Soak up, Pour out
Last Sunday we wrapped up our series teaching through the book of 1 Peter. The final few verses we covered emphasize living well now to finish well tomorrow. We saw that Peter surrounded himself with faithful friends in the gospel to help him finish well, in particular Silvanus and Mark. His example serves as a reminder that we all need strong mentors, peers, and mentees. We all need people who are pouring into us, and people who are at a similar level of spiritual growth to continue to sharpen us, plus those who we are pouring into.
This week I’m attending a Pastor’s conference that began with a meeting with Bob Russell (former pastor of Southeast Christian). He was the one pouring into us, and what a fountain of wisdom he is! But the bulk of our time together is at the peer level, pastors sharpening and encouraging one another, helping to gain insight and wisdom from our shared struggles, experiences, wins, and losses. The hope is that we will all leave this time together refreshed, encouraged, and better equipped to keep pouring into the lives of others.
I encourage you to be intentional to clearly identify your mentors, your peers, and then also a mentee (someone you are mentoring). It’s not always a formal thing, but it’s good to know who these people are in your life. My prayer is that Valley View would be a church that actively pours into the lives of others, that new followers of Christ would receive powerful spiritual mentoring to help launch them into a lifetime of experiencing an abundant life in Christ!
I’m also praying that as you continue to meditate on the book of 1 Peter, using the key verse cards we handed out Sunday, that the result would be what the final verse says, “Peace to all of you who are in Christ.” May the peace of Christ rule in your life today so that Christ may use us to spread his peace all over the South End of Louisville!