"Paul's First Missionary Journey"

Pastor Laura Guy

October 19, 2008

Here's an instant replay of what happened in worship:

We remembered how Saul/Paul had a dramatic conversion followed by death threats when he first became a Christian. But then Paul has some "silent years" where we don't hear anything about him. Perhaps he was thinking that he had already accomplished all that God wanted from him, that his best days of ministry were behind him.
We saw that God was actually preparing him for his biggest adventure yet - a missionary journey that would take him 1500 miles into unknown territory to preach the Gospel. Paul and Barnabas faced many hardships on this journey, but they knew that God wanted them to spread the good news to the ends of the earth. We read part of their adventure from Acts 13:38-49.
We noticed that when Paul was retracing his steps to visit the cities where he had previously been, he went to check on the churches he had started there. Why would Paul start churches in these cities rather than just convert individuals to Christianity? In other words, why is the church necessary?
We imagined that if Paul were asked that by one of his converts, he would explain 3 things: 1) The Church is Jesus' idea. He lived his own life and ministry in community with others; 2) Accepting Jesus is only the beginning of our faith journey. In order to continue to grow in our faith, we need others to teach us and spur us on; and 3) Life is tough, and we will need the help and support of a church family to pray with us, comfort us and counsel us. Paul would remind us today that we were never meant to live as a Christ-follower on our own. We were meant to live in community.
We prayed for God to make us the church He wants us to be.
We celebrated communion, recognizing that bread must be kneaded before it is ready to serve. If we are in our own "silent years", perhaps it is because God is "kneading" us and preparing us for even greater ministry ahead.