Look At What God Is Doing!

INTRODUCTION

• Here we stand, at the dawn of a new year. I do not know what you think, but I am very excited over the opportunities God will open up to us in the new year!

• I would like to do something a bit different during the sermon time today. I am going to focus the message on the great things God is doing through the Auburn Christian Church.

• I believe God is doing so many things through our church that should cause excitement within us as we think of our church. We had a WONDERFUL 2003 and I cannot wait to see what God is going to do in 2004!

• I want to you all to understand something. I fully believe God called me and my family to this community and to this church for a reason. From the first contact I had with Marc to the interview process to the vote I received I knew God was in the calling to come to the Auburn Christian Church.

• This is a great church; it is a church that is full of God’s Spirit within the people and God’s love. I love this church and I love being here and I love serving the Lord here.

• When we left our last church I had a vision of how I hoped things would go here. Things are going even better than I had hoped for. God is doing great things through our church and I believe He will continue doing so as long as we put Him and His mission before everything else and if we continue to seek Him in prayer.

• If you are here today looking for a place to call home, I believe you are in the right place!

• I want to draw your attention to Psalm 66:5 which says, “Come and see the works of God, Who is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men.

• The idea is, “Come and see what God has done and is doing; come and learn from this what he is; and let your hearts in view of all this, be excited to gratitude and praise (Barnes Old Testament Commentary)

• This passage will be the theme for the day, Come and see the works of God. Today I want us to take some time to look at what God is doing with the Auburn Christian Church.

• I hope as we look at what God is doing with our people, ministry and future that your level of excitement about our church will rise even higher!

• The first area I would like us to reflect on is the people.

SERMON

I. LOOK AT WHAT GOD IS DOING WITH OUR PEOPLE

• Before we get into to specifics, I want to speak for a moment about numbers. I always want us to understand that numbers represent people and the church is about reaching people for Jesus and once we reach them, our job as a church just begins. We are then called to take those people and help them to mature in the faith.

• I have always said the mission of the church is to make one to make one. That is we are to make disciples so they can go out and make more disciples of Jesus.

• One of the things we need to look at to gage whether we are doing what God has called us to do is numbers, although they still only tell part of the story.

• When you look at the numbers, our church had a great year this year.

• From 1990-2002 the average weekly attendance for each month has been 90 people. In 2003 we are running over 110 per week.

• I take the weekly attendance during each month and divide that over the number Sundays in a given month to come up with an average weekly attendance for the month. (Example, 100 per week for a 5 Sunday month would equal an average of 100 per week for that month)

• During the 10 year period from 1992-2002 we had on 15 months where the average weekly attendance for the month was 100 plus. In 2003 in 11 of the 12 months we have averaged over 100. Only in January were we under 100 and then we are at 96.

• These numbers are so encouraging because it shows we are reaching more new people for Jesus and we are also seeing people we have reached become more consistent in their attendance.

• Thus far in 2003 we have immersed 12 people into Christ. Along with that we had 6 membership transfers in 2003. This is great! That means we immersed at least one person a month into the Kingdom of God! Can we do better? Yes we can, but I believe this is a cause to celebrate!