Pastor's Weekly Update

OCTOBER 26, 2023

LAKESHORE FRIENDS—

First off, I want to send a huge thank you to our Lakeshore family!  Several weeks ago I had the humbling honor to be ordained as a minister of the Gospel, and my family celebrated our 10^th anniversary at Lakeshore Community Church.  The outpouring of love and encouragement from you all has been overwhelming!  I am honored and humbled to be able to serve you as one of your pastors and you have so greatly blessed me and my family. 

As the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 1:3-5 “I thank my God every time I remember you.  In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  I will be heading out on a sabbatical after this week and can’t thank God and each of you enough for your prayers and support.  With that, we get to talk about a topic this week that I know we can all relate to.

We all know them.  When we see them, we sometimes try to avoid them.  We know the conversation will be riddled with personal drama or a crisis.  We know they will see themselves as the victim, or always seeking your approval and validation, or always needing something from you.  Why are needy people the way they are?  Well, that can actually be a complicated question.  You see, there is often a lot of nuance to what is happening in the world of a needy person that we don’t see. 

We need to be careful because we want to help these people, but sometimes we end up causing more long-term hurt.  That's what we'll talk about this week as we continue Relational Vampires: Loving the People Who Suck the Life Out of You.  Specifically, we'll look at how we can identify and love needy people without hurting them.

Make sure to join us in person this week at 9 or 11 am, or online at live.lakeshorechurch.org.

Pastor Brian