Do you remember the 80s television show, the “A-Team”?  Well, I realized as soon as I wrote that line that many of you don’t remember it because you weren’t out of diapers yet when it was running.  But, due to the extensive reach of pop culture, you probably remember a few of the memorable lines from the show.    “What you talkin’ bout fool?” was Mr. T’s famous line repeated almost every episode.  Another line that sticks out to me is, “I Love it when a plan comes together”, stated weekly by the slick leader of the A-Team whose fanciful concoctions never seemed to fail to nab the bad guys by the end of the hour.

That last phrase came to mind as I reflected on this past Sunday at our church.    According to the reading plan we established last summer, this past Sunday was the day we were to have read large portions of the beginning of the book of Acts.  The chapter in the Story is New Beginnings.   That’s all great, but what made things even more exciting is that on a day designated to preach and teach and reflect on New Beginnings it also just so happened that we had a Baby Blessing for Jaxon McCormic, the new born son of Ryan and Chenoa McCormic.  It was really an awesome experience to have one of our Shepherds, Don Boderman, eloquently explain why we at Keizer have such a focus on children.   As he pointed out, nearly 1/3 of our congregation is made of children living at home with parents, and God keeps sending us more and more families with little ones and blessing our church with babies.  Our embrace and welcoming spirit toward children is an intentional ministry focus of our church and equipping and encouraging parents to raise their children in the Lord is a primary concern of the Keizer leadership.     So, Sunday we welcomed Jaxon into our midst as a community and pledged to be a good church family for him to grow up in.

Later in the service we had an awesome reminder that New Beginnings are not just for babies or young people, but are something available to anyone who turns to the Lord at any stage of life.  Church growth experts often say that most people make their religious decisions early in life and are extremely unlikely to change once they are in their older years.   Evidently, the Holy Spirit did not get the memo on that, for we have seen Him working in the heart and mind of a person well-known to our congregation.  This past Sunday that work of God on someone’s heart came to fruition when we witnessed the new birth of Jim Diebert into the body of Christ.   In the last year or so, Jim’s understanding of Christianity, the Bible, and what it means to be a Christ follower has been steadily growing and culminated very recently when he came to the strong conclusion that he really did believe Jesus is the son of God and wanted to follow him all his life.  His baptism, witnessed by the church and his loving family (and lots of little children on the podium steps), marks the ultimate spiritual New Beginning that holds us all together as members of the Body of Christ and co-heirs of eternal life.

“I love it when a plan comes together”.   What is awesome, however, is that the only thing we in the office planned or orchestrated was the date for the readings of the Story, and that was six months before Jaxon was born and still at a time when Jim was wrestling with questions that needed to be answered.    Perhaps it is a great reminder that God’s plan does ultimately come together.  His upper story plan to redeem a fallen world is at work whether we see the big picture or not.  Our task is to trust that he is working out all things to his glory and for his purposes and to stay faithful to that which he has called us today.  DTW