The last few months have ushered in many transitions for us at Believers Church – Duluth, but that’s springtime for you. We’ve experienced beginnings, endings, and everything in between. All the while, God faithfully continues to grow us personally and corporately. And, just like the trees budding with new life, there is hope all around.
TO BEGIN WITH…
Believers Church actively seeks to get beyond our four walls and into the community. On the first and third Mondays of the month, a group of us meets at one of Duluth’s local brew pubs for a casual Bible discussion. Over the last year we’ve gotten enough traction that we’ve been able to split up our group. We recently began meeting at a second location–this time at a local burger/frozen yogurt shop.
Reaching out to people via community Bible discussions isn’t to the neglect of inviting people in. One of our favorite kick-off-to-Summer events is our annual church rummage sale. We get to meet our neighbors and raise money for domestic and foreign missions. Plus, it’s fun to sort through and buy each other’s junk.
With the (sporadic) increase in warmer weather, we’ve begun sitting outside on Wednesday evenings before Bible study. We get to break bread with each other and talk about what’s happening in our lives.
In The Middle of Fellowship
As an intentional group of believers, we look for any opportunity we can to be together. We celebrated Easter Sunday by eating ham and playing board games. On the outside it looks like a fun, Midwestern get-together. However, at the core is our thankfulness for Christ and how much He’s provided for us.
Over the last few months our Young Adult Ministry has partnered with our college group, Street Level, for team sports. We rented out Wessman Arena at UW-Superior and played broomball with the full length of the rink. Luckily, there were only minor injuries and no broken teeth.
On another occasion, we rented out the YMCA for a classic PE and dodgeball night. We competed in the presidential fitness test which brought back childhood memories some of us would have preferred to keep in the past.
Last but not least, our Young Adult Ministry partnered with a local organization to help clean up the Lincoln Park neighborhood. We were supplied with bags, buckets, reflective gear, and grabbers, and we hauled away bags upon bags of trash. Not only did we enjoy each other’s company, but the experience also reminded us to be good stewards of our surroundings.
The End…For Now
Our college-aged group, Street Level, meets every Monday at a building across the street from UW-Superior. The end of the school year arrived, so we celebrated by having an outdoor barbeque. Some students will be sticking around for the summer and some will be going home. Either way, it was a temporary goodbye until meeting again this Fall.
One of the biggest endings we experienced was Pastor Justin’s completion of the book of Acts. Through a total of 66 sermons, we studied the building of the early church, the Apostle Paul’s conversion and his missionary journey. However, as Paul is a prolific writer of the New Testament, this will not be the last we hear from him.
Though the Apostle Paul receives much of the focus of Acts, he did not live an independent Christian life. He could not do it alone and neither can we. Paul faced many trials that brought him to desperately low points in his life yet he insisted on finishing well and passing on the torch. Many, many chapters later, God is wanting to write us into the same story. You in?
