"Don't Waste Your Summer"

Last night we had a little business at our Quarterly Business meeting, a financial report and receiving new members. Mandy Littrell, Pat and Ruth Clifford, Todd and Julia McBride, Laura Martin, Joyce Helgerson, and Jeff and Danette Brophy were introduced as new members.

The bulk of the meeting was an encouragement to "Don't Waste Your Summer." Our strategy at New Life Church is built on getting transformed, God-treasuring people in the lives of people who don't know Christ. The meeting focused on how we might do that this summer. Here is the impact it had on my wife. She wrote this to our family in her weekly email update to them:

"Like usual, I have big ideas of things I'd like to do this summer that we haven't gotten to. But I know how that goes. Some of it might happen, but some will go by the wayside. My cleaning, projects, yard, gardening lists are also long, and some of that will have to go, too. It was a good and much needed reminder for me last night at our "Don't Waste Your Summer" meeting at church that there are much more important things to be about, people that God has put in my path to befriend, a commission that God has left me here to be involved in. These are not optional (only for the outgoing/people-oriented type), not intrusions or interruptions, they are the main thing. Who will care if every closet got cleaned the summer of 2008? Well, I may care... at least right now, but I won't care for eternity. It will be much more rewarding if at the end of the summer my family feels more loved, my neighbors have been shown Christ's love, the people I see at the park and the store have been spoken to with love, I've had conversations with people about the Lord, my home has been open to friends as well as to "tax collectors and sinners" who are becoming friends. I don't know exactly how that will look, but I am praying that God will give me opportunities (He does, all around us, everyday) and that He will show me His plan for my summer, day by day, person by person. He is Master."

I am praying that God will give you opportunity to love someone in His name today!