The beauty of a family of churches

Rom 12:10-13

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.  Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Recently, Diana and I, along with another pastor and his associate were in Denver Colorado for a conference of Calvary Family Churches.  While we were there, we received a phone call that doctors were inducing our daughter three weeks ahead of her due date.  We thought we had plenty of time to attend the conference and then look forward to our granddaughter’s arrival, but things changed, and she came early!  We instantly began making plans to drive to Wichita to be with our family and the next day Harper Lynn arrived.  She is healthy and beautiful baby girl, and everyone is excited. 

I remember when Abby and Zach were married, as well as each of our kids. They found an apartment, got their furniture and filled their cupboard. They set their schedules and paid their bills. They set up their lives and yet we were still family. We love being together and look for every opportunity to do just that, and yet everyone has full and busy lives. We love to celebrate holidays and birthdays and go to occasional events with the grandkids. If anyone has a need, we are there to jump in, and as I write this Diana is in Wichita with Abby for a week or more, helping, serving and cooking countless meals for their freezer.

Why am I telling you all this, apart from being overly excited about Harper?

As SBC churches, we are a group of autonomous churches, and much like my kids when they get married, they run their lives and ministries and they are busy. When I look at the KCKBA, I see a wonderful family of churches who know, love, care, serve and support one another. This is happening in wonderful ways across our Association, but for many other churches they are independent and alone, and very few people outside their church know about the things God is doing in their congregation. Out of the 65-70 churches, campuses, plants and missions, more than half are not involved in anything we do.

For us to DOUBLE OUR KINGDOM FOOTPRINT OF OUR REGION, ON OUR WATCH, it will take all of us, as a family of churches to see this vision happen.

According to Romans 16, there appears to have been an extensive, yet tight knit family of churches across the city of Rome. They were encouraging, serving and looking after one another to help keep the kingdom moving across their region.

I encourage you to get to know some of the other pastors and leaders across our family of churches. Reach out to a brother you don’t know, or don’t know well and hear what God is doing and how you can encourage their church. If you don’t know who to reach out to there is a great listing on our website. There are many great stories of how this is already happening but there are also many examples of pastors who are isolated and alone. Use the last part of this summer to make a new friend and strengthen the KCKBA family of churches.