making the connection

Recently we have been working to develop our ministry plan, purpose statement, mission statement, and so on, most of you know the drill. (It is complete but I feel compelled to unveil it for our church family before unveiling it here). Anyhow, one element of this is the word "connect" (more on that in a moment).

Every week the local paper runs a section titled "Faith and Family" in which they list every church in the community and/or county with information about that church. This information is submitted weekly by the local church and will include service times, visitor names, participant names, etc. They have a list of stipulations such as not listing sermon titles, Scripture references, and so on. One of the things that I wanted to include in our churches listing was "come and connect with God and with others this Sunday", yet I noticed (after several weeks) that this statement was never included. I emailed the newspaper to ask why this statement and others were removed from our listing every week? The response shortly followed;
This was a well prepared and well worded response. As I thought more about it though, it brought to mind many of our worship services. Can we as Christians, and those of us as pastors make the claim that those who worship with us will "connect with God and connect with others"? My prayer is that we can make this statement and that we are constantly evaluating our times of worship and asking this question.

As Christians we understand that people who attend church and Sunday School can "Connect with God" and "Grow in the Word of God", but as a newspaper providing information to the general public we do not have an authoritative source to confirm that information. If you were placing a paid advertisement expressing yours or the church's opinion those words would be fine.

As I sit here on a Saturday evening, preparing my heart to worship The Lord tomorrow and to lead others to worship His majesty and give Him glory, I must ask myself. Will you connect with God tomorrow? Will those that walk through the doors of the church connect with God tomorrow? How will you help to make that connection possible? How will you connect with others tomorrow to show the love of God in a hurting world to so many people who need to see it?

May God bless us all as we strive to connect with Him and connect with others.