Dear Rose Park,
I imagine some of you have made New Years’ Resolutions. Maybe it’s to lose those pesky ten pounds that you gained around the holidays. Maybe it’s to be on your phone less and read a book more often. Maybe it’s to finally clean out the attic. Or maybe for some of you it’s to save and invest more of your money. As your pastor, I’d like to invite you to consider a different kind of investment.
Typically, on the first Wednesday of the month we gather in our sanctuary at 6:30 p.m. for bible study. We’ve gone over topics like God the Father, God the Son, & God the Spirit, the life of Jesus, the book of Exodus and the travels of the Israelites, and even some of Paul’s New Testament epistles. For this season, however, instead of studying a particular book of the bible, we’re going to lean into scripture while reading a different book. The book we’ll be studying is entitled Growing Young: 6 Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church.
As the title suggests, this book is about investing in the next generation. I0t’s far too simplistic however (and perhaps even foolish) to try and boil down this book into one thought or one nugget of truth as it relates to one particular generation. To be honest, I’m not quite sure that’s the point of the book because as we’ll come to see and understand when we invest in the next generation we’re actually investing in the entire church.
So, people of God at Rose Park, would you consider investing in the life of Rose Park? Would you consider joining us tonight (January 15) and then on the first Wednesday of the month for the foreseeable future as we imagine what it might look like for Rose Park to grow young by investing in the next generation.
As the first page of this book tells us, “With age comes great wisdom and beauty. Decades of burrowing in the love and grace of Jesus give the mature members of our faith communities a network of deep roots. Year after year, season after season, their ongoing commitment to love God and others yields a rich harvest. Old isn’t bad. We love old. We just don’t think it’s the whole story.”
Consider investing in the life of the whole church so that the next generation might keep writing the story of faith in Jesus at Rose Park.
Grace & Peace,
Pastor Mark
Photo by Fabian Blank on Unsplash