A Word from Dr. Matt Brogli, AMS:
The hot days of a North Carolina summer are not slowing down the fantastic progress happening in the Sandhills Baptist Association. As you rest in a cool or shaded place, please seek the Lord in prayer for your sister churches and your brothers and sisters in those churches. Virgil and I desire to not only be present for you but to strategically help us all work together to provide the best quality service to the Lord in our churches and throughout Moore/Lee counties. We want to accomplish this by offering specialized opportunities for your church’s leaders to give feedback to us to share ideas collectively. We looked at several key areas to help us as an association grow and strengthen our SBA churches and are offering meetings based on our research. Please check this newsletter for those upcoming opportunities or visit sandhillsbaptist.org for more information.
Additionally, we have held two town halls. Thank you so much for your participation in these meetings and your feedback. On August 16th, we will hold our final town hall meeting before our Fall meeting on October 18th. What can you expect from this town hall? Why should you come to another one? Because we’re listening to you. Our association is not an AMS or Executive Committee working in a vacuum. While we are contracted to evaluate the Sandhills Baptist Association and give recommendations, we desire that you be a significant part of shaping the future of the Sandhills. We are actively shaping these recommendations based on your feedback and our conversations with you. At our upcoming town hall in August, you’ll get a glimpse at some of those recommendations you will get to vote on in October that you have not heard of yet. You’ll also get to offer more feedback and ask more questions. The more that we communicate, speaking truth in love, the greater our association will be.
An Israelite was always part of a larger group. What happened to the patriarch of the clan happened to you. You were united with him. If he suffered shame, so did you. If he won a victory, it was on your behalf. We shared our shame in sin under Adam. Under Christ, we share and receive his victory. The problem with relationships is that they all take place right in the middle of the story of redemption—God’s plan to turn everything in our lives into instruments of Christlike change and growth. Our relationships are lived between the already and the not yet. Our life with others is always life in the middle. We are continually building community in the tension between God’s already-and-not-yet grace. And we have no more control over the not-yet than we have had over the already. The timetable is in the hands of the sovereign God of the universe. Our job is to learn how to live in the middle. We live as broken people who are being repaired, among neighbors in the same condition—always thankful for what has already been done, but ever aware of our need for what we have not yet been given.
As the Sandhills Baptist Association, especially in times of strained relationship, suffering, or even victory, let’s seek to be gracious toward each other and move toward a unified association. We have that opportunity at our Fall meeting, but we don’t have to wait until then to be unified. We can start now by praying for each other, gathering, and encouraging each other to love Christ and be on mission with him.
Grace and Peace,
Dr. Matt Brogli
