Greetings Holy, Healthy and Happy People of God,

As I write this eNote to our faithful and devoted community of radical and contextually conscious followers of Jesus Christ, my heart rejoices in the Lord because of God’s faithfulness and the constant movement of the Holy Spirit among us.

Often I will ask God to reveal to me what McKendree’s next move should be.  Instead of asking God to bless our ideas and/or work, I ask God to reveal His work for us to engage in.

Two Sundays ago, I invited Lynne Ingram, the Assistant United States Attorney, to join me to discuss our latest missional initiative of aligning our hands and feet to disrupt the activity of Human Trafficking in Nashville and the state of Tennessee.  Lynne’s work is hard yet fulfilling and I believe the church must be involved in disrupting evil in the world.  From a series of statistics, the average age of a boy is 13 and a girl is 12 when they are taken by sex trafficking and they stay enslaved for an average of seven years.  This activity of human trafficking happens in every county in the state of Tennessee and is a $60 plus billion-dollar industry.  After talking with Lynne, I believe God whispered, “McKendree must do this work.” So I invited five people to sign up, hoping that with five we could start this good work.  At the end of the day, we had 44 people to sign up.  My heart was humbled and honored that McKendree would join God in this work of rescue, healing and transformation.

On the drive home, I reflected on the 44 people who signed up and was in disbelief.  Then the Holy Spirit reminded me of the Scripture, ^“I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”  John 14:13-14

I am grateful that the people of McKendree are willing to follow the missional mandate of Jesus as recorded in Luke’s gospel, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  Luke 4:18-19

During this upcoming Lenten Season, let’s join God in the neighborhood where God reigns!

Hear the W.O.W., the Words of Wisdom,
“God keeps His promises!”

Remember to pray The Lord’s Prayer every day at 12 Noon!

As always, remember, God’s will for us is good, we must do the rest!
Pastor Stephen