May 28 – “A sad day”

 

 

We had a sad day at Seaside yesterday.  We had to come to grips with a tough decision.  Seaside Christian Academy will be closing up shop for more than just the summer when the school year ends Wednesday.  Financial constraints have become more than we can handle at this time and still provide the quality of education we know must happen. 

 

Honestly, it has been a tough, uphill trek the whole way with the school ministry.  Some of our roughest patches as a community of faith over the years have come because of it, from the beginning stages of raising money, to the incredibly difficult decisions about continuing to build after Hurricane Ike, to the typical squabbles and disagreements over how to arrange the inside walls, to our struggles with trying to minister to high school students, to identity confusion over whether the school should be a completely separate entity or a ministry of the church.  It becomes a scary thing when the unity of the body is placed at risk for any reason, but particularly when the issue is something like a building.  It's like when Jesus got onto the Jews for trusting in their temple rather than their God.  He wanted them to see that the relationship with God and with each other is more important than physical structures that pass away.  You know, "Love God.  Love your neighbor."  So since God is pretty fierce about maintaining unity, it's important that we follow his lead and make sure we are moving forward together in carrying out the purposes of the church: fellowship (developing intimacy), ministry (serving one another and the community around us), discipleship, and worship.  And as we do those things, God will invade the situation with his work of evangelism.

 

Our mission is loving God and loving people in Community (by developing intimacy and a sense of family) and Direction (by providing small group and on-to-one growth opportunities to help believers move from new believer to disciple-maker).  Our commitment has always been to look for where God is at work and join him there.  He has done some great things in touching the lives of children through the school - and he's not done with them yet - but as we look around us at Seaside it looks like our focus must shift to a different form of ministry.  So what will that look like?  The retreat center ministry is taking off this summer.  We already have around ten different groups scheduled to stay at our facility.  We are working on a plan for following up resort ministry events by connecting people touched while on vacation in Galveston with believers in their home towns.  We have some contacts with folks who have done ministry on foreign mission fields.  Perhaps we can arrange for some hands-on ministry overseas.  Our high school students spent several hours yesterday cleaning and rearranging our nursery area.  Maybe we could follow their lead get the worship building into excellent shape.  It's amazing how many possibilities open up when we are forced to step back and take another look around.  Remember, doing nothing is not an option.

 

On another note, we also accepted a reworking of our church bylaws.  Years ago a group was tasked with the job of trying to clarify the distinction between the Church as the Body of Christ and the church as an administrative organization here in America.  That document was approved yesterday.  Interestingly enough, that approval marked the last of the long-range vision points I felt God gave me back when I first came to Seaside.  I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean.  I'm revisioning stuff all the time, and Loving God and Loving people is a never-ending task.  But as they say on FaceBook, "Just saying." 

 

1 John 4:11-12 says, "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

 

Father, please make our next steps clear to us.  I'm anxious to see what you have on tap next.  Amen.