01.26.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:23 pm by Administrator
Why should we pray for the sick? Does God always answer the prayer for healing exactly how we want Him to? Why or why not?
The author says, “God is in the business of growing the Kingdom, and sometimes God’s Kingdom is best served in our weakness and infirmity.” What do you think he means? Do you agree? Why or why not?
Read Matthew 24.42. What are the ways your life can reflect a “keep watch” attitude?
How does knowing the final chapter of humankind good news? Could some view this as bad news? If so, why?
Does thinking about eternity scare you or excite you? Why?
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Posted in Uncategorized at 3:16 pm by Administrator
What role does the Church have in today’s world? What is your role within the Church?
Have you been baptized? If so, what made that moment in your life special? If not, what is keeping you from being baptized?
Baptism is an outward sign of what God has done in our lives inwardly. Take time this week to share with someone what God is doing in your life.
Why do we consider the Lord’s Supper a celebration? Do we in the Church really act like we are celebrating when we take Communion? If not, how can we?
The author says, ‘The Church enables god to have an address, a door, an altar, and hands and feet.’ What do you think he means by that statement?
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01.10.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:09 pm by Administrator
Here are the discussion and reflection question for this week’s assignment.
Can you think of someone right now who is not a Christian, but you can still see god working is his or her life? How can God use you to help open that person’s eyes to the working of God in his or her life?
How can the Church be invovled in the cultivating of prevenient grace?
Read Titus 2.11-14. Spend time thanking God for His grace. During the week, wirite down all the ways you experience God’s grace. Then, share what you have written with someone else.
Why is repentance so important in our relationship with God?
Read 1 John 1.1-10 and 2 Corinthians 7.10. Pray, asking God if there is anything in your life that needs confession and repentance.
What is justification, regeneration, and adoption? How do all three work together in a person for salvation?
Read Romans 8.16. Think of all the ways you are living as a child of God.
After reading the article on sanctification how would you explain “entire sanctification” to someone who is unfamiliar with the term?
What is the difference between purity of heart and being faultless?
How can we grow in Christlikeness and avoid fruitless living?
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01.05.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:16 pm by Administrator
Here are the questions from the Articles of Faith booklet about: The Holy Scriptures, Sin, Atonement
Read some of the following Scriptures. Luke 24:44-47; John 10:35; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21 What is said about the Scriptures?
Read Psalm 119.11. How can hiding God’s Word in our hearts keep us from sinning? What are the way you can hide God’s Word in your heart this week?
What stood out to you from the chapter on sin in the Articles of Faith booklet? Why?
Read Romans 5.12-19. During this week, think about how God dealt with the sin problem and thank Him for His love and grace.
Reread the five points at the beginning of this articles on atonement of pg 18 of the Articles of Faith booklet. Take time to think about what each one means to your life and those around you.
This week, think about the ways you can share the good news of the Atonement with someone who needs to hear its message.
Even if you have already read through the Covenant of Christian Character read through it again this time praying and asking God to bring to your attention anything in your life that He wants to change in you in regard to these different areas that are evidence of our commitment to God.
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12.28.09
Posted in Church Membership at 6:45 pm by Administrator
Respond to any or all of these questions.
What was your belief about the Trinity before you read the article on the Triune God from Articles of Faith? Has your belief changed in any way? If so, how and why?
Think about the Person of the Trinity–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How do they work together in your life?
What are the ways that God has revealed himself to you recently? How would you like God to reveal himself to you this week?
How would you respond to the question, “Who is Jesus?”
Does what we believe about Jesus affect what we think and how we live? If so, how?
Why is it important to believe that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine?
Read John 1.1-14. How is the Word that became flesh making a difference in your life today?
Think about a time you relied on the Holy Spirit for power, strength, comfort, peace, guidance or wisdom. Did this have an impact on your life? If so, how?
How is God’s Spirit currently working in your life?
