Lakeside Community Presbyterian Church

The room is buzzing with all different kinds of people. Kids are running around playing with each other, checking out the prizes that they might win during game time. There is talking and laughing. Some are meeting new friends, others are connecting with people that they have gotten to know over time.

Some are here to get a hot-meal, others are here to serve and to connect with the guests that are new to the room. Throughout the room you see people conversing and serving one another. It feels like a family gathering of sorts.

This is a snap-shot of what is happening at “Eat and Greet” here at LCPC on the last Sunday of the month. In a unique, non-threatening way, people are invited to come, enjoy a meal, have good conversation and catch a glimpse of what God’s church is like. It is a diverse, multi-dimensional gathering of people who are learning to be disciples of Jesus. This may be a new kind of church. It may be a little bit of God’s Kingdom on earth, just as it is in heaven.

God is on a mission to grow His church! Won’t you join us in building it, one relationship at a time.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.

 Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

1 John 4:7

Better Together.

We are a better church connected to one another. Being connected is more than just saying “hi” to someone on a Sunday morning. It is studying the Scriptures together. It is praying for one another. It is being connected to other brothers and sisters at church but also outside of church. It is sharing life together and being a church family.

We are better when we do life together in Christ.

One of the ways that we can grow in this connectedness is by studying the scriptures with each other. This Sunday we have an opportunity to do that in a class with Rev. John Moser at 11am. John is the Interim Executive Presbyter for Presbytery of San Diego. Before becoming the Interim Presbyter, John was the pastor at Mt. Soledad Presbyterian Church in La Jolla for 14 years. Come and learn about Christ in the Scriptures but more importantly, come and be with others as we learn together what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

“I am the vine; you are the branches.

If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit;

Apart from Me you can do nothing . . .

 If you remain in Me and My words remain in you,

ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.” (John 15:5)

Last week in my eBlast, I mentioned that the LCPC Elders developed a new Mission Statement:

We Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples of Jesus

It is a good statement, one that any church could emulate and use but in order for this statement to guide us, in order for this statement to have an impact upon our lives and upon the ministries at LCPC, we need to pray. Nothing is more important than this first step.

For us as individuals and for us as a church, we need to be praying to Jesus, asking to grow in our intimacy with Him, asking for guidance from Him, asking that much fruit would come from our efforts for Him as a church.

It is through our intimacy with Him that everything else flows – Our Love for God, our Love for People and our desire to Make Disciples of Jesus. If we are not intimately connecting with Jesus, then I worry that all of our efforts are futile. We will be going through the motions of “church” and the things that we do “in Jesus’ name” will be comfortable and nice but will not have the impact that we desire. All of our activity, all of our ministry, must come from our intimacy with Jesus.

Pray that we might grow in our abiding relationship with Jesus. It is through this intimacy with Jesus that everything else will flow. Pray! It is the hardest work that we can do for each of us, for our church and for God’s Kingdom.

Hope to see you on Sunday and have a great rest of the week.