Welcome to Rose City Presbyterian Church.
Sarah and I want to share what’s on our heart as we begin with you now, in the task we now share in together. Over morning coffee on the front porch, we crystallized what we want to be passionate about as we minister among you as your brother and sister in Christ: To grow each other in the love of Jesus, so we can love people like Jesus does, that other people will come to know and love Jesus too!
Our Elder, John Bohm posted a beaut welcome on Facebook this week, to Terry and Julie Cave. He said he is ‘looking forward to working together to rebuild, reshape and remodel the church into a 2017 model. The future’s looking brighter by the day.’
Now, do you remember when we came out to meet you last year? I spoke about 3 things we’d be on about as a church, should you agree to have me come as your minister. They were grace, mission and cost. That day, we looked at Jesus’ story of the prodigal sons, found in Luke 15.
Rose City Presbyterian Church is About Grace
We talked about grace, because God is so gracious to us in Christ. Sarah and I won’t be modelling legalism, nor theological or moral liberalism, but grace. Living lives enjoying God’s grace to us, and extending that grace to lost sons and daughters who need to know the love of the Father. Grace.
Rose City Presbyterian Church is About Mission
We talked about mission, because our God is on a mission to seek and save the lost, and he calls us to be part of that mission. Actually, he’s gracious enough to choose us, to use us in his great rescue mission for the world. We won’t be just caring for each other as a church – we understand we’re on mission to the unchurched! We’re on mission as church to those outside of church. Mission.
Rose City Presbyterian Church is About Cost
We’ll be prepared to bear the cost. Cost, because grace is free but not cheap, because forgiveness is incredibly costly, because Christ died for our sins – the just for the unjust. We talked about cost being far more than financial cost, but the call from the Lord Jesus to bear the cost of forgiving one another, and being forgiven by each other, because God has forgiven us – at very great cost.
Grace, mission and cost. 3 words to think about as a church as Sarah and I start with you today, just like we shared with you so many months ago in 2016.
So far, the elders met last Friday and approved our new name, Rose City Presbyterian Church; plus our new logo, website and Facebook page. These are all small steps in getting organized for our great mission together. I want to share with you some of our short, medium and long term hopes as we kick off today.
Our Goals
In the short term, we’ve got a lot of basic things to do: setup kids church, start kids spots in the service, organize Bible readings and music and a number of other roles to help our services hum along.
In the medium term, over the next few terms, we’ll need to organize our growth groups, think about a new location, what we’re going to do to reach the lost, raising up new elders and managers.
Over the long term, things we can see we need to think about include establishing a ministry centre, a hub for ministry, right in the centre of Warwick somewhere, so we can get on with our mission from the heart of the Southern Downs.
In the coming weeks we’ll also be praying for those partnering with us in revitalizing ministry here: fellow churches donating Bibles, presbytery providing support and accountability, Creek Road preaching team, the ministry resourcing committee of PCQ, those praying for us and providing for us.
Finally, this Sunday 29th January, we begin our first teaching series together, in Matthew’s gospel: God With Us. Please take a couple of postcards from here today, to hand out and invite people to join us.
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