May 2023 Revealing Light Newsletter

-"Partnering through Prayerful Disciple-Making"
-"Team Communication"
- Elder's Corner: "My Job (And Yours Too!)"

I have continuously watched what prayer has done in our lives. Prayer partners us with what God is doing Prayer opens our eyes to God's will and to see what He is doing. It's a big partnership with God, communicating in this relationship with Him. Jesus Christ continuously filled his life with prayer. He prayed before the ministry began -- making disciples and sharing the gospel. He prayed while the ministry was going on -- while he was making disciples. And he prayed for the ministry, for the disciples making disciples to come. We can pray before, during, and after as we partner with God. We also pray for the future ministry of God's word in families, friends, coworkers, strangers as God's Kingdom is being revealed here on Earth through God's work.

I have not often done this well, though I desire to have this kind of prayer life that Jesus Christ had with Our Father. It’s that desperate desire to depend and be in relationship and partnership with God our Father. God has made this possible through Jesus Christ and has made the way for this partnering and familiar (family) relationship with God our Father. It’s a blessed and gracious gift of God to be with God and part of His work and rest in the world. I hope you will have this growing desire and partnering relationship with God through prayer and His Word that He has so graciously given to each of us.

As we partner with God's ministry of making disciples, we pray before we disciple, as we disciple, and as they disciple.
- Daryl Struemph

I keep learning and relearning the necessity of communication. Without communication, there is no team. We each have experienced the hurt and confusion a lack of communication can cause; either with our spouse, children, family, friends, coworkers, bosses, church members, and with God. Without communication, there is no team. That is what was so beautiful about Jesus’ ongoing relationship, partnership, and prayer with God. Look at this communication between Jesus and God, Abraham and God, Moses and God, Elijah and God, and more. They saw that in order to partner with God, they needed to be in communication and conversation with God through prayer.

When we are not communicating, in our misunderstanding we may think we are all going the same direction, working together toward the same goal, only to find out when conflict arises that we were not on the same page.

The hard thing, we sometimes didn’t realize we misunderstood until these conflicting moments arises and then that offers opportunity for clarity. Conflict does not need to be a final divide but an opportunity to unite.

I am excited that we can offer the new Eugene Christian Church app to allow for all of us to be in contact with each other, as an updated directory and a safe place to communicate together. You will find groups and teams to join to be able to stay updated and to communicate plans and ideas together. You will find groups like prayer chain, open gym students or helpers, women’s study group, children’s church team, workdays, and more. Once you make an account and request to join a group, then you are ready to communicate in those groups! As we engage in this, hopefully this will help alleviate some people not being informed or out of the loop, to contact as a group/team, for newer members to be able to communicate with the church without the need for updated phone numbers, and to help us as a church body unite together through communication.

Also on the app, you will find upcoming events, sermons, prayer requests, ways to be involved, giving, and resources you can read, watch, learn from, and use for discipleship, evangelism, Bible study, and more. We are excited to continue to use these resources and app more and more.
- Daryl Struemph

A professor I had along the way in my teaching career once remarked “You should do your job so well that your students would no longer need you.” I thought about that concept. I thought I will work my way out of a job because I am no longer needed. But each year another group of students would be at my door wanting to learn. Jesus had the same idea when He taught His disciples to teach others who would in turn teach others until the whole world knew who He is.

This was the plan to promote the gospel message through the centuries. The message was simple: Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and then rose on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3,4; Romans 5:8-11.) Jesus wants every believer to be engaged in delivering that gospel. (Matthew 28:18-20 “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. As you go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.")

So the mission of every mature believer is to get the word out about Jesus. The apostle Peter states the Christian purpose is “to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). God’s mission for you is more important than your worldly ambitions: of vacations, money, houses, boats, farms, families, retirements, hobbies (Matthew 19:29). He wants us committed to His purpose. The more we learn to love our neighbors and minister to them and invite them to be a disciple the more like Christ we become. Can you imagine the joy you will have in heaven when you see people who became disciples because of you and then the disciples they made because of Him? Is it worth giving up some of our own “wants” to please the one who gave up everything for us? Your first God given purpose is to grow up by taking on Christ’s character. If you do that you will want to make disciples.
- Alan McNeely