The topic for Friday was “Closing the Gap between religion and life” How do we close it? It was led by Bishop Stevenson and guest speaker Dr. Catherine Meeks
They talked about reparations, racism, church declining numbers, and young people.
1 Reparations are not only associated with money but is about relationship with one another, acknowledging the wrong that was done, the struggles that we are still facing, haves and haves-nots which are for the most part due to the color of their skin.
2. Race. In the church, the community is diverse. One person spoke about their community as more than 50% Afro-Americans but only 17% in church. Are we not approachable? Is our faith keeping people away? Let’s do something about that.
3. Decline in church – Bishop Stevenson mentioned a church that had declined to 15 members, 4 -5 years ago. Now -5 years later they have 40 members in the church. That’s awesome!
There was a discussion of 5 topics presented on the screen
Andrea chose – “Where do we want to see our church in 5 years?” “We need more members in here not to fill pews to fill their souls.” To help them know God. We need to be welcoming to any race, any color
We need to continue outreach not necessarily to add new ones but to enhance the ones we have.
We need to support the leaders we have and find ways to do that
The young are not attending church. We have a wonderful world of social media time that pushes out the negative and not the good work the church is doing.
Parenting. To have a striving society including churches we must get young people involved We are proud Christians with deep faith. We must lead by example.
We are living our best life with God in front of us leading us
With God behind us, pushing us
With God beside us, to lean on when we are weary.
With God above us, lifting us up on days we are too weak to walk
He is an awesome God, merciful and forgiving God. He loves us all.
So let us commit to helping someone find Jesus. Let us share him because we are so proud of him and we want to share him, share him with our kids on a daily basis, with our friends and family. Reach out to them.
In closing, Dr. Meeks said God’s face is in each of us. Let’s be the light on the hill.