It is even closer to Spring Training today! (Hard to believe while we are under a winter weather advisory, but still true!) I wanted to share my note from the Vision 2025 dinner this year.

18 days! There are only 18 days until some of the greatest words on earth come true. 18 days until pitchers and catchers report for spring training. I know there are still remnants left from the great snowpocalypse here in Leavenworth County, but the sun is shining in Surprise, AZ and the KC Royals will soon get back to the basics during spring training.

Much of 2024 was spent studying the early church in the Book of Acts at Wallula Christian Church. Time and again that book reminds us to get back to the basics. Often, in Acts, you read words similar to these; “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” What happens when God’s people are faithful in returning to the basics? Well, Acts isn’t shy about answering that question either. “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” It was a back to the basics kind of year for Wallula in 2024.

Wallula devoted herself to the apostles’ teaching. 20 different small groups met in 2024 to study God’s Word, pray and play together! I was excited to see Craig & Zach take on an increased role in preaching on Sunday mornings and our next generation ministries, from the weekday preschool, to JAM to Youth Groups on Sunday night all poured into kids & students in amazing ways! Wallula was devoted to fellowship too. We had so much fun at the second annual Beanies & Weanies, our Summer Supper for Six groups were so much fun that some kept meeting all through the fall, and the return of Wallula’s all church Thanksgiving dinner was great. WCC was devoted to the breaking of bread and prayer in 2024 as well. Our worship services averaged 318 people on Sunday mornings and our participation in United As One events allowed us to pray, worship and serve with other churches in Leavenworth County! Finally, God continued to add to our number with 30 baptism in 2024!

So, it is with great anticipation and zeal that I look forward to what God will do in 2025! I know that He is BIG! He is faithful! And that He keeps His promises! I know that if we are faithful in being devoted to the basics that He will continue to do a big work in and through Wallula Christian Church. I am so blessed to get to be a part of it. Thanks for allowing me to keep reporting for spring training and returning with you time and again to the basics!

- Lance

And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, “Let us rise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for the good work. But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.”

              - Nehemiah 2:18-20

I must have been moaning, not quite as under my breath as I thought, as I walked through the door last night because Cherie asked, “are you hurt or cold?” My reply… “Yes!” How many of you have moved an arm or leg these past couple of days and sort of sighed as the muscles ached from shoveling a little snow? We live on a corner lot and the snow plows have pushed mountains of snow all around our yard, it looks like we live in a snow fort now - kinda cool, if I’m being honest with you! You maybe didn’t think those snow plows were so cool when they dumped snow in front of your drive way, over and over again…

Nehemiah’s story is recorded for us in scripture in the book that bears his name (along with the book of Ezra) and he maybe doesn’t get the credit he deserves. This fact, by the way, is exactly how Nehemiah would have wanted it! He makes very clear in his journal that nothing he accomplished would have been possible without God. Nehemiah oversaw the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem after the exile, but more than that he oversaw the rebuilding of God’s people.

And so it is with our own relationship with Jesus. It is constantly under construction and in constant need of rebuilding. If this rebuilding is a constant need individually in Christ, it is a constant need of His church corporately as well. As a body of believers we must continue to refocus ourselves so that we may keep the main thing, the main thing.

January 12 we will kick off a new series, “The Main Thing,” as we learn from the leadership of Nehemiah. I’m excited for this series and the chance it provides for each of us to center our attention on Jesus and the ministry He has in store for us.  Pleas join me this Sunday at 9:00 or 10:30 am as we begin to learn with Nehemiah how to keep the main thing, the main thing!

- Lance

So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.

              - Nehemiah 6:15-16