Good Shepherd Update Thursday September 1st, 2010

Dear Good Shepherd,

Good morning, I am writing in a mist of pain medication induced mind-fog so hopefully everything will come out making sense. There are some new bits of news, so please read carefully.

Guest Preacher and Teacher: I forgot to mention in last week’s update that Rabbi Ron Goldberg will be visiting Good Shepherd this coming Sunday. Rabbi Goldberg, for those of you who do not know him, is a Messianic Rabbi. A Messianic Jew is a Jewish person who believes in Jesus Christ. Rabbi Goldberg has been a Christian preacher and teacher for many years and Good Shepherd has enjoyed a long friendship with him. Rabbi Ron now lives and works in Florida but he will be in town on Sunday and I have invited him to preach during the service and teach between classes. He will be speaking about the relationship between the Old Testament Law and the New Covenant. Please be there to help welcome him and hear his fascinating story and his teaching. Here’s Rabbi Ron’s website.

Special offering: We will be taking up a special offering to support Rabbi Goldberg’s ministry in Florida in addition to our regular offerings so the plate will come by twice this Sunday during the offeratory. The first pass will be for regular tithes and offerings, the second will be to support Rabbi Goldberg.

Mission Sunday is coming up September 12th: Good Shepherd has celebrated Mission Sunday every year on the Sunday after Labor Day for the last 5 years. Before that Mission Sunday was called “Ingathering Sunday” which is when people came back to church after taking a summer off. But since we no longer take summers off we’ve changed the name of the day to reflect the fact that the fall is a great time to initiate new missions and celebrate ongoing ones. This coming mission Sunday we’ll focus on the new mission groups that will be launched on the week of October 3rd and we’ll look at some of the things God has done through the various missions and churches we’ve funded this year.

Cinnamon Buns: Saturday September 11th before Women’s Bible Study and ACW meeting, women are invited to join Carmen Swoffer-Penna in order to prepare cinnamon buns for Mission Sunday (September 12th).  We will begin rolling dough at 8:30AM. Parishioners are invited to bring fruit to accompany the cinnamon buns on Mission Sunday. Let’s make it a fruitful Sunday!!Thanks (from Carmen)

Hospitality: Virginia Wetherbee, Good Shepherd’s hospitality coordinator recognized the selfless and sacrificial work that Kay Seaman does every Sunday to provide refreshments after the service and then to clean up afterwards. She also called for volunteers to sign up to take this enormous burden off Kay’s shoulders and to provide refreshments week by week. Downstairs in the parish hall there is a display calendar with dates for the next few months of Sundays. I encourage everyone who is able to sign up to bring refreshments and make coffee for at least one Sunday in the coming months. Thank you again to Kay and thank you to Virginia and to everyone who signs up.

Cans and Bottles Requested (from Linda Dean): Jenna Dean has made the B.C. Explosion (14-and-under) Junior Olympic fast-pitch travel softball team. We’re very excited that she’ll be able to participate at this level! There are a lot of expenses involved, though, so if anyone has cans or bottles they’d like to donate to help raise funds, we would love your support. Please bring them to church on Sunday or let us know where you live so that we can come pick them up. Thank you very much!

Systematic Theology Returns: The second half of the Systematic Theology course will begin in mid-October. This Fall we’ll study of Redemption—the way God saves sinners; Ecclesiology; the nature and purpose of the Church; and Eschatology—the Return of Christ, final judgment, the Resurrection, Heaven and Hell. I’m eagerly looking forward to it and I hope you are too. There will be a sign up sheet downstairs on Mission Sunday.

So far the date and time will remain the same, Saturday at 3:30pm but that remains tentative.

Budget update: August was a slow month in finances which is expected in late summer but still not fun. In particular we are lagging behind in Capital Campaign contributions. It’s been my prayer that God would grant us the necessary resources to completely pay off our mortgage by the time it is refinanced. That means we need about $300,000.00 in the next four years. God is great. He owns all of the resources that exist on earth. It’s just a matter of his determining to send some of those our way. That’s my prayer. Being free of our mortgage would mean that we’d be able to do so much more in the community and in our own congregation to proclaim the gospel, raise up disciples, and help those in need.  If you have already pledged to the Capital Campaign, please pray that God will provide what is needed to pay of the mortgage. If have not pledged to the Capital Campaign fund, please prayerfully consider doing so.

Surgery: I wouldn’t normally take update space for this, but since it does have impact on my availability next week I wanted to pass on news about my upcoming operation:  I went to see the doctor Tuesday and I was told that my Achilles Tendon is fully ruptured and that surgery is the only real option if I want to walk normally again. My surgery is scheduled for next Tuesday and it should only be a day. Until then, I will be holding normal office hours and leading bible studies and all the things I normally do and I’ll lead services on Sunday. Next week may be a little different depending on recovery time after the surgery. I hope to be back in the office on Wednesday or Thursday but I will still be kind of slow witted due to the meds they will have me on. Just giving everyone a heads up.

Acolytes: The next practice is Sunday September 26th, after the 10:30am service. Please be sure to be there.

Thursday Night Bible Study: We’ll continue to study chapter 12 tonight. This bible study starts at 6:30pm and meets downstairs in the parish hall.

