It has been six years this February since I first came to Resurrection. In that time we have accomplished a great deal. Starting with the carpet we have taken one step at a time until we have almost remodeled our sanctuary. We are working on a new sign for the front and that should happen this summer. We need to paint the outside and finish painting the sanctuary, but compared to what needed to be done when we started it seems positively do-able. Our Child Development Center has changed as well. We are well on the way to having not only a preschool but a full time daycare that cares for children right up to the time where they enter school. God has certainly been with us through these changes and I am certain that the Spirit will continue to work in our midst as we move forward from here.
It takes leadership and a sense of purpose to move forward as we have here at Resurrection. We have been blessed by great lay leadership in our council and committees who have motivated us and done a great deal of drudgework to make things happen. A big part of that was the wisdom to choose what Harvey Riggs calls “Low Hanging Fruit” for our initial projects. As we can tell just by looking around all of that low hanging fruit added up to make a pretty big pie!
This year our most important task is going to be charting the direction Resurrection needs to take in the next few years. We don’t need to come up with a new purpose or ultimate goals. God has given those to us in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. In line with these two directives which give us vision and purpose, the size of our sanctuary is a pretty good indication of the vision this church has carried in its heart from the very beginning of our ministry here in the tri-valley area. It tells us that the dream here has always been to have a good sized vibrant congregation. That means that in the coming years our main focus must be on building community rather than the structure itself. Building a building is difficult but building people of God takes a lot more effort. What are the kinds of things we need to do in order to build a people of God? The answer to that question is yet another question; what are people looking for in a church community? The details are different in every culture and generation but the answer always revolves around the same issue, relationships.

Jesus’ Great Commandment points us in this same direction. It is two fold in nature and instructs us to love God and love our neighbor. That is a major focus of relationships. For us that means that our Church needs to be a place where people’s lives are nurtured spiritually and where they can experience the love of God and from God’s love be able to love God and others in return. In his Epistle John expresses it this way: We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1 John 4:19-21)
To nurture these relationships we have to spend quality time with people. It is pretty hard to love someone you don’t know or are not willing to spend time with. People who come into our church are looking for friends, not just someone to sit in the pew behind them. Often we think of ourselves as a friendly church, but that is a slippery slope. Do we mean that we have friends in the church or that a stranger coming in will be able to find new friends and meaningful relationships?
This is what makes building a church, a people of God so hard. It requires us to stretch ourselves, to break out of our comfort zone and make significant time for people we don’t even know. It is difficult but it is the only way to truly build a church based on the love of God. We are a friendly church, in the true sense of the word, but if we are to live up to the vision of those who built the sanctuary and filled it with all of those pews we will need to start stretching just a little farther. If we reach out in love I guarantee God will bless us.

Pastor Jim Bliss
February 2007