Reflections From Sunday Evening

We had a great weekend at church. We had a great group of children literally "kick" us off at a couple of services. There was a wonderful spirit as we gathered to worship. This weekend we were talking about bearing fruit. The whole idea of fruitfulness is very important to us. Fruitful congregations are something we are working on continually. Fruitfulness in the Christian life is something we are intentional about. With all our talk about fruitfulness I was thinking of a way to describe it in terms we could identify with. Frankly being fruitful as a congregation is much more than increasing the numbers of people involved (that is a byproduct). In the New Interpreter's Bible Commentary Gail O'Day writes on the section of scripture we read today in John 15. She says "fruit" is "doing works of love." As I thought about that it seemed like a good way to describe fruitful Christian living. But I also thought there needed to be a little more to it. Today we talked about fruitfulness as "doing works of love that reflect the nature and character of Jesus Christ." These works of love may obviously include "risk-taking mission and service." Hands-on mission and service are fruitful acts of love. But there is more. Sharing our faith with another person with the intent of helping someone come to faith in Jesus Christ is a definite "work of love reflecting the nature and character of Jesus Christ." Worship is an act of love. Study is an act of love. Prayer is an act of love. We could make a long list. For today I invite you to look at the whole of the Christian life and seek to be fruitful - engaged in works of love that reflect the nature and character of Jesus Christ. Be fruitful. It's been a good day. I hope you've had a good day too (with respects to Bill Self!).