Yesterday a friend of mine shared a news story from China about a man who rode a bike for 30 days in the wrong direction. He was trying to go home, but ended up much farther away before he was stopped by some policemen. When they figured out where he was trying to go, they chipped in to buy him a ticket home.

Can you imagine the frustration he must have felt when he realized he had traveled all that time going the wrong way? He said he had been given bad directions.

Spiritually speaking, how many people think they are traveling home, but are headed the wrong way? Fairly often I hear people say or post things that are not consistent with what the Bible teaches. Many have been given bad directions and appear to be traveling down the wrong path. But I confess it is very difficult for me to know how to point this out. Surely we would all like to be like the police officers who helped the man get to his destination, but that wouldn’t be possible without first convincing him he was going the wrong way. When it comes to spiritual matters, the general reaction seems to be either: “who are you to say I’m going the wrong way?” or “it doesn’t matter, any path will do.” Even if it were true that “all roads lead to Rome,” so to speak, you’d still have to be traveling the right direction.

So let me put this out there: First of all, I want to be on the right path. If I’m traveling the wrong way, I hope someone will be kind enough to tell me. Secondly, I’d love the opportunity to help others find the way. If any of you would like to discuss spiritual matters, I’ll make myself available any way I can. If I can do nothing more than help us read the map together, I’ll be glad to do so.

Change of Meeting Times

Beginning Sunday, May 5th, the Grissom Road church of Christ is changing their meeting times and order of services. We will try this new format for six months, with some possible fine-tuning along the way, and then reevaluate. Please give a fair consideration to these changes.

Sunday morning service: 9:00am to 9:40am (Order of service: prayer, sermon, song and dismissal to Bible class)

Sunday morning bible class: 9:50am to 10:35am

Sunday morning service: 10:50am (Consisting of songs, prayers, communion, contribution, and sermon)

Clearly, by changing our meeting times we are not trying to reduce our service to God or limit our time together. The number of services on Sunday will remain the same. Neither does this change affect what we can do in God’s service on other days of the week. We are simply trying to open a bigger block of time to offer more opportunities on Sunday.

Faithful Christians have already planned their Sunday (by biblical authority) to include worship. In my lifetime that usually meant a Sunday morning and evening worship. There is certainly nothing wrong with this schedule, in fact it has worked well for us, but that does not mean we are bound to the routine.

We are not making these changes because of some problem. The Grissom Road congregation is just like any faithful church; we have strong and weak members, we could all do a little better, and Satan is after all of us. We are not so naïve as to think this will fix every problem for every member. What was true before remains true in the new schedule. You get out of it what you put into it.

What do we hope to accomplish by these changes?

Open up a bigger block of time Sunday afternoon and evening for additional Bible studies at the building or in someone’s home.
Facilitate the continued growth and bond of our spiritual family by providing more opportunities for our member to associate together.
Exhort each member and family to take ownership of what they can do to encourage love among us.
Encourage regular group meetings.
Encourage our members to attend gospel meetings of faithful congregations in the San Antonio area.

Wednesday evening Bible study changes: 7:00pm to 7:15pm (Order of service: Announcements, song, sermon, song, prayer, and dismissal to class)
Class time: 7:20pm to 8:00pm