I Love My Church!

Here is an email I received from our pastor regarding the crisis in Myanmar:
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Dear church family,

Once again, I tip my hat to you. Thank you for responding with passion to the plea that went out earlier this week about the relief trip to Myanmar.

Five members of The Village will board a plane Thursday morning on their way to Myanmar to assist in relief efforts for the next 14 days. They'll be working with an agency called Thirst No More, and their main goal will be to provide clean water to the area.

Thank you for making it possible for the five to go. In all, we had more than 100 of you respond in a matter of hours, with offers to sponsor someone or make the trip yourself. Matt Elkins, our church's short-term missions pastor, and Josh Drew, worship pastor at the Denton campus, will be joined by Ashley Massingale, Lauren Taylor and Brian Padgett. The group will be leaning heavily on our prayers.

Officials now estimate the death toll at more than 100,000. It's hard for me to imagine that. I beg you to pray for this country and for our five-person group. Pray that amid horrendous devastation that our Lord's name will be glorified. Pray fervently for the things our group will see, feel and touch ... that God will draw them closer through this experience. We'll keep you updated on the group's progress as soon as we hear from them.

When our church responds like it does to these calls it reminds me that five years ago we decided that we would not gauge our success here at The Village by numbers. We weren't going to simply look at weekly attendance or offerings to judge our success. We made our mission at The Village to glorify God through lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's why I have loved the video testimonies we have been showing in the weekend services. They reveal that we are doing what we set out to do. Lives are being changed. They are being changed by the gospel of Jesus, and those lives are glorifying God. It's easy to preach after those videos.

I want to invite you to join us next Monday, May 12 at 7 p.m. at the Denton campus where we are going to get together to do a little bit of worship and a lot of praying. We'll do the same in Highland Village on Tuesday, May 13. The last nine months have been crazy with the addition of the Denton campus and the purchase of the Flower Mound campus. We want to come together again and ask God to bless us, to cry out that He is what we want, He is what we are after, His name exalted, worshiped and enjoyed. We want to ask God to protect us and guide us through the next few months. There is nothing more important that we can do than humble ourselves before God. Please join us at one of the gatherings.

This weekend, we'll be talking about the eternal purposes of why we live where we do, work where we work, have the friends we have and enjoy the games we play. I can't wait to see you.


For the joy of all people,

Matt Chandler