Thursday Notes

Dear Good Shepherd,

Good Morning, happy Thursday, here are your Thursday notes...

1. Day of Prayer and Fasting: Do remember and please mark Saturday November 22 on your calendars. It is so important for everyone to be at church on that day first to ask God for guidance, protection, and victory in court and second because so many pastors and congregations are going to be here praying with and for us. Here is the description of the day that is on the main website:

November 22 will be a day of prayer and fasting at Church of the Good Shepherd. Several guest clergy and their congregations will be with us from 10AM to 4PM to help us seek God's will as we face our court hearing on December 12. There will be meditations, music, and prayer. You may stay for the entire service or you may come and go as you wish. You are encouraged to fast during this time, but this is not obligatory. Please come and invite others to join us in prayer at this important time in the life of our church.

So far we have about five or six pastors and congregations that have agreed to come and pray with and for us and the pastors will speak to us as well which is such a great blessing and gift on such short notice. Please plan to be here for both to show hospitality to our guests and to join our prayers with theirs.

2. Cooking Schedule: Joe Barham is Cooking for the Men's Breakfast and Bible study Friday morning at 6:30am

3. Sermon: Here is the podcast of last week's sermon entitled: "Working out your salvation". If we are justified by faith alone, why does the bible contain so many commands? What is the importance of following the Great Commandment if we've already been "saved"?

Monday, November 10, 2008

Download "Loving God part 2: Working Out Your Salvation" in MP3 format

Part one of this series can be listened too here.

4. This Sunday's sermon will complete the series with a discussion of the second greatest commandment "to love your neighbor as yourself."

5. Missionaries to the Culture: I linked this last week, but it is so good I want to point it out again. RC Sproul has been broadcasting a fantastic series of lectures explaining the philosophical assumptions that undergird contemporary western culture. If you want to know what makes your neighbor tick...if you want to understand where many of your own basic assumptions originate, this is a very very good series. You can start listening here

6. Christian Ed: Bring your bibles to Christian education this week. We'll be starting with a brief look at Romans 14 and the question of what is and what is not "adiaphora" or disputable within the church...what can we agree to disagree about and what, if anything, must we divide over...this is a bit of a detour in our series prompted by some of the discussion last week.

7. Apologetics: If you have ever taken "EFM" Education for Ministry which was a lay-level course designed to help non-seminary trained people understand the bible, you were probably told that Moses did not author the first five books of the bible, the Red Sea never parted and the Hebrews never conquered Palestine. This, of course, false, and it is one of many problems with the program. These two articles are very good and somewhat basic and easy to understand. They help you see the flawed logic and irrationality behind the sort of radical Old Testament scholarship embraced by EFM and other skeptics of scripture. This is the shortest and easiest of the two:
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/moses.html
This is the longer and more detailed:
http://www.dougbeaumont.org/SoulDevice/writings_dochyp.html

8. The Christmas Bake Sale and Flea Market is being held on December 6th from 10:00 to 2:00. Your help is needed! There is a job everyone!! Sign up in Parish Hall! Thank you!

9. From Micah: Youth Group will be meeting at its regularly scheduled time again this week. Senior high will be going from 6-8 on Sunday night, and Junior high will be going 6-8 on Monday night. If you need a ride, please call me and I will attempt to arrange one.

10. Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service: On Tuesday November 25th (don't have a time yet) at St. Andrew's Catholic Church (down Conklin Avenue toward Conklin...I'll send the address later) there will be an Ecumenical Thanksgiving service. This year's service will be especially important as St. Andrew's is merging with St. John's (the big church behind Good Shepherd) and this will be the last service in their building. The service will be in the evening but I do not know the time yet...please mark your calendars.

11. Good News: One last note to let you know that we had a total of 104 people in church last Sunday...which is fantastic considering that it was an average normal Sunday. Be sure to continue to come and to invite more and more people...especially those who do not know Jesus Christ.