Archives For Seeking God

Good Shepherd Greeting

Phil —  April 27, 2013 — Leave a comment

Hello Good Shepherd! By the time you receive this newsletter I may very well have arrived in New Jersey. After so many months of having gone through the call process, it is good to finally be here. There are a couple things I want to share.

1) For all of you who have volunteered to host me for dinner, I want to say thank you for your hospitality and generosity. It is truly a blessing. Barbara and I really wanted to come out together as a family, but we felt it was important for Abby to finish the school year in Illinois which ends at the end of May. We should all be reunited here as a family in the first week of June. I want to apologize in advance that my availability may be somewhat limited in the month of May as I will be traveling back and forth from New Jersey and Illinois so I can spend some time with my family.

2) While it may take some time to get to know everyone, I want to encourage you to introduce yourself to me. Also, I ask for your patience as I start to put names with faces. But please make an effort to reach out to me. I would love to connect. If you are a Facebook user, I would love to be your friend. You can find me at Facebook.com/philressler. If you are not into the Facebook thing, that is more than ok, my email is phil@gs4nj.org. Once we establish a New Jersey phone number we will make that available for you as well.

3) I want to invite you to worship on May 5, 12, and 19. Over these three Sundays I will be teaching a 3 week message series entitled Know, Grow, Go. In these messages I will be unveiling a 3-part vision for the future of Good Shepherd and the work God has prepared for us in New Jersey and beyond. These three Sundays will serve as an invitation for you to come and join me in the adventure.

4) My installation will be on May 5 at 3pm. This is a celebration not just for me, but for our whole church. In so many ways it is a new start and a new beginning. God is all about new starts. That is why he sent us Jesus so we might have a new start with him. It is going to be a joyous occasion. And how appropriate will it be to celebrate with a Mexican dinner on Cinco De Mayo. If you plan to attend (and I hope you are), don’t forget to RSVP the church office at 732-679-8883.

That is all for now, but there will be much more to come.

In Jesus, Pastor Phil

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Pastor Appreciation

admin —  October 21, 2012 — Leave a comment

Today, Barbara and I received a free night at Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles as a Pastor Appreciation Month Gift. We are grateful for that gift. I want to say thank you to the everyone who is a part of Lord of Life.

We are so blessed, but as nice as the gift was, I appreciate even more your continued love and support. There have been good times and there have been not so good of times. I wish there was a way that I could individually show my appreciation to you as you have shown to Barbara and I.

We love you all.

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Anniversary Reflections

admin —  June 25, 2012 — Leave a comment

Yesterday, Barbara and I celebrated 12 years of marriage. It was a sweet day. It was extra special this year because it fell on a Sunday, the Lord’s Day!

The morning began with worship at Lord of Life. My parents came by in the afternoon to watch the kids while we went out for an anniversary dinner.

On the way home we witnessed a near fatal car accident. It was a stark reminder of just how precious life is. Combined with the celebration of our anniversary, I wanted to hug everyone just a little bit tighter and savor every moment. Each day we have with our loved ones is a gift from God.

An anniversary is also an opportunity to reflect upon the priority you give marriage. Do you give your marriage the priority it deserves?

Recently, I read an interview of Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Church and author of the Purpose Driven Life. In this interview he shares:

Establishing spiritual habits in your marriage dramatically increases your success rate. One large nationwide study discovered that when a couple develops three spiritual habits: 1) attending church weekly together 2) praying together and 3) reading the Bible together, the divorce rate drops to only one out of 1,105 marriages.

What a contrast with the often quoted divorce rate of 50%. Yesterday, CNN had an article on how the divorce rate among boomers has doubled. We are told the divorce rate among Christians is the same as among non-Christians. The state of marriage is not good.

But, it seems God knows what he is doing. Being married in a church does not constitute a Christ-centered marriage. One can be “Christian” and yet not have given their marriage over to Christ. Yet, when we dig beneath the surface we can see that when Christ is at the heart of the marriage it makes all the difference in the world.

It’s been a great 12 years together with Barbara. I am looking forward to sharing many more years ahead. But if I have anything I would do differently, the first thing that stands out is that I would trust God more with our marriage and commit in a greater way to the disciplines of Scripture and prayer.

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