A little over five years ago I was seated in the room where the Saturday PM was born. At that point it was simply an idea, a dream, a desire that had been placed in one person’s heart. We discussed it, we mulled over it, we prayed about it and when we first had that first service in August of 2013 we were surprised that people actually showed up, that the seats were not empty  and that we were not the only people in that hall. Book after book, service after service, year after year, God has continued to show us His faithfulness and His goodness. He has continued to remind us that we do not run the show, He does.

The 12 stones of remembrance.

In the book of Joshua, we see the Israelites going through a similar situation. Joshua has just taken over the leadership of the nation and is in that place of uncertainty trying to fill the shoes of one Israel’s greatest leader up to that point. Joshua is about to lead the Israelites into their promised land and the only thing they were holding on to is God’s word. After they made it through one of their biggest hurdles- crossing the Jordan, they followed God’s instructions to create a point of reference, a memorial, something that they could use to tell their children and great grandchildren the story of how the Lord had delivered them.

So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down. Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day.

And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan.  He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over.  He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.

Five years of God's grace

And so last Saturday we took a moment to lay our version of the twelve stones.

As we celebrate five years of God’s faithfulness as the Saturday PM, it is not lost on us the significance of being able to see this day. That we have seen the hand of God is not for our own glory. We testify that God has been faithful, that the hand of God has been powerful to move and level the highest mountains over the years.

According to biblical numerology, the number five signifies the grace of God.

Grace is the best word I can think of to best describe what God has done over the years. God has shown us favor by allowing us to even do this work for him and through Him. That He would chose us mere mortals with our many shortcomings to do amazing work for Him still blows my mind. He has shown us favor with the various teachers that so willingly prepare and come to teach us from the outpouring of their hearts- we do not take it for granted. That He has provided laborers in this particular vineyard-to lead worship, to serve tea, to usher- we do not take it for granted. For every single person who desires to grow in the knowledge of the word and comes for service every Saturday or follows us on our social media channels-we do not take it for granted.

Here’s to another five years and many more of God’s grace and faithfulness!