September 12, 2024

September 12, 2024

Have you ever traveled to another country? I know some Redlanders did so this summer. For others, I have traveled with you to different countries! A woman named Luisa Yu has not merely been to another country. She has been to all other countries! Earlier this year, Yu completed a goal she set 56 years earlier, when she was 23 years old. She decided that she wanted to visit every country on earth. That includes each of the 193 member countries in the United Nations.

What impresses me about Yu’s accomplishment is the sheer determination and planning it took to pursue a goal – and stick to it – until she completed what she had set out to do. We similarly find ourselves pursuing goals, especially at the start of our ministry program year. I love the sense of newness each year when our fall programming once again kicks off. I enjoy seeing people return from summer vacations ready to return to familiar routines.

While routines are beneficial – many of us nearly crave them after a topsy turvy summer – we are wise to view them with purpose. Our involvement is meant to accomplish something good. When Luisa Yu visited a new country, she was working toward her goal.

What adventurous endeavors will your participation accomplish? We don’t merely attend fellowship meals for delicious food. We gather to encourage one another around the table. We serve in children’s or youth programming not merely to fill a volunteer need but to invest our lives in the next generation. We belong to Grace Groups and men’s or women’s Bible studies, knowing that our participation contributes to our spiritual health and the health of those around us. We come to worship services not to hear amazing musical and vocal talent but to participate together in worship of our Lord and to hear from a rotating cadre of gifted speakers through whom God speaks.

Of course, we could simply attend without giving full attention to the spiritual fruit that God may yield from these endeavors. A proverb describes such an approach this way: “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied” (Proverbs 13:4).

Let’s be diligent in our endeavors! We will see God’s rich supply come through these efforts. While I have focused on ministry programming, that is simply the structure that helps us grow. We supply the connective tissue that builds relationships, brings excitement, creates unity, and guides our hearts to diligently seek God’s active work in all the adventurous endeavors to which He calls us.

When this program year concludes, imagine how much ground we will have covered!

Your partner in ministry,
Kevin Freeman