By Justin Rossow
The author to the Hebrews give this encouragement in chapter 10: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”
That’s kind of a funny image, isn’t it? Spurring doesn’t sound like much fun. At least not for the horse. Spurring one another sounds like rather dangerous discipleship to me.
I remember hearing one of Byron’s farm stories about spurring a cow …
Spurring on, or provoking, sounds negative. But in this context, it’s the natural outcome of our discipleship life together: you do something that really impacts the kingdom; seeing it makes me want to go out and have an impact, too. Someone else sees what I am doing, and now they also want to get involved.
Before you know it, the energy and action continues to increase and multiply as we encourage—or spur one another on—toward more and more love and good works.
“Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”
That’s exactly the kind of thing I saw happening when our University Lutheran Chapel site faced a significant and unexpected repair cost. Because the sewer fail (you can read about it here) substantially exceeded what we had budgeted for emergency repair, the cost of the necessary fix had the potential to affect spending on mission and ministry for the whole congregation.
But people got spurred.
First, the Michigan District, who lets us use the building rent free while we pick up the cost of maintenance, agreed to pay half of the repair cost up to $20,000. They didn’t have to do that, but they did. They support the ministry of the Chapel.
Then a couple from our St. Luke site who own a catering company, Angel Food Catering, offered to provide a catered spaghetti dinner to help raise money for repairs—free of charge. They didn’t have to do that, but they did. They support the ministry of our congregation.
Spurred on to love and good deeds, over 200 people showed up for food and fellowship at our first—and hopefully LAST annual—sewer and spaghetti dinner. Those who couldn’t come gave in advance of the event.
And then, in the midst laughter and the camaraderie and the stories, people got spurred. We raised over $21,000 to offset the cost of the sewer repair and protect funding for mission and ministry.
You didn’t have to do it, but you did. You again showed your support for the ministry of our one congregation with three unique sites.
That kind of generosity and self-less giving impacts the kingdom and makes others want to make an impact, too.
That kind of generosity and self-less giving impacts the kingdom and makes others want to make an impact, too.
Have you sensed that? Have you caught a glimpse of the exciting things that are going on around here? Plenty of challenges lie in front of us, but the momentum is building. People are growing in their relationship with Jesus. We are asking what’s next for discipleship. We’re getting spurred.
Being spurred isn’t comfortable, but in this context, it means an increasing amount of increasing growth: exponential growth, growth building on growth.
Can you sense it? Jesus is up to something in the St. Luke congregation. Jesus is up to something through the St. Luke congregation. Jesus is up to something for His lost world.
And we get to be a part of that.
Kind of makes me want to get spurred …
We don’t have the final bill yet, but it looks like the total cost will end up to be over $50,000 (epic sewer fail!). You can still give toward the final cost of this project or make a special year end gift through our online giving page, here.
