Dear Peachtree Family,
Seven years ago this October, I stood with you in worship for the first time to share God’s Word together. The passage for the day was from Romans 12, where the Apostle Paul offers what “genuine love” looks like in action. He lists one of the qualities of that genuine love as “contributing to the needs of the saints and extending hospitality to strangers.” (v. 13)
What I initially knew about you by reputation, I now have experienced first-hand. I am amazed by your eagerness to minister to the needs of people and extend God’s hospitality to all. You mobilize generosity and rise to help in dire circumstances. Human-trafficking? Not on our watch. Generational-incarceration? No way. Biblical-illiteracy? Nope. The pangs of hunger, no access to education, an overwhelming medical bill? Not on your life. Prayerlessness, hopelessness, loneliness, godlessness? Never.
The gospel of Jesus both demands and empowers our fight against these struggles armed with nothing other than the genuine love of God. That is why the annual gathering of our resources is so much more than a campaign for our operational budget. This is the church pulling together, marshalling against all that would threaten to tear this world apart.
Every time they performed a baptism in my college church, the pastor would say, “For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8) We belong to God. In life, we belong to God. In death, we belong to God.
Thank you for offering yourself to the mission of “joining Christ daily in the restoration of all things.” We live in a beautiful moment of history that desperately needs what God has to bring in Jesus.
May it be so!