Good morning, and welcome to Harding Street Church of Christ! If you come into our church, you will notice some changes. The church has been painted for the first time since it was built in 1963. This is the start of some upcoming changes that will take some getting used to, but we hope will help to bring more people into the church to help Harding Street Church of Christ grow back towards what it used to be. Like with all changes, some will be sad because there are so many memories within the walls of this building, but we hope you will all join us in seeing the happiness that can come from these changes with ushering in a new era of Harding Street, that is hopefully an era of growth both physically and spiritually. There won’t be any more changes for the next couple months, but come the new year we will see some new carpet and some new seating arrangements to help with reviving this church to last another 60 years.
Change is something that always happens, change is inevitable. We see change almost every day, some small things that don’t matter, and some big things that change the way we live our lives. A few years ago, we saw many changes with COVID-19 which changed the way our whole world lives. Coming up soon we will see changes in our government for better or for worse. Today we are seeing changes in our church building. But the one thing that never changes is the word of God. Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” No matter how many changes this world goes through, the word of God remains. We can change the building we spread the word in, we can change the way we present it with power points and live streams, we can change the songs we sing, we can change many things about the presentation of God’s word. We cannot, however, change the message of God’s word. We cannot change the fact that those who accept Jesus into their hearts and live according to God’s will will make it to eternal life. We cannot change the fact that those who do not accept Jesus and live according to the flesh in sinful ways, will make it to eternal death.
As we enter this new era at Harding Street, I hope you will embrace the changes as a way to grow Harding Street Church of Christ. I also hope that you will join me in saying that whatever changes happen around us, we will not attempt to change God’s word. We will not change the message of the Gospel that Jesus Christ came to teach, to preach, to be a sacrifice for us, and then to rise again. We will not change the plan of salvation to Hear, Believe, Repent, Confess, and Be Baptized. And that we will not attempt to change the great commission to go out and spread God’s word to all nations so everyone can know the saving power that His word has.
-Geoffrey Bane
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