Read Acts 1.8. Pray, asking for the power of the Holy Spirit to make himself real in your life this week.
I look forward to discussing these things and hearing about how God is at work in your life. I will be sharing some of my own responses and reflections from my own life as well. If you would prefer to wait to share these things when we meet that would be fine too!
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08.25.09
Posted in Sermon Discussion at 3:09 am by psheneman
But he (Jesus) called out to them, “Don’t be afraid. I am here!” (v20 NLT)
http://ref.ly/Jn6.15-21
A person walking on the water is a shocking sight to say the least. In the Gospel of John, it is a sign were the unexplainable and Jesus meet to present to a group of people an opportunity to believe. But what are they to believe?
This question might seem simplistic to many but I wonder how many of us thought about what John wanted his audience to believe when they read His account of the good news concerning Jesus of Nazareth. What were the signs pointing to in John’s story of Jesus?
I think that John was pointing us in two directions. First, I think that he was always pointing us back to the beginning of his story. In the first chapter, we read that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and that the Word became flesh and dwelt among humanity as one of us. Second, I think that John was always pushing us toward the end of his account of Jesus. In the next to last chapter, we read that Thomas doubted the other disciples’ account of seeing the crucified Jesus alive. Then John gives us these closing words from Jesus and Thomas:
“Peace be with you,” he said. 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”
28 “My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed.
29 Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.”
John is constantly pushing us to move past our doubts and fears (like Thomas and the others disciples) in order that me might believe that the crucified and resurrected Jesus is the very Word of God made flesh (incarnate). All of the signs where the unexplainable and Jesus are present become opportunities for us to move past our fear and believe in the one who is Yahweh (I AM), which is the name of God found in Exodus.
.:What Do You Think:.
What do you think John’s signs were pointing to? What do you think John wanted his audience to believe?
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07.22.09
Posted in Sermon Discussion at 8:43 pm by psheneman
So now, come back to your God.
Act with love and justice,
and always depend on him
http://ref.ly/Ho12
We heard this past week that we are a people who have a family resemblance that traces back thousands of years. We were told that we look a lot like Jacob who was one of the patriarchs of the faith. Jacob was also known for being deceitful and a “heal grasper” as he attempted to manipulate people and situations to gain position, power and property for himself. So it wasn’t pleasant to hear that we live like Jacob.
The Goodnews came when we heard that God used Jacob and transformed him. We were then told that we hold that family resemblance as well. So the hope is that God will use us and transform us. Yet the question remains, what will we be like when we are transformed?
The answer is found in verse 6 (quoted above). God has in mind for us to be a family that is marked by continual dependence on Him and by doing acts of love (hesed) and justice (mishpat). These qualities were found perfected in another one of our family members, Jesus. Thus God’s plan for Jacob, Israel and us today was always that our family of faith would resemble the Son of God, who was dependent on the Father by the Spirit and who acted in love and justice toward all.
May we embrace the honorable and shameful sides of our family resemblance. And may we always hope in our Father who is able to use us and transform us into the image of the Son.
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07.13.09
Posted in Sermon Discussion at 4:57 pm by psheneman
http://ref.ly/Ho11
We find ourselves in a day and age that is all too aware of child abuse, absentee fathers, and narcissistic parents that put unrealistic expectation on their children. In such a culture, it is sometimes hard for many people to imagine God as a loving parent because their family stories are full of neglect and pain. Yet, one of the beautiful parts of the book of Hosea is the intimate family language that the prophet uses to talk about God’s relationship with His people (’am Yahweh). Examples of such language are all throughout this chapter of Hosea:
V1: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
vv3-4: Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;
I took them up by their arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of kindness,
with the bands of love,
As you can tell, these words communicated a powerful message of love to God’s people back then and they continue to do so today. But the question must be asked, how do we communicate this powerful image of family love to those who know only hurt and pain from their families?
