From Your Pastor's Heart April 20, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S HEART

After a month of preaching to an almost empty sanctuary, I am ready to have our CBC family back together again. As much as I appreciate the kind comments on Facebook, I miss seeing your faces. I am grateful that we have been able to continue sharing the message of God’s love through various electronic media, and we plan to keep that going, but it is not the same as being able to personally connect with you.

For that same month, I have been working alone in my office without the aide of our amazing Church Secretary, Joyce Tate. She has served the Lord and His church faithfully for over 35 years. Joyce is both my partner in ministry and my friend. “Administrative Professionals Day” is Wednesday, April 22nd. Even though she will not be in the office that day, you can still express your gratitude to Joyce through cards, calls or other means. We long for the day when she can safely return to work.

Another aspect of our CBC ministry that I have greatly missed is our fellowship times. I miss our Monday “Men’s Lunch,” our Wednesday “Brown Bag Dinners,” our monthly “Men’s Breakfasts” and our after church “Pot Luck Lunches.” Do you notice a common theme here, where “fellowship” and “food” are synonymous in Baptist life? We do love to break bread together. I have already been asked if we can schedule a church-wide lunch for the first Sunday that we are able to resume meeting together. That certainly sounds great to me!

The question on everyone’s mind seems to be: “When can we come back to church?” I wish I had the answer to that question. I am certain that when we are given the go-ahead to start meeting together again, we will take the same approach that we do in inclement weather. We will leave it to the individual church member to decide if they feel safe venturing out. As I mentioned in my sermon last Sunday, I am dreaming of the day when our congregation can congregate once more!

Serving in love,

Bro. Jim