Dear Church Family,
What makes you strong?
For some of you maybe your physical fitness come to mind. You lift weights. You work-out more the most. You’re physically strong.
For some of you maybe your emotional resiliency comes to mind. You’re determined. You’ve got grit. You’re mentally tough.
For some of you maybe your financial situation comes to mind. Your investments are doing well. You’ve got money in the bank. You’re financially secure.
Until…
You throw out your back.
Your crack under pressure.
You lose your job.
Then what? If your strength is in you or what you do…then ultimately you’re in trouble. I am too!
But thankfully there is a formidable, unshakeable kind of strength available to all of us. It’s a strength that nothing can touch and no trouble can tear away from us. As we heard in church last Sunday, “The joy of the LORD is your strength!” (Nehemiah 8:10)
When the people of Jerusalem were lamenting their losses and when they were feeling down about their shortcomings and sins, Nehemiah directed them back to the place we all need to go to in order to be strong…to our Savior!
Oh I had so much fun sharing that message of the joy that comes from knowing Jesus Christ last Sunday! It’s so great to get the Gospel, isn’t it?
Join me this Sunday as we again celebrate the Gospel together. We’ll be wrapping up our summer study of the book of Nehemiah. We’ll see that God blesses his people with joy and gladness when they thankfully remember what he’s done for them. Worship in English is at 9:30 AM. Spanish is at 11:30 AM. All are invited!
“The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away” (Nehemiah 12:43).
New Website Update – Over the last year, Dawn Schulz (our Divine Savior Church campus coordinator) has been hard at work building a beautiful new website for our church—one that integrates all five Divine Savior church campuses with a consistent look and feel. This is going to be a great blessing for our Doral campus as well as our other campuses across Florida and Texas. There have been a few minor issues rolling out the new website but all of those should be cleared up by the weekend. We’ll also be able to tweak anything that we need to now as we go forward. My apology if you tried to watch the livestream last Sunday but weren’t able to. We should be good to go on that this Sunday.
Divine Savior Church Communication – This past Sunday I prayed for Pastor Stephen Apt (Santa Rita Ranch) and Pastor David Bivens (Sienna Plantation) whose churches in Texas both began worshiping as Divine Savior Church campuses July 1st. This now officially makes Divine Savior Church one church on 5 campuses in 2 states. What does this mean? For starters, each campus is still autonomous. For example, offerings given to our campus here in Doral stay in Doral. We have our own church council. We make our own decisions. Nothing’s changed in this regard.
But as one church we now get to encourage each other, pray for one another, and share ministry ideas and resources such as our website. In other words…we are better together. I look forward as coordinator pastor to developing a plan to regularly communicate with all of you our blessings and challenges together. Stay tuned for future updates. I’m coming into this at the ground level which is exciting for me. There are so many opportunities we have under God to change lives with Jesus. As always, if you have any thoughts, questions, or ideas regarding effective communication or anything else please feel to share them with me. I have my ideas but would also love to hear yours. We’re better together. Let’s learn together and lean on each other!
Sunday Playlist – Check out the YouTube videos, sing along ahead of time, and help fill God’s house with praise on Sunday. Gathering Song: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty. Forgiveness Song: Once Again. Hymn of the Day: Take My Life and Let It Be. Sending Song: Death Was Arrested.
Changing Lives with Jesus,
Pastor Ben
