From Your Moderator
Happy New Year!
It’s a wonderful new beginning for many of us, and yet it may also be just another day. Christmas is over, we’re now putting up all the wrappings from the Christmas presents, probably have taken down the Christmas tree and the lights. The Holiday celebration has come to an end. Some will start with traditional New Year’s resolutions – things that you want to do, or would like to see happen. You’ll start off strong, then about mid-month, most of us will fall back into our usual routines. All those thoughts of new resolutions, with hopes of a new start, will fade into the past.
You know, I see many of our church-going Christians in much the same way. They come to know the Lord and they get excited about their new life, their forgiveness of sin, and the joy of knowing that they have eternal salvation with Jesus as their Lord! And for a while they are quite excited! They’ll tell their friends and family and coworkers! They start to come to church, and we will be excited to think that here’s a new believer in Christ and they are so much on fire! We might even be a little envious of them wishing we had that kind of Fire excitement again. We might begin to ask what happened to us?
Then it happens. They start missing a Sunday or two. Then they miss a few weeks. Then they miss a few months. Then we only see them at Easter and Christmas.
What causes such a problem? Why are we losing new believers? First, I believe we are not praying fully enough for them. We’re not supporting them to help them grow and connect with the fellowship of the Church. Second, we know that as a new Christian, our enemy, Satan desires to draw them away, to destroy them in every possible way, with most of us not even recognizing it. We need to be vigilant and available to these new believers as well as long-term believers who have gone cold.
We need to look at not just revitalization, we need to look at renewing our hearts and minds in Christ on a daily basis. We need to be vigilant and pray for those new believers and their families. We need to be praying that we, as God’s children, will pray for that hedge of protection around those believers. And pray for yourself – we need the protection of prayer too! I encourage you to reach out, start up a small group of people, and meet on a regular basis and to pray for each other. Pray for the church that you serve in, pray for the ministry it has, and of course, pray for your pastor! He has such a heavy burden on his life to be the spiritual leader that God has entrusted him to be.
If you happen to be one of those people that started off strong and now you see yourself tapering off, your excitement is not like it was before, and your commitment is being replaced with other things, now would be the perfect time to reach out and ask someone to pray for you.
If you’re that new believer, don't wait until your fire and your zeal for the Lord is starting to waver. Start now and ask your church to pray for you every day. There’s nothing wrong with asking. Let me encourage us to get back on our knees and start praying for those around us, to make this year’s commitment to be a year that we will seek God fully with our heart and soul. We can start on our knees, asking God to help us in this new step as 2025 approaches us with new opportunities, new beginnings, new starts. And above all, the great opportunity to proclaim the Lord.
Barry Pfister, Interim Director of Missions / Moderator
Mt Salem-Wyaconda Southern Baptist Association
mswdom@marktwain.net
bppastor@yahoo.com
(O) 573-209-3064
(M) 660-734-2080
(H) 573-655-0172
