Last Sunday we enjoyed our first service at St. John’s Lutheran Church. It was a joyous celebration of God’s faithfulness to us. And just as there was a cloud of God’s presence that filled the sanctuary when Solomon dedicated the temple, there was a cloud of expectancy hanging in the air as we worshipped together there our new home.

Everyone agrees this is a new beginning and that there’s something exciting pending that God has in store for us. I suspect it has something to do with him continuing to shape us into that community we’ve been dreaming of becoming since we began… that connects well with God, one another and with the world so that the most unlikely, non-religious people will themselves connect with God.

This is who we already are but we have more to go and our faith needs further stretching if we’re going to be a socially attractive and spiritually engaging community. We’ll need even greater confidence in God’s love and dependability as we move forward.

40 day adventure

This is where Leap Of Faith comes in. Our third annual Lentin prayer experiment is coming up at the end of this month, beginning February 26th. Forty days, approximately six weeks, of targeted prayer, daily Bible readings, and small group participation, all geared to broaden our faith and deepen our experience of God’s active presence in our daily lives and in the life of our church community.

In the past these forty-day experiments have been a mixed bag of blessing, stretching and grappling with the mystery of prayer and faith. But in the end everyone that has stuck to it reported a deepening of their relationship with God, even those whose prayers went unanswered.

The world awaits

In the spirit of this sense that there’s something God has pending for our community the theme of this year’s Leap Of Faith is, “The World Awaits”. The idea is this: As human beings created in God’s image we’re at our best when we’re connecting with this God. Moving with him. Loving him. Loving like him. Loving what he loves. God loves the world… not just the church-world, the whole world. He has a good plan for our world. This plan includes God revealing himself and expressing his love to a waiting world that’s aching for it, through people like us in many cases simply by having friendly conversations and learning from each other.

For our part, we have to be willing to move with this loving God. For most of us this will take big trust – a leap of faith if you will – and that’s what these six weeks will be about.

If you’re a part of our church we’ll be filling you in on the details over the next couple of weeks. If your just a friend receiving this mailing and want to participate anyway you an by going to our website for a LOF Users Manual, sign up for the daily Bible readings and to listen to our six part World Awaits sermon series. Join us in this adventure. There’s a world of exciting kingdom opportunity awaiting us all.

I want to thank the Greater Boston Vineyard for inventing Leap Of Faith and being so generous by sharing it. The World Awaits is their baby. Our church is borrowing it from them. Thanks so much.

Sincerely,
Pastor Mike

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