Shotgun-Shell

It has long been a practice of mine to take one day a week to retreat from the world and just kind of be with God. It was on one such winter day in 1989 that I spent out in the woods, alone with God and my Bible, just wanting to be with Him. As I walked and prayed my way through those woods that day, my eyes were caught by a piece of red plastic sticking up through the snow. I immediately recognized it as the open end of a spent shotgun shell. Then somewhere deep inside my heart a “voice” said to me, “pick it up.” So I instinctively bent over and picked up the shotgun shell, brushed it off and stuck it in my jacket pocket. As I moved along that day, just walking and praying for maybe 5 or 6 hours, every now and then I would spot one of those spent shotgun shells just lying on the ground. And every time, just as before, that “voice” would say the same thing to a deep place in my heart – “pick it up.”

When I returned to my office later that afternoon, I had collected maybe 15 or 20 empty shotgun shells. So I plopped them all down on my desk and kind of looked up toward the ceiling and asked, “What?!” To my surprise that same deeply inner voice answered back with the unforgettable words – “This is what your church will be.”

What not everyone knows is that when a shotgun shell is fired and ejected from the gun, it does not have to be discarded. In fact, it can be picked up, cleaned out, and reloaded for use time and time again. So when the Lord spoke to my heart and told me that the church I would someday lead would be like those spent and discarded shotgun shells, I think He was saying something very important and very specific. I believe the Lord was telling me, way back in 1989, that the church I would serve as pastor would be one that specialized in retrieving and reloading people who have been discarded and even forgotten by the world. Perhaps they were once vibrant Christians who had somehow lost their way, or maybe they never knew anything about any of it. But they would be people who could substantially relate to the idea of being empty and somehow overlooked.

When we say, “Come to the Vineyard and get loaded”, that is exactly what we mean. We mean that we love you as a spent, empty and overlooked person, and that we want to be a part of God’s plan to pick you up, perhaps even out of a most desperate place, and reload you for new life in His Son, Jesus. We want to be a part of God’s plan to call you His son or daughter and to discover all the amazing things God has for you. To us you are not forgotten. We want to be a part of God’s plan of loving you to health and purpose again.

I hope you’ll consider plugging into the many ways we try to do that at the Vineyard in Grove City. If you can’t find what you need in what we’re already offering, please connect with us so that we can figure out the best plan for you to find the health and purpose that so many others have found at the Vineyard.

Your friend,

Tom Pauquette, pastor

Getting “loaded”, so to speak, is not about going to any particular church – not a church called The Vineyard or any other name for that matter. Getting “loaded” is really about connecting with the God who loves you through His Son Jesus Christ.

You can do that right now, right where you are, no matter what else is going on in your life The Bible says that if we “turn” away from our present life and look to God that He is always there waiting to take us in. So right now, you can turn to God and pray to Him from your heart. You can tell Him that you want to be “loaded” up with His love and forgiveness. You can tell Him that you want His Son, Jesus Christ, to come into your life right now as the Forgiver of all of your sins and as the Leader of your new life. Just ask Him to do that right now and He will! Then, if you like, you can e-mail me and tell me about it. I’ll be so happy to hear from you and I will help you figure out how to best take your next steps wherever you are. And I will never ask for anything in return. You may never come to my church, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to me, and it doesn’t matter to God. What matters is that you follow this feeling you are having about turning away from your present life, turning to God, and sincerely inviting His Son, Jesus Christ to come into your life in a remarkable way.

That’s what matters – that’s all that matters. I hope you’ll email me and tell me all about it.

I love you (really I do),

Tom

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