Thursday, October 1, 2009

Thursday Notes

Dear Good Shepherd,

Good Morning and Happy Thursday

Blessing of the Beasts:  This Sunday please bring your housetrained pets to church during the 10:30am service where we will pray for them and ask God to bless them. This is a traditional Anglican practice on or near the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The purpose of the blessing of the beasts is to rejoice and give glory to God for the wonders of his creation. Please be sure to check out the very short article I wrote in last week's Update explaining the biblical foundations for the blessing of the beasts. I plan to have some copies of that article printed out for Sunday as well. So please pick one up if you have questions.

Logistics for the Beast Blessing: In the past people have come for Christian education and then gone back home to get the pets in the intervening time between the close of Christian ed at 10:15 and the start of the service at 10:30am. That may or may not work out for you. The Christian ed time this week is very good. Dr. Carlson will be talking about mission work in Kenya and about the Nairobi church that we are going to help this year so you don't want to miss it. You are welcome to bring well behaved pets to the Adult ed if you wish but it might be easiest just to run back and pick them up before service starts depending on how far away you live.

Shepherd's Bowl: Team 1 is scheduled to serve tonight at the Shepherd's Bowl. There was a Shepherd's Bowl meeting last night during which we created one new team that we creatively named "team 5". We also discussed the willingness of Conklin Avenue Baptist to move their soup kitchen from Thursday to Monday. They have said they are willing and I should hear final word back on Friday after all of their volunteers have had a chance to meet or talk by phone. This should mean larger crowds for both suppers and it should mean more people being fed in the long run which is a very good thing.

Grace and patience with music: The music ministry at Good Shepherd is going through an interim period while we search for a new director of music. During this period, the choir is taking an extended sabbath so that when the new director comes he/she will be able to start fresh, with a choir that is rested and ready. Please be patient with those who have so graciously volunteered to use their musical gifts for our sake during that time. We hope and pray to have a new music ministry director in the next two months.

Systematic Theology is scheduled to restart on Saturday October 10th at 3:30 pm. There are three books that we will be using for the course and if you are planning to take it you might want to purchase one or more of them..but if you cannot afford to do that don't worry, I'll have copies. The most important one is Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem so if you can only buy one, buy that one. The other texts are Theissen's Lectures in Systematic Theology and Alister McGrath's "Christian Theology: An Introduction"

Duty Rosters:
The new duty roster is out for November and December. If you have only recently volunteered for a ministry and do not see your name on the duty roster, don't worry. The roster was probably created before you volunteered. We will be making changes to the roster in the next few weeks and and work in the newer volunteers for both Nov. and Dec.

Christmas Acolyting:
Christmas Eve service is one of the more important ones of the year so we pull out all the stops. If you are not going to be out of town and are not going to be in the Christmas Pageant which takes place during the service itself, and you are willing to serve as an acolyte please let me know so that I can fill the spaces. We need five acolytes for Christmas Eve.

Falling Leaves:
We have a lot of beautiful trees on our new property. That means that we will also have a lot of leaves. Far more than any one or two people can deal with. They could be falling anywhere from October 17th to the 31st. Fred Moat is asking for volunteers to be ready on one of the Saturdays between those two dates to help rake and bag leaves. There should be a sign up sheet in the parish hall this Sunday.

Harvest Dinner: Yes, it's getting to be that time of year again. I have a few notes to pass on. I am not quite sure what this means but I was asked to put it in the bulletin and so I assume someone does know:

"Please pick a day or days that fit into your schedule.  If you can only hour or two, that would very helpful

   
      OCTOBER 13, Tuesday.....starting after Bible study....Cranberry relish


      OCTOBER 19, Monday.....9:00 am.....baking the squash


      OCTOBER 20, Tuesday....starting after Bible class.....making the stuffing"

I think, though I cannot be sure, that this is a cry for help with these various tasks at this time...so if you have the time you are invited to pitch in here at the kitchen


Beginner's Bible Study: Beginner's Bible Study is on for tonight. We'll continue to discuss some of the principles of biblical interpretation and this time we will actually have time to dive into John 1.

Worship Committee and Search for a new Music Director:
As most of you know we are in the middle of an interim period at Good Shepherd. Micah Towery, our former music director, got married about a month ago and moved to Vancouver. We formed a committee to think through the worship of the church and to search for a new music director. The committee members are:

Chris Peterson
Samantha Kubic
Colleen Kenny-Kuk
Joyce Coppola
Carrie Moorehead
Matt Tuttle
Anne is the chair

The committee is made up of people from very different backgrounds to reflect the diversity of Good Shepherd: traditionalist former Episcopalians, evangelicals, brand new Anglicans, musicians, college students, Xers, boomers and seniors--people who tend to favor contemporary worship and those for whom contemporary worship is the mark of the beast. We have all sorts and they are all on the committee which should make the meetings interesting.

