Greetings!
Once again allow me to seize the wonderful opportunity on this auspicious and glorious occasion to tender greetings and offer felicitations to you the many delegates and friends who will worship with us this week during the 87th Annual Spring Workers’ Meeting of the Church Of God In Christ, First Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of New Jersey. What a joy it is to have you to join us this week! We pray that your time here this week is one of both Spiritual enhancement and educational growth. Our general theme for the week, Leadership: Defining, Redefining and Charting the Course for Exploring New Frontiers for Ministries, was thought-out with you in mind!
Leadership involves a multiplicity of aspects, to include planning, programming, training, leadership development that ultimately includes exploring new horizons which lead to new growth and expansion for the organization. Exploration is risky business! Exploration is even dangerous on the one hand, but exploration can also be rewarding. Exploration is essentially going where one has not gone, doing what one has not done before, trying the untried, or taking a chance.
But too many people do not like to take a risk! They would rather go where they have gone before, and rely on their tested and proven experiences. They would rather stay with the status quo, rather than go where they have not been. The history of discovery has taught us that our knowledge today is the results of the daring courage of persons who refused to settle for the known but, rather, they chose to continually define, redefine and chart new courses and explore new frontiers in medicine, religion, and in the social sciences.
A frontier has been defined as an imaginary line between the explored and the unexplored. It is the difference between where we are and where we have not been. A new frontier might be a place where new opportunities for ministries await us. The fear is: “We have not been there before”, therefore it can be frightening and risk-taking. Herein, lay the problem for Ancient Israel who was being liberated from Egypt by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Moses; but because of their many years of slavery they were hesitant to explore, even at God’s command (would that we had stayed in Egypt and died, Exodus 16:3). This expression suggests fear of the unknown, a reluctance to explore, afraid to take a chance on becoming progressive, a desire to remain where one is already. Satisfaction with where one is can provide little incentive to explore and look for new areas of growth in ministry, or to develop new leadership skills. Yes, Israel could have gotten out of Egypt in forty-days, but it took over forty-years to get Egypt out of Israel. Just think it was God who said to them: “You have been in these mountains too long, rise, take your journey.”
Let’s take advantage of the Institute Hour and explore God’s Word together to become more familiar with His way of “Defining, Redefining and Charting the Course for Exploring New Frontiers of Ministry.” Is it possible that God is saying to us today, you have been where you are too long, rise up and move forward? The classes for the week are designed with this very purpose in mind, and that is, to move us forward in ministry.
In His Service,
Bishop Martin Luther Johnson, Sr., M.Div., Ph.D.
Jurisdictional Bishop, New Jersey, First
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