FROM PASTOR PETE Greetings to you, St. Andrew’s Family! Welcome to our August issue of Cross Currents! August signifies for many of us, especially those with school-age children, a return to a regular weekly rhythm and schedule. Gone are the days of summer sleeping in and late-night movie marathons! As our students return to school to hit the books, it’s a good idea for all of us to refocus a discipline of learning from our Savior, Jesus. During August in worship, we will be taking some time to sit at Jesus’ feet in Matthew 28:18-20, considering how His instructions to His disciples apply to us today. This passage is famously known as The Great Commission, and each Sunday we will focus on each of the action words that are so important for us as followers of Jesus to live into: going, making disciples, baptizing, and teaching. On Labor Day weekend Sunday, we’ll focus on a critical fifth action word: praying. Biblical scholar Christopher J. H. Wright has written a wonderfully helpful and thoughtful book titled, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission. The book is framed around a series of answers, all prompted by this initial question, “Who are we and what are we here for?” How would you answer that question? It is a first order question of life, the answer of which is essential for living with purpose. Particularly for followers of Jesus, as the church, we benefit from the clarity of knowing Jesus’ calling and design for our common life together. As Wright explains, “It is not so much the case that God has a mission for His church in the world but that God has a church for His mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission—God’s mission.”
VOLUME 2022 | ISSUE 7