OUR HOPE FOR WENTZVILLE
The people who are behind the planting of Peine Ridge Church love Wentzville. We live here, we shop here, and we participate in the city's activities and annual events. We believe Wentzville is a great place to live. You might not know it, but Wentzville has been the fastest growing city in the state of Missouri from 2000 to 2008. During these 8 short years, the city grew from six thousand to almost twenty four thousand residents. Apparently there are a lot of other people who think Wentzville’s a great city too! By the year 2015, the city projects a total population of forty five thousand men, women, and children.
Within the city of Wentzville, there is a community that Peine Ridge Church is particularly focused upon. There is a triangle that is made up by the intersections of Hwy 40/61, Wentzville Parkway/West Meyer, and Point Prairie. This is the north side of Wentzville, the fastest growing community in the fastest growing city. Of the eighteen thousand new residents that have moved into the city, over six thousand of them have moved into this geographical area. Because of this, roads have been expanded, schools have been added, and a new park has been chartered. While this community has enjoyed the addition of new amenities, they have lacked in the addition of new churches.
Peine Ridge Church is a new church in a young community doing something really old. We love God, believe in Jesus, and trust in the sacred Scripture; the Bible. We gather together on Sundays to read the Bible, preach the Bible, sing the Bible, and pray the Bible. When we’re at home or at work throughout the week, we seek to live the Bible. This isn’t anything new. In fact, it’s really old. One major implication we draw from living Biblically is loving people. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he responded,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22)
If we say we love God without loving people, we don’t love God at all. Christ's command to love people is vividly expressed in His comparison of our self-love. If we hope to rightly love God, then the way we love others must be equal, if not greater, than how we love ourselves.
At Peine Ridge Church, this will take shape in two major ways. First, we recognize as Christians that our highest love for ourselves is in our increasing affection for God. Because of this, the highest love for any person is that they too would love God. As Augustine said over 1500 years ago:
“Now you love yourself suitably when you love God better than yourself. What, then, you aim at in yourself you must aim at in your neighbor, namely, that he may love God with a perfect affection. For you do not love him as yourself, unless you try to draw him to that good which you are yourself pursing. For this is the one good which has room for all to pursue it along with thee. From this precept proceed the duties of human society.”
In short, we hope that every resident of Wentzville would trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of their life because we believe this to be the greatest treasure any man, woman, or child could ever receive. Secondly, we believe that loving our neighbors in Wentzville will also mean meeting their physical needs. In John 3:11, John describes the life of a Christian by saying,
“The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”
When we come into contact with people who are lacking in food, clothing, and adequate shelter, we will share with them what God has given us. This will be especially noted in the way we love widows, orphans, the physically disabled, and the elderly. By sharing our faith with people and meeting physical needs, we hope to worship God by loving our neighbors like we love ourselves.