Christ Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, honored Christopher Hinton for his 15th anniversary as pastor of the church.
Mark Ashley, pastor of Northfield (Ohio) Baptist Church, spoke during the anniversary service Feb. 16. “Anniversaries put us at a crossroads of past and future,” Mark said. He reminded the congregation to thank God for the church’s past “in anticipation of what lies ahead.”
“Every church has to ask itself an important question,” particularly on anniversaries, Mark told the congregation. “Are our best days behind us or in front of us? Has the best already happened, or is the best yet to come?”
“If we decide that our best days are in the past,” Mark explained, “then a church might as well go on hospice, because it’s only a matter of time before the life of that church will expire. If, however, a church believes its best days are yet to come, then it will continue to live with anticipation and looking forward to the opportunities that are ahead.”
