Message: Blessing One Another

If you receive our emails, you know that today, I was hoping would be a “Blessings Sunday” that involved the entire body blessing those who have shown to be a blessing to them throughout the year. 

• • The idea is borne from several angles in my heart.
    • 1) We - the Christian church as a whole - have lost the art of blessing one another on a regular basis.
      • Blessings happen so very often in scripture, yet the church rarely practices them today.
      • I’m talking about the thought-through, prayerful, purposeful blessing from one person to another.
    • 2) We - the Christian church - often don’t know how to receive a blessing from someone else.
      • We self-deprecate, deflect, get embarrassed, feign like we don’t want it but we really do… 
    • 3) Private blessings (non-public) are indeed a thing in scripture, done in the context of “don’t do anything for the purpose of receiving praise from men.”
      • May God bless YOU if you habitually bless people privately. You are an encourager, and I pray you use that gift OFTEN.
      • But there ARE dozens of public blessings - we need to look at both.
    • 4) Practically, we elders have used a Sunday in December every year to publicly thank/bless our elders, staff, and volunteer ministry leaders - as we’ve done today.

• This year, we wanted to expand the opportunities - to give EVERYONE who has been ministered to the opportunity to bless ANYONE who has been a blessing to them.

• • • Not for the purpose of anything else but to model what it looks like to bless one another publicly - for the purpose of increasing blessings among members of this body.
  • 5) We often don’t purposely and thoughtfully bless others because we don’t see it modeled much, and because we just don’t know how or when or even WHY.