![]() ![]() ![]() Our ministers will again go on retreat this spring to imagine and dream with one another about God’s movement within and through our church.Our Minister to Students, Dane Martin, will go on his own, well-earned sabbatical as he finds both rest for his soul and new insights into how to best share the Gospel with our youth.We will continue to care for those families and remind them of the love of God through embraces, cards, and casseroles. We will undoubtedly lose more of our beloved church members this year.We gained thirty new church members and baptized a number of people (including many youth!) this year and we welcome them into the life of our congregation!īut as I look back, I am also looking forward to what the Lord has in store for our congregation in 2023:.Revealed: The Book of Revelation (Eastertide). ![]() I was blessed to preach the following sermon series’ in 2022:.Together with four other North Carolina CBF churches, we are focused on the five traits of a thriving church: Compelling Clarity, Faithful Agility, Holy Tenacity, Rooted Relationships, and Dynamic Collaboration. Our Vision and Navigation Team entered into a process with CBF called the Thriving Congregations cohort.Out of that dreaming (and coupled with the results of a congregational survey) came our All Together Ardmore emphasis and our desire to see Community Groups form in peoples’ homes. Francis Springs Retreat Center, our ministers reimagined what spiritual formation could look like at Ardmore Baptist. You can read Lee’s reflections on her sabbatical here and here. She spent intentional time looking at the spiritual formation of children and how best to equip families to craft home cultures of discipleship. Our wonderful Minister with Children and Families, Lee Ritchie, embarked on a sabbatical.Every loss of someone we love is a reminder that we live in our “space between” in which we are awaiting the Resurrection and the reunion we will experience with those we love. Every one of them was a beloved beacon of goodness and wisdom for us. We lost a number of our stalwart saints in 2022.Here are a few highlights in the life of our church over the past year: I also use this time to look back over the previous year. Sandra McCracken has a beautiful duet with Josh Garrels called “ The Space Between.” The words explore that liminal week between holidays as a time of introspection and gratitude: I look forward to walking this road with you, sisters and brothers!ĭuring the week between Christmas and New Years’ Day, there is a song that I love to listen to. January 8 – The Walk: Worship and Prayer.During each of these weeks I am going to challenge you to consider how you can integrate these practices into your life. Together we will look at six spiritual practices that help to guide us as we walk the road of discipleship. Our destination is to grow closer to our Creator, but we need signs and guidance along the way.īeginning on Sunday, January 8, we will be starting a new sermon series called The Walk. Our spiritual lives are often described as a walk. We need signs and guidance along the way. When we walk to reach a destination, we have to rely on some help. We Americans don’t do much of that type of walking I have laughed at myself before that I will drive two miles one way to a park in order to walk four miles on a trail! But there is a big difference between aimless walking and walking to get to a destination. I have some favorite trails where I am content just aimlessly walking around for hours. ![]()
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