October Letter

Pastor Randy

Greetings in the Christ!

Let me first state that I am excited to be serving as your pastor here at New Life EFC.  It is an honor and a privilege.  I am looking forward to the future and all that God is going to do in and through us.  There seems to be a freshness and sense of anticipation in the air.  I suppose all new beginnings are like that.  Charting a new course and moving in a new direction is always thrilling.  There is that feeling that we are moving in a manner that pleases God and ministers to the soul.
All God’s creation exists for His glory. We were created to honor God.  The uniqueness of God’s creation is that it grows! There are different seasons of growth.  New Life EFC has had a seasonal ministry of maturation, a season of reformation, and now a season of expansion as we seek to apply all that God has been teaching NLEFC.  The growth we can expect to see should first be inside of each of us as the Holy Spirit convicts all of us of our desperate need for God’s holiness.  We know God loves us, but sometimes our face has not been told of that great mystery of God.  As we embark on a study of the Book of Acts we are going to see that when the Holy Spirit is at work through God’s people, the love of Christ is infectious. 

I believe all of us long to be empowered and filled with the Spirit of God and to be part of something that is bigger than us!
If we were to see people the way God sees them, what would we see? I believe we would first see God’s great compassion for all those not in a right relationship with Him.  Second, I think we would see God’s desire and effort to do all that He can do to reach those in darkness.  Third, I think we would be overwhelmed with God’s grace and love for us when we know we really don’t deserve it.  After spending nearly a decade in Asia, I saw so many people in the clutches of darkness. Some clung to animistic pagan practices, others clung to legalistic religious rituals, and still others chased false gods of materialism and selfish pride.  The bottom line is that Jesus Christ the message of hope we are to communicate to our world.  As Acts 4:12 reminds us “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

As we embark on a new season of ministry and an in-depth study of the Book of Acts.  I want to ask you to join me in committing to pray regularly for New Life EFC’s leadership, ministries, and opportunities afforded us by God in our church and community.  Pray for sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and a hunger to know God and His Word in a way that transforms us from the inside out. Let’s lock arms together to see God do what only He can do in us as we do what we must do for Him to work through us! Then as we move forward we’ll be able to look back and see a trail of God’s grace.  A legacy of godliness is worth living for today!

In His service,

Randy Strode