Jason Stonehouse

Many questions float around this subject, such as: “Are we a seeker-sensitive church?” or “Who are we ‘targeting?’” and “What is acceptable in a church service and what is not acceptable?”

This morning we talked about redefining normal from God’s perspective. We looked at Daniel 1:1-20 and how inspite of a culture that was going one direction, Daniel and his friends choose to do it God’s way and the results were telling. Anyway, for me, one of the most powerful points in our time together was the end of the message where I challenged us all to “try” it God’s way for 3 weeks in 3 distinct areas. The point is powerful because as a pastor I began to dream, what if people took me up on this? What if we all got serious about redefining our normal in these three areas of relationships, sexuality and finances? What would that mean for us individually? What could happen in our families? workplaces? schools? and what would happen in our church???! The potential is endless! 

I write this blog with a heavy heart. In the next day or two, those of you on the church mailing list will get a letter written by me and elder board chairman, Jim Gustafson. Our community of faith here at Grace has been growing in spiritual maturity, especially in generosity/ giving to God’s work, but the growth has been slow and gradual and therefore we’ve been really stretched financially as a church. Add to this the economic issues of our world right now and we have the perfect storm. Over the last many months we’ve worked hard to cut expenses and be real creative with what we’ve had to work with, but it wasn’t enough.