Brothers and Sisters,

The cut-off date for registering for the Ministry Retreat is within a week. If you haven’t yet reserved your spot, see the section below.

The calendar has turned to March. This month, let’s particularly pray for Parker’s Cove Baptist Church (Colin McMahon) and Living Water Baptist (Jeremy Head).

March also means a Supercluster in Truro (Crossroads Baptist) on the 21st. Pastors, plan now to attend this wonderful time of edification and fellowship.

From The Compelling Community by Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop:

Church community isn’t meant to last; it merely foreshadows the community we will experience forever. Sometimes when my church is celebrating the Lord’s Supper, I let my gaze drift from person to person, imagining what they will be like in heaven. There’s Margaret over there who sends me all those discouraging e-mails—yet who loves her Lord and our church. Squinting into the future, I can almost see her now, shining with the wise love and compassion of her Lord. Joe, who’s sitting a few rows back, reliably tells it as he sees it. That may at times be off-putting today, but the beauty of the honesty underneath will one day result in heartfelt praise to our King. Then there’s Marie, who’s talked with me a dozen times about struggles with unbelief. I can picture her gazing with unending joy and confidence on her faithful Redeemer.

“Him we proclaim,” wrote the apostle Paul, “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). We also toil to that end, with eyes half focused on the glorious yet broken congregations in front of us - eyes half focused on the beauty of what they are becoming…

May we love the community God has given us in our churches. May we love who they are, who they are becoming, and what God intends to do through them. May we hold onto them in love until they too have passed through those gates, and into their everlasting reward.

Andrew