Email me at BrianLKyle@msn.com

Bearing Fruit and Growing
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”  John 4:23-24

Have you noticed how full our Sunday services have been lately?  It has been exciting!  I had a man come to talk with me during the week after he attended our June 13 service.  He had sat in his car out in the church parking lot just the week before not able to sum up the courage to walk into a new church.  He was afraid that people might not be open to him – that he would feel out of place.

But God’s Spirit drew him in on June 13^th and he was radiant with joy about how he was received and welcomed.  He told me that he was not used to “so much life” in a worship service.  He said it was wonderful how so many people participated.  He enjoyed the warm environment and felt like he really connected with God that morning and that he now has a new family of faith.

Praise God – it made my week as a pastor to hear these words.  It was a wonderful service on the 13^th along with many other Sundays in recent months.  The Lord Jesus is active in our midst.  I feel it.  Don’t you?  I feel it when I preach, when I interact with people, when I see so many of our members & regular attenders stepping up to significant ministry.  And new people who walk into our church see it too!  Jesus’ words above are in the context of his conversation with the woman at the well.  She was a Samaritan (ethnically discriminated against); she was a woman (experiencing gender discrimination) and she had numerous failed marriages (making her morally 2^nd class.)  But Jesus sets the bar for us as his followers.  He reaches out with compassion.  He crosses over the barriers keeping them apart (he is Jewish, a male and a religious teacher.)  And, importantly, he calls her to come out of her confusion and find real life in a relationship with the real God – “whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst again.” (John 4:14)   True Christian community nurtures real worship of God.  Jesus says that the authentic expression of this is worship which engages us in Truth as it engages us at our deepest realm - our spirit.  It is not just a moralistic community or a legalist organization or an optimism club or a busy-bee service group.  A true church is a group of people who have given themselves over in worship to the real God who has revealed Himself in a real Savior. That’s what this man experienced in our service on the 13^th and it made a difference in his life.  And that is what the family of faith is called to be!

Pastor Brian