Church Annual Reports

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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Beloved,

Well, it’s that time of the year.

Everybody’s writing annual reports that are about as popular as books that I’ve written.

Did you know you can buy just about any of my books on www.amazon.com for the price of postage? Or just come to my study and I’ll give one or ten to you.  At last count,

I’m running about a trillion to one behind Joel in sales.  How humiliating!

Anyway, usually, church annual reports fall into four categories:

            = See how great we are!

            = Send money!

            = Everything’s horrible because of our pastor!

            = Though you’ve got to be careful of the members looking for a champion,

                  paramour, errand boy for wandering desires, BFF, or someone who will

                  agree with the last person she/he has talked to like a bad sentence ending

                  in a preposition, our Pastor Search Committee says everything’s gonna

                  be great because of our new pastor until we start treating her/him like

                 we did that last one!

Sorry, I’m just being serious.

I’m just not into it.

That’s not your fault.

That’s my personally pejorative pathology.

My sin.

I’d just rather look to the future than our behind(s).

Oops.

Really, it’s a Philippians 3:12ff thing for me; and while you’ve got the book opened to Philippians, you can figure out my undershepherding sentiments and priorities as articulated by the apostle throughout the entire letter.  It’s only four chapters; requiring even less time than reading The Rockford Register Star.

Truth is I’d rather talk about what our Lord has done for us than what we think we’ve done for Him; as if there’s any comparison or as if we could ever be and do enough to praise and thank Him enough for what He’s done for us here and now and forever by grace through faith in Jesus.

An old gospel song comes to mind: “Count your blessings, name them one by one.  Count your blessings, see what God has done!”

Have you ever done that?

When I’ve tried, I never have enough paper and I never get around to…

So, uh, that’s my eternal report.

Blessings and Love,

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Blessings and Love!

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