31 Days of Discipline

During the month of January, we are encouraging members of our church family to make the practice of Spiritual Disciplines a part of their New Year’s resolution. During our morning worship services, our sermons will focus on developing individual disciplines (prayer, fasting, meditation, and service).

Disciplines are habits or practices that help us set our focus on God. The goal of each discipline is not to become a better faster, or a better listener, nor to brag about our effective praying. The goal is to grow closer to God. During the next month, you will be encouraged to practice four spiritual disciplines: Prayer, Fasting, Meditation, and Service. These are only a small sampling of disciplines. Other disciplines include: silence, simplicity, worship, study, submission, confession, guidance, celebration, and others.

I used to be under the false impression that spiritual disciplines are very binding. I thought that practicing spiritual disciplines meant that I had to forfeit freedoms in order to succeed in the disciplines. I have been surprised to find out that the opposite is true. Rather than being binding, spiritual disciplines can help us feel the freedom that we have in Christ. I hope that your experience in the coming month helps you to discover the freedom of Christ’s transforming power as you draw near to Him in a disciplined fashion.

These devotions are designed to be a 31 day introduction to practicing the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, meditation and service. During this 31 day exercise, we will hear a series of sermons on Spiritual Disciplines at Second Highland CRC, that are meant to complement these devotions. I encourage you to begin on a Monday, and follow the devotions closely. On Monday-Friday of each week, the devotion will contain a scripture text, a brief thought for the day, and instructions for keeping a journal. As you begin this month, I encourage you to find a clean notebook of paper, or a journal for writing down thoughts while you practice these disciplines. Plan to spend about 20 minute per day in this process.
On the weekend, there will be one short note for Saturday-Sunday.

Please feel free to share these devotions with anyone who would like to participate. I pray that God will bless each of us as we strive to develop the habit of walking with Him.

New Life – Now What?

On Monday, December 7, our congregation voted to change the name of our church from “Second Highland Christian Reformed Church” to “New Life Christian Reformed Church.” This name change was the result of many months of discussions and presentations that are part of our church’s desire to become more actively involved in our community, and more intentional about welcoming people to join us in our church’s ministry.
Even though we have voted to change our name, we will not immediately unveil a new sign and have a new bulletin cover. We want this name change to be part of a bigger plan to invite and welcome people from the surrounding neighborhood to participate in the life of our church family.

During the next few months, members of our Council and Staff will work to notify the appropriate agencies and file the necessary paperwork to ensure that our name change is well communicated to those who should know. At the same time, we will meet with representatives from Back to God Ministries to help us consider how we might be more effective in enfolding visitors into our church family. We will also begin the process of recruiting a Director of Community Outreach during these months.
It is our hope that we will designate a date late this spring or early this summer to recognize the new name of our church, and unveil other efforts to help our church become a stronger presence for Christ in our community. Please pray that these efforts will be beneficial for God’s work in Highland, and look for further information about this process in the near future.