Welcome From Lead Pastor Bruce Enns

The last few weeks of the news have caused the world to sit up and start to really think about what really matters... and about how short life really is. It is during these times of intensity in life that the insignificant gets pushed to the periphery.

In our sermon series "What are you willing to die for?" we have been asking the same questions, from Luke chapter 9 and 14... what is it that really matters to me? What convictions guide my life? What is really worth living for? What in my life needs to "die"?

I truly believe that we live in times that will be increasingly difficult for those who live by conviction - especially convictions that come from the Word of God. The call to "let go of what is behind and strain toward what is ahead" (Phil. 3:13) will become an increasing divide in the days ahead. Believers in North America have been able to sit comfortably in the gap for a long time - holding onto two worlds. We will increasingly have to declare what we are letting go of, and what we are now grabbing onto. May we "grab hold of"... and "strain toward"... that which truly matters in our life - Jesus Christ.

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Newsweek magazine had an article that talked about how people of all faiths and backgrounds are struggling with the Tsunami disaster and wondering where God is in all this. It says how "Job, too, was tested, his patience tried to the extreme. But he was only one just man. Whole families, whole communities, countless pasts and futures have been obliterated by this tsunami's roiling force. Little wonder that from Sumatra to Madagascar, innumerable voices cry out to God. The miracle, if there is one, may be that so many still believe."

It is at times of crisis like this that the faith of God's people is not so much developed, but revealed. If there was ever a time that the world needed to see, hear and experience the faith, hope, and love that is found in Jesus Christ, it is now.

Even though we cannot come to a quick and reasonable understanding of events that literally change the world, such as this one - we see story after story emerging from the disaster of the faith, hope and love expressed by God through people.

I pray that this tragic event will not lead to despair, to doubt, or immobilizing fear. But rather that incredible faith, hope and love will be revealed in each one of us through prayer and action. Nothing happens to us that has not gone through the hands of God first. Even the difficult, the painful, and the things that don't seem to make any sense.

"When I think of the wisdom and scope of God's plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth" (Ephes. 3:14,15).

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