power for himself. He had been a magician, and the
work of a magician is to have power. Now in the gospel he saw a greater power, and he just
wanted this for himself, too. In other words, Simon’s fundamental and basic heart attitude had not
changed at all. He had just gotten into Christianity because he hoped to use it as a more effective
way to rise up and get power over people. He was still, in a sense, trying to save himself and keep
control of his life. The way he had always done that was through gaining power over people. Now
he wanted to do this through this new religion.
This is subtle and a great warning to us all. Some of us feel that we need approval in order to have
happiness and value. So we may appear to “convert”, but we may be getting into Christianity just
to get this nice group of people to love and approve of us. So our real “salvation” is not Christ, but
the approval of other Christians. There has been no real heart change, no real abandoning of our
good works for faith in Christ’s work for us. We are just doing the old self-salvation in a new
way. Or, here’s another example, closer to Simon’s pattern. Some of us feel that we need power
over others in order to have happiness and value. We may always feel that we need to be running
things, be telling others what to do. So we may appear to “convert”, but we may be getting into
Christianity just because we see a new place where we can run things and pontificate and tell
people how they ought to live. So our real “salvation” is not Christ, but power over others. There
has been no real heart change, no real abandoning of our good works for faith in Christ’s work for
us. We are just doing the old self-salvation in a new way.
So this mistake of Simon is much easier to do than you think! It is being done in the church all the
time!
Did he repent? We cannot be sure, from his reply in v.24, but John Stott does not think his reply
indicates that he did.
“Simon’s response to Peter’s rebuke is not encouraging. He showed no sign of
repentance....Instead of praying for forgiveness...What really concerned him was
not that he might receive God’s pardon, but only that he might escape God’s
judgment...Simon’s tears [may] have been tears of remorse or rage, but not of
repentance.” Stott, The Message of Acts, p.151.
In other words, Simon seems only concerned that he might be hurt, not that he has hurt God. That
is not a good sign!