One of the most wonderful promises and invitations given in the Bible is found in Matthew 7:7. It is a word from God about prayer. I take it as a promise and as an invitation. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be open.” (Matthew 7:7) The passage goes on to speak of the trustworthy nature of our Father in Heaven…who gives us good gifts. So, I would like to ask you to put these three needs on your “A.S.K. List”.
First, have you seen the progress on the new entrance and elevator? It is framed in and I think the electrician is scheduled to run the electrical this week. Whoohoo. The completion of the entrance and the elevator are the major part of this particular project. But a part of the entrance and elevator project is also completing the sidewalk, the exterior of the entrance, some basic landscaping and parking helps. Oh, we are ever so close. As soon as we find out some dates, we will announce the day of dedication and celebration. Remember, be thinking of a “Name” for our elevator. And, keep your eyes open for the time we will have the big reveal of what is inside the time capsule we found. We have found several people who were present in 1949 when it was placed behind the memorial marker.
Second prayer need: We have some church staff needs that we are “asking” the Father about. First, the Associate Pastor position. This person will be in charge of our Connection Group Ministries, Ministry Teams and Administration. This is not a part of a succession plan for the far distant future when I retire. It is a full time position to help us make disciples who make disciples that change the world! We have a few resumes we are checking out and have “advertised” in several places that can help us. Just fyi, putting in the elevator took a major office space. So, we will be using all our creative thinking to find a suitable office space for the new staff person. You can go to our church web site and read the job description. Second, we are currently looking for a Director of our Weekday Preschool Ministry. Beth Lloyd, who has been with us for years and has done a great job, turned in her resignation letter. Her mother is requiring more of her time and attention these days and…she has a first grandchild soon to be arriving. Our heartfelt thanks to Beth for her years of faithful service and friendship. She will be missed in that position, but plans to continuing visiting with us here at JIBC. We wish her the best! And third, we are trying a brand new custodial service. We no longer have an individual doing our custodial work. We have hired a company. The good news is their team will do a complete and thorough cleaning every Monday and every Thursday. The bad news is that in between, we will have to get use to a new way of cleaning. Oh how I miss the days of Grady Maynor, perhaps the best custodian I have ever known! Using this company will have a little learning curve, but we are hoping the end result will be worth it all.
So, there is the A.S.K. Would you join me in prayer?
Pastor Tom
