Tenacity

In her sermon on Sunday, Marilyn Johns called Community Presbyterian Church stubborn. The nerve! The gall! The.... Oh, yeah--she meant it as a good thing, at least in part. We cling to our church, determined to keep it going despite all the societal pressures that seem to be pushing us toward extinction.

She also, though, suggested that some stubbornness is not necessarily something to be proud of: the refusal to look at new ways of doing things, the deliberate blindness to those same societal pressures we're battling and possible new ministries they might require of us.

Being a small church is not a Bad Thing. If we had 300 people in worship every week, do you think we'd still be able to describe CPC as a family? I know that's something that a lot of members really value about our small church. Being a small church is not something to be fixed. It's something to be embraced--and that means recognizing that we have particular gifts (remember those spiritual gifts Pastor Fritz has been talking about?), and we have certain strengths. It's a matter of figuring out what those are and how to use them.

It's time to think about the true purpose of the church. Is it:

• To make money?
• To do God's will?
• To show up the Church of the Intercessor with our Sunday morning attendance?
• To spread the gospel?
• To be a static presence in a changing neighborhood?
• To serve our neighborhood, no matter how it's changing?

Everyone will have a different answer or combination of answers. Let us know what you see as the purpose of CPC and how we can fulfill it.