This week Jan and I have the privilege of helping a church celebrate 50 years of history. Fifty years is a long time in church life. Many churches do not last 50 years. Those who do last 50 years are often declining, dying or nearing the end of the “church life cycle.” Many churches are ready for artificial respiration. Not so, the Holmes Road church. It is not as large as it has been in years past, but it is vibrant and alive, evangelistic and mission-minded. It is “on the grow” and anticipating the next 50 years!
The Holmes Road church is Lansing, Michigan is a unique church. It is unique because of how it understands and lives out the challenge to be church. It is unique because it accepted, very near its inception, the challenge to demonstrate the real nature of the church, and it has faithfully lived it out without looking back. It is unique because it made the decision to be one and live in unity in the midst of the conflicts and turmoil of the late 1960s–1968 to be exact. It is unique because that decision was made in a geographic area that was on fire with the turmoil.
Jan and I were changed, and to some extent are what we are today, because that church blessed us by calling us to be its minister for 12 years, approximately from year 16-28 of its history. In case you have missed them, I cite two articles from my website:
May God’s people in every place come to know genuine peace–with God and between brothers and sisters, so that the world might know peace on earth!