August 6, 2023

What a wonderful week! Watching hundreds of kids learn about Jesus, sing songs of praise, and have the time of their lives was deeply rewarding. Summer Blast is such a treat. And God is on the move!

I can’t tell you just how special it was to see so many of you serving our kids this week during Summer Blast! You made a choice to invest. I’m so thankful you did. So many of you came up and told me how you weren’t sure you’d be able to serve this year with everything on your plate. There were so many reasonable excuses not to serve. But then you signed up. You showed up. And then the unexpected happened: You came to empty yourself out for the sake of others and discovered that your tank was being filled instead.

Isn’t that so like God? It’s the upside-down Way of Jesus. We die to live. We empty ourselves to be filled up. We lose ourselves to find ourselves. What we give up is given back in spades. In the kingdom of God, the way to life is always through the cross to resurrection. And as we give ourselves away in love, we become the people of love we were always meant to be, and find real fulfillment.

So thank you for serving. Thank you for showing the love of God. Thank you for embracing the Way of Jesus. You invested your valuable time for the sake of the Gospel. You were conduits of grace in the lives of our kids. We will never know our full impact until eternity. But in the meantime, we live in the joy of the Lord. Because to serve is to be like Him, and know His good pleasure.

We are indeed loved, more than we know!