Welcome, David!
I hope most of you have heard by now that David Smith has enthusiastically accepted the position of Pastor of Worship and Global Partners at GPBC. David and Ruth will arrive in Portland late in the day on Sunday, March 6th, and will be with us in church the next Sunday. We are excited to welcome David onto our staff and leadership teams and David and Ruth are excited to become a part of the life of our community.
On behalf of the Elder team, I want to express our profound thanks to the search team (Janet Nordlund, Chris Ragel, Tim Jorgens, and Jodie DeHaven) for their tireless and diligent efforts over the last 10 months, to all the members of the worship team who have continued to minister to us musically without hesitation and without faltering, and most especially to Caris Power who willingly took on the responsibilities of leading us in worship and leading the worship team in addition to her normal duties and accomplished it all with excellence, proving once again why she is such a valuable member of our staff team.
Profound thanks are also due to all of you who are part of the Greater Portland church family. You have weathered yet another leadership transition without complaint or resistance but with great grace, encouragement, and support of those who were involved in the process. You have maintained the unity of the Spirit in the bond of love. Thank you!
So far in our Sunday morning series in the Psalms, we have learned about lamenting, repenting, and beholding. This Sunday morning we will learn about ‘remembering’ from Psalm 103. ‘Don’t forget’ that every Sunday morning is Jesus’ time with our church family. While we may all benefit from it, it’s not really our time, it’s His time. We meet to see Him together, to admire Him together, to worship Him together, to learn from Him together, and to help each other follow Him together. It’s the only time in the week when we can all meet with Him…together. And that makes it an extraordinarily valuable time.