Read Psalm 31. Key Verse: Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset as a city under siege. (v. 31)
As we continue to hear reports of our denomination's decline here in the USA it has become evident that a lot of our churches are grieving. Their life as a church mirror the words of the psalmist. There is one verse that speaks of his having "passed out of mind like one who is dead; I (we?) have become like a broken vessel. (v. 12). Many grieving churches act out as one whose "mind" is "dead," and make decisions that do not bless anyone or anything but caters to the fear felt out of this grief. But the key is that God is the Potter and our churches, like this psalmist, must recognize we are "vessels" which the Potter can make new.
Our prayers should be prayers of hope and faith in the powerful hands of the One who made all things. God as Creator and Potter not only creates, but mends, and makes new the old and broken. May a new heart and a new purpose come into all churches so that one day soon, great celebrations will erupt from those whose churches are again new vessels of hope and transformation for those new disciples that will be made, for the transformation of the world.
PRAYER: Dear God, may it be so. Amen.
