Cancelled Gooch Departure Fellowship

I have some disappointing news to pass on to all of you. Last week I announced that this coming Sunday we would have a Departure Fellowship for Tom and Sue Gooch who have spent 5 months with us over the last year. Unfortunately, this past Sunday 18 November Sue fell after church and experienced a compound fracture on her right arm.

It appears that Sue will need surgery on her arm, and she and Tom flew back to the United States on Friday. Thus this Sunday's Departure Fellowship for the Gooches has been cancelled.

Let me share with all of you the message I intended to share with all of you and the Gooches this coming Sunday. Most of you will notice Tom and Sue for the activities they do with their hands. Our improved acoustics, stage curtain, and projector screen are examples. You may not be aware of other things which they do.

A spiritual concept we must understand in order to grow spiritually is authority. The trendy words today are leadership and mentoring. Jesus and Paul used the words disciple making. Jesus said, "Come follow me and I'll make you fishers of men." His agenda was a relationship that came with training. Paul said, "Follow me as I follow Christ." His intention was to lead people to the knowledge he had of the Lord.

We can only become as good as the one we follow, and need to carefully choose who we will follow. Some choose to follow themselves and that is always a disaster. Some choose poor leaders and that is also a disaster.

We at CCR are now in the stage of calling those willing to join our CCR vision to follow. We hope those of us calling can live in the image of Jesus in this endeavor.

You may not know, but Bryan Hixson's and my contracts place Tom Gooch as our authority. He is the one who we follow. He's an engineer by profession and training and a lay pastor for over 20 years. The endeavor that we embarked upon recently required a seasoned pastor and engineer and Tom has been here to pastor Bryan and I. He has been the man we've followed.

Tom chose not to lead from a distance, but close at hand with his hand always at work. He provided needed counsel and examples. He's become not just my boss, but my spiritual hero. He and Sue will be greatly missed, but we trust their care to the Lord as they also trusted our care to Him.

I hope you can take a moment this week to drop them an encouraging note as I know this coming week will be a difficult one for them.

Imana ikurinde,

Dave