Joshua Harris: An Evidence of God's Grace at Covenant Life
My wife and I had the privilege to visit Covenant Life church in Gaithersburg this summer. We were on the east coast for a friend's wedding and made sure to arrange our week so that we could stop by the church. God used Sovereign Grace Ministries in our lives and in the lives of so many others at my church to make us realize the centrality of the cross to all of life. The result has been, by God's grace, a much deeper and more profound love and affection for God, increased humility, and multiplied joy. My wife and I simply wanted to attend the church, observe, and enjoy, all toward the end of praising God for His amazing work in this group of people, to sit and worship God not only for his grace to us but to these brothers and sisters who live more than 2000 miles from our home.
As we walked in the door, past the obligatory greeters, we weren't expecting anybody to recognize us as non-regular-attenders. After all, this is a large church with multiple services. But within 10 seconds of walking in the front door Joshua Harris, the pastor, greeted us with "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting you before, I'm Josh." Two things stood out to us:
- Joshua Harris is incredibly short. I guess that when you read a guys books and listen to him preach via recordings for so long, you just assume that he is about the height of the average American. I don't think Mumbled Musings is that far off by pegging Josh at 4'7". Christianity Today called described him as Slight & Short; an accurate assessment.
- Most importantly though, and the reason for this short post, is that Joshua Harris, an accomplished author and conference speaker, senior pastor of one of the founding church of one of the most influential family of churches in the world, is a shepherd and knows his flock. That is an evidence of God's grace in his life, that is pure grace to the church there in Gaithersburg. What a humble example to be leading by example to the church that church is a family, it is not an event. The pastor is the shepherd, a shepherd who wants to know his sheep, leading the flock during their family time. I think that as much as any of his teaching or any of his books have impacted me, the humble and servantlike example of the petite pastor in the foyer of the church greeting people as they arrive and recognizing that we had never been there before has impacted me still greater. I went away from our day at Covenant Life praising God, not only because we had heard a great sermon, had our hearts shepherded to the cross in song, and had taken communion together with that body, but because I saw the supernatural effect of God's spirit on a man of God there that morning.
Ciao :)