Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, 

A pharisee once asked Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:36). Jesus responded that you should love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. 2024 saw the debut of our new mission statement, asserting that “we are passionately committed to loving God, serving all people, and fostering genuine connections within our community.” I see this statement as a modern paraphrase of the Greatest Commandment. We have recently revamped our entire website with an eye toward fulfilling the third pillar of our new mission statement. The new site features numerous tools for connecting with the broader community. With the help of ChurchSpring, we now have an App where you can keep up to date with the latest sermons and churchwide events. The new site also allows users to submit prayer requests or make donations online. Further, we are publishing an Apple Podcast, Living Faith: Heights Sermons, in hopes of reaching more people with the Gospel of Christ. Finally, with the help of the national office of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Louisville, we have received a grant of up to $10,000 per month to run online ads to raise our church’s visibility and reach new people in Greater Houston.

In the Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin famously asserted that to know God is to love God (I.II.2). However, few people today—even people of faith—bother to inquire into God’s character. They go no further than to acknowledge the existence of a god. But, as Calvin said, what benefit is it to believe in God unless you also recognize that God is the source of every good? Only then will you be led to revere God. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the church to teach what God is like—that God is loving and good. To that end, I have been teaching a Sunday School Faith and Theology class, which meets every Sunday morning at 9:45. Over the past six months, we have explored a wide range of special topics, from witchcraft to mysticism, from a study of conscience to the metaphysics of process. All the while, we have deepened our knowledge of God’s providential and loving character. Equipped with such knowledge, we can be more “passionately committed to loving God,” as our mission states.

The last saying of our Risen Lord to his disciples is commonly called the Great Commission. Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). This is generally taken to be a call to evangelism. On a recent trip to California, I met a couple who shared their journey to faith with me. They grew up in an agnostic Asian household and came to the United States to pursue their education. While working as software engineers in Silicon Valley, they heard the Parable of the Rich Fool from the Gospel of Luke, which spoke to them very deeply. They soon got baptized and became Christians. Today, they volunteer their time to minister to college students in Berkeley. God still calls people to faith, sometimes when we least expect it. But it’s also important to recognize that evangelism isn’t just about numbers. It’s about faith. Nurturing faith means equipping people to love God and their neighbor in every aspect of life. And it begins with adopting an invitational posture. It might involve inviting the family next door to church on Sunday, inviting a visitor to serve as liturgist, or extending an invitation to a longtime member to attend Sunday School for the first time. Invitations are like mustard seeds sown into the world to share the gospel and nurture the faith of the community. What begins with a small invitation can soon blossom into a vibrant community of disciples committed to serving all people. Soli Deo Gloria!

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Matt