New Lenses

In Genesis 17, when God made a covenant with Abraham and Sarah, it was a covenant that required something of them. They were to walk faithfully and be blameless. In return, God would make them the parents of many nations. Pastor Ross Erb took this idea of a covenant that requires something of us, and used it to look at how we structure our lives within our community of faith. Mark 8: 34 relates Jesus call to his disciples to "take up your cross and follow me." We need to change how we view life, to look at situations with God's concerns, not human concerns. There are a number of ways that we do this in our congregational life. We enter into our own covenants with each other when we have parent/child dedication services and when we are baptized. In both instances, we set aside our own selfish concerns and respond out of God's concern for everyone, and we covenant to care for each other. We say "yes" to God, "yes" to viewing life through God's lenses of love.