Endings and Beginnings

We are all about beginnings and endings. We celebrate beginnings like births and marriages with annual birthday and anniversary celebrations. Often we mourn endings like death and divorce.

 In this message, Pastor Joe speaks of Stephen, one of the first deacons of the church, and his message to the religious leaders of his time. He had experienced the beginning of the church, and he experienced the seeming end of his life at the hands of those same religious leaders. But Stephen knew that his end was only the beginning, as he asked Jesus to bring him home to Him. Stephen’s death was the beginning of severe persecution for these new Christians, particularly at the hands of a young man named Saul.