Minister in the Pew: Doing Some Soul-Searching
by Rev Robert A Wendel
Yes, it’s cold outside, there’s ice on the roads and snow on the ground, at record levels. It looks more like Christmas than being just six weeks away from another Resurrection Sunday. Western Christian churches call the forty days preceding Holy Week, Lent – a time to evaluate one’s spiritual connection to Jesus.
During the Lenten season, many fellowships conduct membership classes. Baptists, traditionally, include Individual adult baptism moments during Easter morning or evening worship services.
Once again, Christ seems to be urging you and me to reflect upon our personal relationship with Him. To underscore that, many pastors feel led to focus his or her seasonal teaching and preaching on helping listeners re-think just where they each ‘stand with the Lord.’ And that is, surely, a good thing.
We find ourselves living in the mist of many responsibilities, worries, anxieties, demands, and difficulties. Not only are our personal lives, ‘stressed out’, today’s media headlines, sometimes, can cause us to lose focus on Christ and His call to reform our lives and live according to the gospel.
Many Christians don’t even want to do some honest soul-searching. Still, thankfully, thousands of committed believers do respond to the opportunity that this spring rite affords for prayer, the giving one’s financial offerings and reflection, coupled with regular Sabbath morning, evening or mid-week prayer and bible study experiences.
This does not have to be a morbid time. Yes, we may need to re-examine our relationships with family, co-workers, school mates, neighbors and even fellow church members, making likely changes necessary so you and I can become more Christ-like in our attitudes and everyday relationships.
The handful of weeks before Easter sunrise can also serve to remind us how the life we live really does reflect our co-operation with God, acknowledging His abundant grace during our ordinary days, ever so glad for Jesus, who is always ready to strengthen us and literally carry us from the darkness of this world to a bright Easter dawn or glowing sunset!