We are preparing to go to our last immersion meeting of PLI. We leave for Florida on April 6th.
Although we are looking forward to our last meeting it is a bit sad. We won’t see the friends we have made in Florida as often as we have;
we will be given the last instructions on how to be Missional Leaders at this meeting. Now it is up to us to continue the journey. We can’t just come home and say, “Well, we’ve done it, we are finished with the classes, and we are done”. We are far from done, we are just beginning.
Over the past months, we have learned a great deal. We have started to put what we have learned into practice. We started our first Community group here in the Bay Area. It has been an amazing journey and we are excited to continue this journey.
The Community Group that we started here in the Bay Area has completed all the material we received in our immersion meetings. They
have committed themselves to learning to be Missional Leaders.
Some of you may ask the question “What now”. We invite you all to participate as you can to learn what it means to be Missional Leaders. We are all called by God to share what He has given to us and what we believe. Well that is great, we can do that, right? However, that may mean getting out of our comfort zone, out of our warm, cozy environment of our church
buildings.
What about the people who don’t know and believe in our Lord? Who is going to take God’s message to them? We are! That doesn’t mean just the hand full who have taken the classes, gone to seminars, continue to go to seminars; that means all of us. Those who don’t know our Lord yet are not going to make a path to our door ways. If we build it they will not
come, unless we invite them before that. We have to become friends with them first, we need to love them and be willing to get to know them where they are, not try to make them into “Mini me’s”.
We need to listen to what their needs are and be willing to hear their concerns, their fears, their hopes and dreams.
We all had/have dreams and we all want to be heard, but
something I heard at the Mission Conference in Livermore this month was “We’ve got it”. We are God’s children; we have been baptized, and have the forgiveness of sins. Our place in Heaven is secure. Now WE MUST share that with those who don’t know it yet. They need a safe place to fail and grow. They like to be challenged and to challenge. What we need to do is
earn the right to share the Gospel with them. They don’t want to be judged, just accepted. In order for them to hear the Gospel, we need to listen and accept them. It is not going to be easy, but I am up for it and I have made a promise to do everything in my power to do ministry for
God and for His church.
Where is the Church? – We are the Church. I invite you to walk with us
as we serve the Lord and His Church. It will take time, it will take commitment, and it will NOT be simple or easy. However it will be worth it, it will be blessed.
In HIS service,
Debbie Oatman