Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Journey to the Sanctuary - Part 3

This is the journey for Jeff Holtz - another one of our elders. I continue to pray for us as a church that we will continue to seek the Lord. Remember these testimonies come from a letter written by one of the members of CrossTown asking the Elders to tell their journey to the potential new name. Jeff is a very personal guy so the first couple of paragraphs that he wrote were written to the recipient so I edited those out. Here is the meat of his story.

"I have been praying that God uses this time in a powerful way for our church and that each of us works through this in a prayerful and loving way and shows a lot of mercy towards one another as different thoughts are shared. We do not need to agree on everything, but I pray that we will continue to love one another even when we disagree or have different opinions/perspectives. I have seen us doing this as a church over the last few weeks which is exciting and encouraging. It is an opportunity for each of us to keep our hearts in check which I can tell you have done by your e-mail below.

I personally believe that there is not a right or wrong around preferences that people have towards the name of the church. The elders spent time praying, seeking the Lord and discussing the name change prior to making the decision to propose it to the church. We spent this time together as well as individually and all felt that this was the way that we should move forward. I personally took a short time to warm up to the name, but started to get very excited when I saw the linkage to the vision "Building Homes of Faith". Pastor Ronn shared some verses, and I Corinthians Chapter 3 really hit me. We (together) are the Sanctuary and a place where God dwells. Chapter 6 talks about us as individuals being a place where God (The Holy Spirit) dwells. The reality is that I do not want to do or be a part of anything that God is not part of or dwelling within, at church, at my home, and for me personally as I go about showing up at work day in and day out. If God is not with me or with us, it is not meaningful which is what I have come to love about the name the Sanctuary (a place where God dwells). I can share more about my personal journey when we meet if you'd like."

Hope this helps.

Ronn

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