We hope to call a music director who not only possesses musical skill and ability, but who has a vision for the music ministry at Good Shepherd. And we ask for your prayers during this search.

If all goes well, we could hire within the next two months. Until then the music at Good Shepherd will be a mixture of piano, organ, guitar and flute. Colleen, Jane, Chris and Joyce (Anne's mom) will serve together and/or alternately leading worship while we wait and pray for God to raise up a music minister. Thank you for your patience and your prayers during this time.

Women's Bible Study: Meets every Saturday in the parish hall at 10:00am. They are currently studying the book of Isaiah. All women are welcome.

A Shift in Focus for the Anglican Church Women:
In the past, the ACW has organized fundraisers for the church. These fundraisers were vital to the financial health and wellbeing of the church. But over the years as God has blessed us and we have grown, the focus on fundraising has become less important. Now the ACW has decided that the time is right to shift focus from fundraising toward raising money for mission and for those in need. As the first step in this shift, the proceeds from biggest upcoming project, the Christmas Bake sale, which traditionally supported the general fund of Good Shepherd, will now be used to help a small Anglican congregation in a Nairobi slum pay rent, provide lunch and rubber boots (to protect from open sewage) for the children who attend school there.

As part of this new focus, the ACW also plans to invite all the women of the church to lunch on Saturday, November 14th to discuss future plans and projects. More details will be coming soon.

Sermon this Sunday: This Sunday for the Animal blessing we'll take a break from 1st Thessalonians. The Rev. Dr. Robert Carlson will preach. The Gospel text is Matthew 10:29-31

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.


A Note from Kellie: Hi there! If you’ve added someone to Good Shepherd’s prayer list in recent months and that person’s situation has since been resolved (thanks be to God for all answered prayers!), please let me know so that I can remove the person’s name. Alternately, if you know someone who’s not on the list whom you’d like to see join it, let me know so that I can add him/her. You can e-mail me at kellie.n.french at gmail dot com or just call the church office. Thank you!

Why Study the Bible? A few weeks ago I gave a talk at Intervarsity Christian Fellowship BU on the topic of scripture. You can read the text of that talk at the blogsite here.

Ife's Sermon: Last week Ife preached on 1st Thessalonians 1:7-2:2. If you missed it be sure to watch it here.

 
Men's Bible Study and Breakfast: Lee Bronson is scheduled to cook. We're almost through 1st Samuel. This Thursday we'll move into 23. Breakfast is served at 6:30am and the study starts at the same time. All men are welcome. 



Christian Education: Mission. The Rev. Dr. Robert Carlson will lead the Christian Education discussion this week and talk about his work translating bibles and teaching bible translation in Mali and Kenya. He will also talk about and show some photos of the Anglican Church in the Nairobi slum that we hope to help this year.


 As you know we wrapped up our series on Anglican Sacraments and Worship on Sunday and I announced a new series dealing with the relationship between scripture and evolutionary theory...in a larger sense the topic is "Science and Scripture". The first class will be an overview of the biblical account of creation. The second class will be an overview of the three dominant evolutionary theories and then we'll move to discuss ways that Christians have dealt with the apparent (but not real) disparity between science and scripture using the topic of evolution as a case study.


This is going to require a lot of study on my part so the series will officially begin the Sunday after next, October 4th. This will give me time to do some of the reading I'll have to do.

Resources: Some have asked for links to the preachers to whom I regularly listen. My habit, and it has been for about six years now, is to listen to three to four sermons a day while I'm working out and walking instead of music. I used to rely on the radio and a walkman but three years ago, I got an ipod for Christmas and that made things so much easier. I could access the best preachers in the world and not have to worry about radio reception and what the local Christian station deemed worthy of broadcasting. God has used this discipline to teach me more about scripture and doctrine, to challenge and confront me in various ways, and, especially, to encourage me. If you can work it into your schedule--whether on the radio or an ipod--maybe when you are cleaning house or exercising or whatever, I encourage you to do so. Its been a huge benefit to me.


Here are the preachers, in no particular order, I listen too most. They all have podcasts to which you can subscribe,  listen too on your computer, and/or download onto an Mp3 player.


Alistair Begg:
http://www.truthforlife.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lst_daily


Mark Driscoll:
http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/sermons?direction=desc&order_by=date


Matt Chandler:
http://hv.thevillagechurch.net/sermons


RC Sproul:
http://www.ligonier.org/


John MacArthur:
http://www.gty.org/Radio/Archive


John Piper:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2009/


Hank Hanegraff  "the Bible Answer Man" (a call-in question and answer broadcast)
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Bible_Answer_Man/


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