Why I Love Christ Fellowship Bible Church [part 2]Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church
There are many reasons why I love CFBC. I hope to elaborate on just a few over the next few days.
1. CFBC Has a Love for the Truth of Scripture.
2. CFBC Loves, Cares for, Prays for, & Encourages Me as Their Teaching Shepherd.
The Lord Jesus told His disciples to have love for one another and that in so doing all men would know that they are His disciples. One way that CFBC tangibly demonstrates this is in their love for me as their shepherd. Even in the formative and beginning stages of church planting as we have an off-site elder, the flock of God at CFBC has exuded love, prayer, and encouragement to the leadership.
CFBC has provided for needs that have arisen, they have prayed for me diligently, they have cared for our family when a new baby was born. They continually encourage me in my labor and study in the Word of God. When I ask what I can pray for, they quickly reply with some specific ways that I can shepherd them by taking them to the throne of grace in prayer.
But perhaps the greatest way that the flock at CFBC encourages me as their teaching shepherd is that they have a genuine love and concern for me as I study the Word, get the meaning of the text right, prepare a sermon, and proclaim it with Spirit-endowed power. They desire that I have time to pray and prepare, to reflect and to write, to examine the Word and to exhort with the Word. Thus, they graciously expect that I will meet with God daily so as to feed my own soul, to fill my own heart, to consume my own mind, so I can preach the Word to them which has already made its way through me. Their love and hunger for the Word directly relates to their love and hunger for me as their shepherd since my primary calling is to bring them before the Great Shepherd in prayer and to feed them on the Bread of Life when we gather.
When a person in the flock sends me a note of encouragement, a text assuring me that they are diligently praying for my fidelity to the Word and to sound theology, or an email encouraging me to remain faithful to Scripture amidst opposing, quickly-changing and God-hating times.
The sheep at CFBC evidently love their shepherds. They pray for me. They uphold me. They hold up my arms so that we can do the work of the ministry together. Prayer, encouragement, notes and letters of steadfast endurance, and earnest expectation to be fed from God’s Word each time we gather manifest some of the great ways that CFBC loves and cares for me as their teaching shepherd.