Pastors Corner

Praise God, He has given us a Pastor!

It seems like it has taken a long time, but God’s timing is always perfect, as is His gracious will. Let’s celebrate!  Let’s just stop and enjoy the moment.

OK, moment over.

Seriously, though, the way for us to carry this celebration forward is to turn that energy and excitement into action.  Calling a new pastor isn’t the end of our journey, it is the beginning of an exciting new stage of the trip.

 First and foremost, I’d like to take a point of privilege and express the thanks and gratitude of Highlands Baptist Church to the Pastor Search Committee; Mary Ellen Anderson, Gehrig Boone, Bill McLemore, Ed Miller, Arlen Woody, and our two alternates, CJ Leggett and Linda Tew (who worked just as hard as anyone!).  They met twice a week, almost every week, for the past year.  They ran through many, many reams of paper.  They did a phenomenal job under high pressure, working quickly but deliberately.  They deserve our heartfelt thanks.

 Now, we need to turn our attention to the future.  We need to keep praying just as fervently as we have been.  Keep on praying for Robby and his family, and for our church.  Pray that God will make their transition to Highlands a smooth one.  Pray that God will prepare our hearts to hear His word through Robby.  We don’t just want to be hearers who delude themselves, like a teenage girl who looks at her messed up hair and makeup in the mirror before her big date and turns away forgetting what she’s seen.  We want to be hearers and doers of the Word.  More than anything else, our prayers and submitting to the Spirit’s use of the Word in our lives will make these next few months more than a honeymoon… it will be a revival.

 Let’s not just be ready for our new Pastor’s arrival, lets already be on the move.  In his sermon this past Sunday, Robby challenged us to be sharing the gospel, leading people into a deeper walk with Christ, and teaching the wisdom God has given us from living out God’s word and walking with Christ.  Don’t be ashamed of the Gospel, but instead get out there and tell people about Jesus. 

 Finally, I want to encourage you to contact folks who have fallen off in their attendance over the past two years.  Going through a transition is a difficult time in the life of any church, and some folks just need time to pull back and regroup.  Now is the time to encourage those people to re-engage with what God is doing at Highlands.  We can send out letters, even have church leaders call, but the most effective way to bring folks back home will be for church friends to call and invite them to come back.

 God has been good to us.  He has preserved us through some difficult times, and even got us through these last few weeks.  He has given us a fine, Godly young man with a wonderful family to be our Pastor.  Let’s show our gratitude to Him with our words and deeds.

In Christ,

Ben Phillips, Ph.D

Updated 8/22/10