Disciple Makers

June 17, 2019

By Steve King

One of the marks of a healthy church is to constantly make disciples of Jesus Christ who make disciples of Jesus Christ. The Lord Himself commissioned us to do just that (Matthew 28:18-20), which we learned about this past Sunday when Pastor Tom Oostdyk preached on the mission of the church.

Pastor Tom himself is a product of Cherrydale’s dedication to disciple-making and raising up the next generation of leaders. Tom began as an intern at Cherrydale, was ordained, and then has served on our pastoral staff for the last seven years. The Search Advisory Committee and the Elders have recognized Tom’s great love for God and God’s people and feel confident in Tom’s ability to lead Cherrydale in fulfilling Jesus’ disciple-making commandment. Therefore they have recommended Tom for the role of Lead Pastor at Cherrydale.

Now it is up to the members of Cherrydale to pray and discern the leading of the Holy Spirit regarding Tom (sign up here for a prayer slot). If you have not engaged with him yet, then do so this Wednesday, June 19, at 7:00 pm for the last Q&A forum session. Next Sunday, June 23, the vote will occur immediately following the second worship service.

The following Sunday, June 30, we have an evening planned to help build you up as a disciple of Jesus and equip you to make disciples yourself. Join us for a Salt and Light Equipping Night (Matt 5:13-16) at 7:00 pm at the church. We will provide resources on how to wisely and effectively respond to the recent Arlington Public Schools’ draft policy on transgender students and other issues. It will be a night of equipping, dialog, and prayer.

As I mentioned last week, there are three principles for effectively engaging our culture, embedded in our identity in Christ: 1) Be positively different—reflect the character of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit in all we say and do, 2) Be helpful—engage people and our community with the motive of loving God and people to advance the common good, and 3) Be persuasive—speak the truth in love by wisely and persistently communicating and modeling the benefits of a biblical world view.

I hope you will take advantage of these disciple-making resources and other such opportunities that we offer here on Sunday mornings.  I pray for the Holy Spirit to continue to build up His body here at Cherrydale, and to give us wisdom as we choose our next leader.