Men’s Breakfast and Bible Study: The Men’s Bible Study meets at 6:30am every Friday morning for breakfast and discussion. We’ll finish chapter 3 of Revelations and will look at the church in Laodicea this Friday. Joe Barham is cooking.

Women’s Bible Study: There will be no women’s bible study this week. Carmen will be out of town as will a number of other women. The Women’s bible study will pick back up on September 11th at 10am in the parish hall. Here’s a note from Carmen: Next Saturday (September 11th) we will resume our study of the book of Isaiah (chapter 60).  These last chapters are a beautiful picture of the Promised Land which will be populated by the redeemed who will be perfect in body and soul.

Tuesday Morning Bible Study. This is Good Shepherd’s first Bible study. It began 8 years ago and all the other Bible studies grew out of it. This study is led by Chris Vail. It meets every Tuesday morning at 9:00am in the parish hall. Currently this group is working through Acts in an effort to piece together Paul’s missionary journeys before turning to his Letter to the Romans. Ultimately, this group will work through all of the New Testament epistles and letters. All are welcome!

First Light Bible Study: This group meets every Tuesday evening at 6:30pm and is designed for intermediate and advanced students of Scripture. The group takes the time necessary to delve as deeply as possible into the text, learning the art and science of biblical exegesis. Ife Ojetayo leads the group which is currently working its through Acts. All are welcome.

Team Romans: is up this week. Chris Jones is captain. His number is in the directory if you need it.

Sunday School Sunday school for children and young adults will start again for the Fall on Sunday September 19th. We’re looking forward to a great year with some new teachers (Joe and Andrea Kovak will take over the 9 to 12 year old class) and some fantastic new curricula.

No Sunday school program, with only one hour a week, has the capacity to “make” your children Christian. You and I, as parents, are called by God to pass on our faith to our children.

“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

At the same time Christ established the church to be the primary vehicle in which and through which his people hear his word and grow and mature together in faith. He gave teachers and leaders to local congregations for that purpose:

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. [15] Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, (Ephesians 4:11-15)

And so participation the local congregation is not something to be neglected:

‘ let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Learning that truth at an early age is important because it’s very difficult to teach a teenager to value getting up on Sunday morning to worship when he/she has never had to do so.

So, let’s say that you do actively work to teach your children about Jesus and about the scriptures and you bring them to the main service on Sunday. What benefit is there in Sunday school? Well, here are six I came up with just off the top of my head (despite the pain killers) and were I right minded I’m sure I could think of more. Your children will:

1. Experience in depth teaching designed to help children and young adults grasp Christian doctrines and apply them to everyday life.
2. Hear the gospel and learn about Jesus from people who are not their parents.
3. Develop friendships with other Christian people in their age group who are not part of their family.
4. Engage in guided discussions with people their age about Christianity and Christian living
5. Participate in building up the body of Christ by sharing their insights and thoughts and things you have taught them with the people in their class.
6. Learn to integrate a regular commitment to the fellowship of the church into their lives that will go beyond what they feel like doing on a given Sunday.

Those reasons alone should be enough but, if you need more, I’d be happy to meet with you

Does God exist? Yes, I know he does, but just in case you were looking for a good solid argument to share with a non-Christian educated friend, you might check out this link. I linked that article because just this week Stephen Hawking has published a book, quoted in the London Times in which he makes the following claim: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.” What an amazing thing to say. Gravity is, according to Hawking, some kind of quasi eternal energy force that has no beginning or end and because it exists, other things somehow pop, uncaused, into existence. Well, actually, he doesn’t say that the universe is uncaused. He says that the universe is its own cause. So the Universe, before it existed, harnessed the power of gravity, to pull itself into existence. Wow. This is pure irrationality. How can something “be” before it “is” and actually effect its own creation? The fact is that out of nothing, nothing comes. There is simply no rational way around that formula.

ACW Event: Next Saturday (the 11th) Major Linda Lee from Salvation Army will speaking on how Good Shepherd can help with the Angel Trees which is a Christmas outreach effort. There is be a short ACW meeting at 11:15am followed by the speaker and lunch,  All are Welcome.

Last Sunday’s sermon, Last week’s sermon: “A Good Kind of Dependence” was the fifth sermon in a series on prayer based on Luke 11:1-13. You can read the text here. I’m still working on the video

This Sunday’s Sermon: Will be delivered by Rabbi Ron Goldberg (see note above)

Christian Education: Rabbi Goldberg will lead Christian education this Sunday (see note above)

Justification by Faith: We’ve been discussing the doctrine of Justification in Sunday school and I wanted to alert you to two very fine books by the Rev. Dr. John Piper that you can download for free on the web.

The first is “Counted Righteous in Christ” In this book Dr. Piper not only helps you get a good grasp of the doctrine of Imputation but he also reveals some of the ways that contemporary liberal-evangelical scholars distort the concept of imputation in order to reject it. Here’s the link

The second book “The Future of Justification” is a longer work and more academic in content. In it Piper specifically addresses Bishop NT Wright’s reexamination of Justification in Paul’s letters in which Wright questions the concept of imputation. Piper reaffirms that the process of Justification in the New Testament involves the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to those who believe. A very good book. Here’s the download link

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