I suggest that we, as God’s beloved children, need to become fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters to those people who don’t know what a loving family is like. We should consider it a great joy that we are given the power to heal the pain of brokenness in families through showing loving kindness to people. Through small acts of kindness like letting people know that they are genuinely wanted, praising them for who they are and not just what they do, sharing meals with no agenda, and helping them out with work when the load gets to much to bare. In these small ways, we can become a loving family to those who have had unloving families. My prayer is that we would embody the Father’s love to a world that doesn’t know what a loving father looks like and through these actions we might communicate the powerful message of God’s family love.
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02.16.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:03 pm by jayblyons
I felt extremely awkward preparing for this Tuesday’s youth group lesson. When you throw the words “youth group” and “Song of Songs” together, you usually end up with the equation “trainwreck” or ” catastrophe”. I felt extremely uncomfortable preparing, thinking that the lack of an age gap would provide the perfect mix of bizarre stares and uneasy motion coming from the youth’s chairs. However, the more I studied the Rob Bell Nooma video, and the more I read through the scripture, the more comfort I found in the reality of the relationships that God wants us to have. I went through my week dreading this Tuesday, praying to get caught late at work so I wouldn’t be able to make it, but the more and more I worked on it, I found the study to be more about the context of real love, and not just the sexual aspect of a mature marriage. Being 22, it’s hard to have a grasp on the concept of “sex” and “sex in a christian relationship”. Outside of Promise Keepers, sex is a taboo subject. Song of Songs is the book jokingly brought up for ideas of which book to study next in bible study.
I feel that Song of Songs may actually be a book that needs to be studied more and more as we begin to notice that the relationships among teens seems to skip first, second and third base and are leading to increasing instances of teen pregnancy. I think that if we didn’t view sex as this icky, nasty thing, that we’d be able to put up safeguards against our youth going out and having physical, sexual relationships. I was on facebook the other day, looking up some of our guys in the youth group, and I was amazed to see the kind of pictures they had as their profile pics, and even farther to see some of the wall posts that were going on between them and members of the opposite sex.
We’ve got to nip this in the bud. We’ve got to get out of our own comfort zones if we’re going to have any chance of addressing this issue.
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01.15.09
Posted in Church / Ministries at 10:51 pm by jayblyons
I’m aware of the fact that we are all emersed super-deep in multiple activities, be it jobs, opportunities, classes, relationships or other miscellaneous areas of interest that I have neglected to mention. I feel that a lot has been left on my plate this last year, none of it being ministry-oriented, and that’s a sad thing. I feel that a lot of things that have happened this past year have happened because I have lost my “train of thought”. It happens to all of us in one way, shape or form. I found myself focusing on the fact that I was going to have no money to further my education, and I didn’t want to add debt to an education that seemed to be going nowhere, mainly for the fact that I had no clue what I wanted to do.
I’ve soul searched, and after a missions trip to Chihuahua, Mexico, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will find a lot more peace and a lot more joy in my life if I just do what the Lord has called me to do, and that is to “feed His sheep”. I feel that with the new installment of Senior Pastor Eric Forgrave, and the new Youth Ministry rotation, and the way that the Board seems to be at work by involving theirselves in deep prayer to seek the Lord’s calling for our church, that we can challenge ourselves to reach and to strive for similar opportunities to re-evaluate God’s calling on our own lives. I feel that we are constantly being underminded by the evil one, that we take our eye off the prize by getting caught up in our own affairs, and then by the time we’ve lifted our head to get back in the game, we find ourselves ten steps back.
This is a New Year, with a New Opportunity to seek the Lord in all that we do, and from there ask the Lord to help us in some serious soul searching in how we can better “feed His sheep”, and also to delve into a New Ministry, where we can begin to understand the depth of our gifts and talents that the Lord has provided us, and to even go further and give fully of ourselves to our one true cause. In 2009, I’m making God my number one focus, my top priority, and from there relying on Him to help everything else fall in its place around me.
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