Yesterday, October 25th, OVCF, the church I have pastored for 21 years celebrated its 22nd anniversary. (I wrote about it in my last post. You can find that here). We had a good day. We met in the new, but very unfinished addition. It was rough sound-wise (no carpet or sound absorbing elements, except the people who came), but it was still good. If you watch the video you will see that for part of the sermon the top my head was cut off. 🙂 The young man who ran the live stream figured he would add 6″ to his height (he is 5’7″). He failed to take into account that I am 6’5″.  Short people! What can I say? 🙂 🙂 He eventually got it fixed. We also had a good time at the outdoor evening activities. 

But one of the biggest dangers of a celebration-for us or anyone else-is resting on our laurels. No athlete should be content with his previous year’s efforts-no matter how many awards he/she may have garnered. To stagnate is to die. 

There is another factor to consider as well: being so proud of one’s accomplishments that we feel there is no room for improvement. To an athlete that means getting “fat and lazy.” It means not improving, maybe even going backwards. Ditto for the church. To rest and rely on the past and its victories is to stagnate and die or go backwards. Pride comes in various forms, but every one of them spells D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R. 

I read recently that when pride walk onto the platform, God walks off. My prayer for OVCF, for me, is that we will not rest on the past, nor brag about our past, but pursue God in the future.