July 8, 2022
Last week my family and I had the privilege of serving at the Joni and Friends Family Retreat with many other POPC families, as well as saints from around the Southeast. Families with children or adults who have special needs are lavished with love and care and encouragement, and volunteers of all ages are able to give themselves away for a week to serve the Lord and His people with a variety of physical and mental disabilities. Mission trips are such life-changing joy, but family mission trips are even better - it was so good to see my children serving, whether Ezra setting tables for our meals with the other "Missionaries-in-Training," or my daughters spending their day as a "buddy" for a special need child or sibling. I had the privilege of playing guitar for our large and small group singing times (something I don't get to do very often at POPC because we have so many talented musicians!). If you haven't gotten to attend a Family Retreat before, I heartily recommend it in future summers. But you don't need to wait - you can minister through our Sonbeams Ministry throughout the year.
One of the things for which I'm thankful about our congregation is the heart for ministry that the Lord has poured out among us. In a few weeks, as we all return to more normal schedules, I'm going to be sharing several opportunities for ministry with you - some you likely already know about, others will surely be new to you. As our calling as elders is to equip the saints for active participation in ministry, we long to see every member serving in a variety of ways according to the gifts that God has given you. Be praying about how the Lord might use you this coming fall and spring for His glory, the gathering in of His elect, and the transformation of His people.
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During General Assembly week, a significant announcement was made by Reformed Theological Seminary here in Jackson. After more than fifty-five years of instruction at its historic, original campus in west Jackson, RTS will be moving to 1400 Meadowbrook Road, just off I-55 behind the First Commercial Bank Building and near The District at Eastover. The plan is for the relocation to occur next summer. I'm excited about this move not only for what it means for the students, but also for what it means for our area PCA churches and members. To have the resources of the RTS Library and Bookstore so much more accessible, to be able to audit classes more easily and learn from the professors, to have seminary students so much closer to our churches - all of this will be a great boon to the people of God in the Jackson metro area.
Be in prayer for Dr. Ligon Duncan and the RTS Board (of which our own Rod Russ is a member!) as they embark on this new initiative. Pray for the students whose lives will be a bit upended, but for long-term good. Pray that God would use this move to strengthen the RTS Jackson campus even more, and that it would continue to be used to train faithful servants of the gospel for the lost and for the found. The church is only as strong as its leaders, and God has used RTS in wonderful ways the past fifty-five years. May He continue to do so in the 21st century.
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Don't forget that we will be celebrating the Lord's Supper this Sunday (one week later than usual, because of the Independence Day holiday weekend). Even as Israel ate the Passover to celebrate their freedom from slavery in Egypt, so we gather around the Lord's table (which has replaced Passover in the new covenant) to celebrate our freedom from the clutches of Satan, sin, and death. If we had reason to eat and drink in celebration of our country's freedoms, how much more, each time we sit at Christ's banqueting table, do we have reason to celebrate the freedoms that He has accomplished for us.
I love how our Westminster Confession of Faith describes the liberty that is ours in Jesus: "The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law. But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected; and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of." Come to the table this Sunday, full of joy for the freedom that is ours through Jesus' finished work!