From the Pastor’s Desk

From the Pastor’s desk
February 1, 2026

Takeaways from today’s message: John 15:12 – 14

Last Sunday’s message titled: “Restoring the church’s relevance centered around the need to address the erosion in church membership in the United States.

John’s gospel recorded Jesus’s words hours before His volitional sacrifice. In response to the need for mankind to have a viable way back to right fellowship with God the Father, Jesus became Emmanuel [God with us]. Jesus became the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world by giving His life as a propitiation (satisfaction for God’s unsettled anger) toward inherent sin.

The sacrificial Lamb gave explicit directions for what would become the church. This is my commandment that you love one another. See John 15:17

By this the world will know that God lives by the love you have one for one another. John 13:35

In this postmodern, post Christian era, many people, young and old, have become disenchanted with the church.
We have failed at least two generations. Our talk doesn’t match our walk. We are more consumed with self than in selfless service to a world looking for answers; looking for evidence that God is real. Groping for a reason to attend church.

Proverbs provide answers to the questions: How do we revive the church? What do the local assemblies have to do to give the generations behind the boomer generation a reason to hope, a reason to reconnect with the church?
The answers are multifold.
1. Practice what we preach.
2. Be honest. We don’t have all the answers.
3. Demonstrate true love for one another as Christians and as human beings regardless of ideology, culture, gender or socio-economic standing.
4. Meet the generations where they are. Find out what their concerns, needs, frustration are.
5. Be willing to transform our worship experiences to draw people of every age back to the houses of worship, without sacrificing the integrity of the traditions that “got us over” and still honor God!

In short, Cheryl Lynn sang a song that became an anthem during the seventies.

People of all ages are singing her anthem: “got to be real”

Today’s people (young and old) want truth, appropriate transparency, nonjudgmental, direction and correction (in love).

Proverbs sum it up well. See Proverbs 13:22a
We view the verse from a financial standpoint. However, I suggest the text implies more than leaving a financial heritage. What Holy Spirit inheritance are we growing and preserving to provide stability,
hope, direction and relevance, so that our children and their children can have a chance in this increasingly complicated world?

Relevance means that they must see value in being the church. The generations behind the boomers are crying out for a reason to embrace the church. Everything they/we have tried outside of the church has failed.

Let’s be intentional about developing a relevant, relational, revived church environment based on the Word of God.
Enveloped in the agape love that God loved the world so much that He was willing to offer His only Son to die for the sin of the world.

What are we willing to mortify so the world can see God through us?

Respectfully,
Rev. Dr. Samuel M. Wright, Jr., Th. D.