MINISTER’S LETTER
THE MAIN THING IS TO KEEP THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING
Dear brothers and sisters,
Gathering together as the people of Christ should be treasured in our hearts as one of the great blessings of this present age. We are not yet in the new creation, and until we are, the church gathered is the sweetest foretaste of what is to come. When we gather we participate together in worship. Central to our worship are the sacraments and the Word of God. This sounds so simple, simplistic even, and yet tragically and astonishingly they are often sidelined in churches. Singing praise to the Lord, a wonderful gift from God, too often takes over as the primary activity, and the centrality of the Word is lost; the welcoming of newcomers – a vitally important and joyful mission of the church – too often supersedes worship, and the church ends focussing on the lost rather than on the found. For some, the power of the Word of God has been lost, perhaps never truly experienced, and so it is minimised.
May it never be so in Gilcomston Church.
When the early church gathered they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul…” – Acts 2:42. This is the pattern of worship, and it is what gives strength to the church every time we meet. We pray, we partake in the Lord’s Supper, and we hear the Word of God proclaimed. By doing this we are repeatedly brought to the Lord Jesus and we hear His Word in a world that clamours for us to heed their words. But only the Word of Christ will bring life and liberty and joy, which is why Spurgeon said: “The motto of all true servants of God must be “We preach Christ and him crucified.” A sermon without Christ is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.”
For this reason the preaching and exposition of the Word of God is unapologetically central to the life, ethos and gatherings of Gilcomston Church. We gather not to hear the word of man but the Word of Christ, for it is He we so desperately need. It’s why our vision statement says: “Gilcomston Church is an evangelical church making disciples of Jesus through the ministry of the Word.” There is a power in the Word of God that is glorious, because the Father sent the Son in the power of the Spirit as the Word Incarnate, full of grace and truth. The Word proclaims Christ from beginning to end; it calls sinners to repentance; it tells all nations where hope and salvation can be found and it sets before humanity a new world of hope, free of sin and war and pain, but makes it plain that the only way into this kingdom is through faith in the crucified lamb of God, now risen and ascended.
We preach no other gospel. Because the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Grace and peace,
Nathan