This Week:
Tomorrow (Tues) Last Zoom Blog until Jan 14th. 10-11
Wed: Donut Day at Bread Ministry 10-12; 12-12:30 EC Day of fasting and prayer
Thurs. 6 PM Vision Team Dinner Meeting (and budget review)
Sat. 10-1 Clothing Closet (last one until Jan)
Sun. Worship10 AM
Thur. morning will be Donnie Landis' funeral. (More details to follow tomorrow)
New Member Reception Sun. Dec 22nd during worship. God has blessed us with at least six new members that will be installed. If you want to join our fellowship, talk to Sarah or Don. These new members are preparing their rocks to added to our covenant altar as well. Yesterday we celebrated how God has heard, and answered our prayers for 12 new members this year and exceeded (as God is apt to do) our requests with 16 new members! PTL! And keep praying. Even start praying for next year for God to multiply new members and attendees. (24? 36? 48?) God responds abundantly to our hope-filled, faith-filled prayers! PTL!
Christmas Eve Worship is from 4 to about 5:15. After worship, Karen and I will have a crock pot of meatballs and some salad for those who don't have other plans. It will be a a brief time of food and fellowship. We hope to be locking up by 6. So, if you don't have plans and need a meal, it will be there for you after worship.
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Good Morning Hope-Filled Encouragers! Yes and amen Lord! Yesterday we discussed being hope-filled hope-bringers and were seeded with some money to go sow hope, help and love this Christmas season. I've been praying for God to lead you and us to do that well and for God to write some great stories through your efforts to go live and love more like Jesus! I can't wait to see what God has in store and to hear those stories. You can write them down and give them to Sarah and me or share them yourself as we will make space through Christmas for you to share what God is doing and to encourage each other. About 10 of you placed your money in the plate to be used to bless the Kindness Project. (We hope to get that $500 to them shortly so they can be blessed and bless as needed) The rest of us are focusing on God and what He is inviting us to do to join Him. Many of us are using the 5-5-5 prayer challenge to allow God to bring to mind someone we are praying for to go bless. We can all be praying for 5 people for five days a week for five weeks and then ask God to use you in response to those prayers or to go invite them to join us for some activities. God does have great plans for us always and even more so this Christmas season to go be a blessing!
Barnabas is one of my heroes of faith. Imagine being known as an encourager! I pray for God to use me as one all the time. And He is faithful to use me that way often as I am able to see what life and hope He wants to speak over someone or as He sends me to walk along with them for a bit. Thanks Lord! May we be known as a church filled with Hope-Filled Encouragers of Christ! You have been seeded to go start doing that this Christmas season and even if you didn't get any money yesterday, God still has good plans to use you to go encourage, love like Jesus and bring Hope alive. Jesus is the Hope of the World and He lives in us and wants to love and encourage through us. Seek, receive and follow Him well and watch what God will do as He writes new stories of faith come to life and love lived well through you and us. AMEN!
Check out the flow of my devotionals this morning below and ask God to speak to your heart, direct your steps and use you well to be a blessing and encourager this season of Hope, season of Joy, Peace and Love. Amen! God does indeed have some awesome custom made plans just for you to discover and step into! Begin with time in His presence and a determination to follow Him well and to join Him when nudged. And then prepare to share those stories of God's faithfulness to encourage us along the way. I am praying hard and expectantly for God to move in a mighty way these next few weeks and to use each and every one of us! And I know He will! PTL!
I could also use your prayers for Jesus to come be my Shepherd this week and to guide me through a week where I have very little margin. I have training classes today and Friday to be used to work with some of you after the New Year. Huddles, donuts meals, prayer meetings and other meetings, doc appointment and a funeral to write and message to prepare. God's got this, but appreciate your prayers as well. Thanks!
I know His peace and you can too throughout this busy season as you take time to sit at His feet and o fill you up before following Him to His best plans for each day. thank God for this and keep connected to Him. be encouraged and led by the Holy Spirit to go and encourage and bring some hope alive. Know true joy this season and beyond and experience God's faithfulness. Amen! and shalom shalom!
ODB:
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“Sheer encouragement.” That was the phrase J. R. R. Tolkien used to describe the personal support his friend and colleague C. S. Lewis gave him as he wrote the epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien’s work on the series had been painstaking and exacting, and he’d personally typed out the lengthy manuscripts more than twice. When he sent them to Lewis, Lewis responded, “All the long years you have spent on it are justified.”
Perhaps Scripture’s best-known encourager was Joseph from Cyprus, better known as Barnabas (meaning “son of encouragement”), the name the apostles gave him (Acts 4:36). It was Barnabas who advocated for Paul to the apostles (9:27). Later, when non-Jewish believers began to place their faith in Jesus, Luke tells us Barnabas “was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts” (11:23). Luke describes him as “a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith,” adding that because of him, “a great number of people were brought to the Lord” (v. 24).
The worth of encouraging words can’t be measured. As we offer words of faith and love to others, God—who gives “eternal encouragement” (2 Thessalonians 2:16)—may move through what we share to transform someone’s life forever. May He help us to offer “sheer encouragement” to someone today!
By James Banks
REFLECT & PRAY
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Who would you like to encourage? In what ways might you share God’s love with them through a kind deed or word?
Dear God, please help me to be an encouragement to someone today.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Everyone in the community of believers in Jesus was afraid of Saul because he was persecuting them (Acts 9:2). Even Ananias—who’d been given explicit instructions from Jesus to go to the house where Saul was staying—was afraid of the man (vv. 10-19). Later, when Saul, “who was also called Paul” (13:9), escaped with his life to Jerusalem, Christ’s disciples refused to allow him to join out of sheer fear of him (9:26). It was Barnabas who convinced Peter and the rest to welcome him as a fellow disciple of Jesus (v. 27), and it was Barnabas who saw potential in him for serving the church at Antioch (11:25-26). Where other believers feared him, Barnabas saw someone who’d been radically changed by Christ. Because of this encourager, Paul was able to begin the ministry that would forever change the trajectory of the church.
Jed Ostoich |
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Chuck Swindoll
Sarah Young
Charles Stanley
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