Happy Birthday!

This last weekend Jess and I were able to enjoy an awsesome celebration. There was great music, flashing lights and confetti cannons. It was a birthday party that was a lot of fun and very emotional. It wasn't a party for a kid or one of our friends, it was for our beloved church. Fellowship Bible in Nashville, where we have been attending for about 4 and a half years now, just celebrated it's 10th birthday. The service was a celebration of where God had brought the church in the last 10 years and committing ourselves to where he was leading in the future. Fellowship started 10 years ago, like many new churches do, as a bible study with six couples in someones home. Those six founding couples are still members of the church and were able to get up and share their stories of what they have seen God do in His church. As I listened to these couples share I couldn't help but be filled with emotion and awe for what God has done. It's always great to hear prospective form the bigger picture. Sometimes we get so bogged down with the events of today and can't see or understand what the big picture looks like. When you have ten years to look back on it becomes a little more clear sometimes. For instance, after the six couples shared for a while another young couple came up to speak. They were from New York City and had moved to Nashville a couple years ago because of a jobh transfer. They had both grown up in fragmented homes with no Christian influence and lived life for themselves. When they moved to Nashville they somehow happened to come to Fellowship one sunday. They were surprised by the friendliness of the people as opposed to New York and ended up coming back again. Eventually they gave their lives to Christ and have become radically changed. After they shared their story they turned to those original six couples and thanked them for being faithful and obedient to God's call to start this church. There is a direct correlation between their faithfullness and lives being changed eternally. This of course was extremely inspiring and moving and as the congegation stood to it's feet to applaud the six couples were moved to tears. You could tell they were moved not because of what they had done but because of what God had done through them in spite of them.

I am very thankful to be a part of my church and praise God for ten years and look forward to many more. I also know that my church is not unique. God's church is alive and well all over the world. A great moment on Sunday was in a video they showed where many local pastors and pastors from churches around the world that fellowship partners with gave their congratulations. It was great to see harmony in the body instead of discord which we see far too much of. I think sometimes churches see each other as individual teams competing each other to be the best and biggest. That's just ridiculous because we are all on the same team. We don't always agree on everything but as long as we have the same focus and same hope in Christ, we are one. I hope to see more unity in the future but more importantly a deeper focus on what is most important and that is Jesus.