New Life Baptist Church, College Station Texas

We had our very first wor­ship ser­vice last night, and it was an amaz­ing time.  I’m so thank­ful for the way that God has brought such a diverse and com­mit­ted group of peo­ple together to achieve his own pur­poses.  As I stood back and watched every­one work­ing to get the build­ing ready for wor­ship, I was grate­ful for all the dif­fer­ent pas­sions and tal­ents that were rep­re­sented in our group.  New Life has every­thing from great cooks to great admin­is­tra­tors, and I’m thank­ful to God for bring­ing each per­son to our church.

I was also blessed by the sup­port we received from those who are mem­bers of Liv­ing Hope and Liv­ing Hope — Bryan.  Some came last night just to encour­age and bless us, such as our long­time friends, the Van­de­Van­ters.  It meant so much to me to be able to look out and see peo­ple who are pray­ing for us and who want to see God do great things.

Ladies, I cer­tainly hope you were both chal­lenged and encour­aged by the mes­sage last night.  I have got­ten to know so many of you dur­ing my years in Col­lege Sta­tion, and Kendra and I have ben­e­fit­ted tremen­dously from know­ing you.  I pray that God would con­tinue to teach you to cul­ti­vate a gen­tle and quiet spirit, and that you would renew your com­mit­ment to being an amaz­ing exam­ple to your hus­band (if you are mar­ried) and the younger women around you.  Men, encour­age your wives and the younger women around you by con­sid­er­ing them in view of God’s stan­dards.  Praise the “imper­ish­able beauty of a gen­tle and quiet spirit” instead of only prais­ing exter­nal beauty, and help us raise the stan­dard to bib­li­cal womanhood.

Next week, we’ll con­sider 1 Peter 3:7.  Men, let’s be ready to hear how God would speak to us about liv­ing with our wives in an under­stand­ing way.

After months of pray­ing, fast­ing, hop­ing, and plan­ning, New Life will have its first wor­ship ser­vice Sat­ur­day night at 5 p.m. For those who have been a part of the core group for some time now, excite­ment is mixed with reservation.

Did we make the right deci­sions? Did we hear clearly from God? Are we pre­pared to faith­fully care for those God brings to us?

To all those ques­tions, I would sim­ply answer that God has proven, once again, that he is sov­er­eign and that he is faith­ful. Proverbs 16:9 reminds us, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord estab­lishes his steps,” and Psalm 100:5 declares, “For the Lord is good; his stead­fast love endures for­ever, and his faith­ful­ness to all generations.”

It is greatly encour­ag­ing to know we serve a God whose plans we can­not spoil and who is faith­ful to his per­fect will. New Life would have looked entirely dif­fer­ent if it would have been planted in August or Sep­tem­ber or Decem­ber. But God has deter­mined to use those he has brought and those he will bring this March, along with all of our dif­fer­ent call­ings, gifts, and pas­sions, to shape New Life into the local church he desires.

Are we ready for Sat­ur­day? Of course not. We are still in the process of deter­min­ing how God desires us to be the tan­gi­ble expres­sion of his body in Col­lege Sta­tion, Texas. What we do know is that God has made it clear through what he has done that he desires to do great things in and through New Life. We hope that God will move in your heart to join him and us where he is at work.