Our approach to this challenge over the past several years has been to have large events for men in the fall and in the spring. We encourage all men to attend, whether or not it is their custom. The goal of these events are to challenge men through topics at hand, encourage men through the fellowship that they experience, and provide opportunity for continued fellowship and service. These events are efficient and highly focused–otherwise men will not attend. We have developed a positive reputation among our brothers in the community and often have men from other churches attend.

In the past several years, the large group events had been followed by a series of Saturday morning studies. These studies were successful in engaging more men spiritually. As a result, more men became ministry leaders, Sunday School teachers, elders, deacons, and youth workers. We also formed a new ministry that required more male leadership from this same pool of men–the Elevation Community Groups. With so many men from these Saturday morning studies being called upon for additional time and leadership, the short term strategic decision was made to stop doing the follow up series on Saturday mornings.

Paul Veenema and Benjamin Harding provide leadership to the Men’s Ministry from the Session and Staff respectively. Many other men have been vital to implementing the large events, small group series and Door of Hope Fundraiser Golf Tournaments. Currently a team of men in our congregation is exploring how we can better equip men to serve Christ faithfully in our culture. I expect that this team will be bringing forward special events (and perhaps a few ongoing series) that raise awareness among our men for the need for Christian leadership and provide opportunities for them to grow in that leadership. I look forward to another year of seeing how God deploys men to serve him in our church and community.
In Christ’s Service,
Pastor Jay

Our Christmas Sunday morning service will be at 10:45AM.  This will be a short, family friendly service.  We will not have Sunday School.  During the service, our children’s choir and orchestra will be singing Jesus, Joy of Highest Heaven. This Sunday will be a wonderful time for us to gather on the Lord’s Day to celebrate our Saviors birth.

The Unreached Will Be Reached

Ancient Stories and Timeless Truths

An engaging, timeless and relevant sermon series Sunday mornings from November 27 through December 25 at 10:45am.

Child of God – Dec 4th, 6pm

A service by our children and youth celebration the coming of Christ. Children can come at 5:15pm to make ornaments which will be seen and used in the Christmas program at 6pm. This is for our community and entire church family! There will be singing, playing from our Junior Bell Choir, Youth Orchestra, Flute Choir and singing from our Sunday School Children’s Choir and soloists. A reception will follow.

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols – Dec 11th, 6pm

Our Chancel Choir will be accompanied by a full orchestra in this special service of music and readings. This traditional service has been celebrated since Christmas Eve 1918 at King’s College, Cambridge. Through choral and instrumental music, readings of Scripture and congregational singing, the full redemption story will be told and experienced. Come for an exceptional evening of music in the life of our church at 6pm on December 11.

Candlelight Christmas Eve – Dec. 24th, 7pm

A beautiful service lit by candlelight at 7pm. Join us for a service pointing us all to the real reason of the Advent Season.

New Year’s Eve – Dec 31st, 7pm

Begin the new year worshiping the risen King with us.

1. Lack of thankfulness is a foundational sin, beneath other sins. (Rom 1:18-25). Therefore, thanksgiving should be cultivated, practiced. You can grow in this area if it is not your disposition.
2. Paul says that we are to give thanks in all circumstances. (1st Thess 5:16-17) Some sets of circumstances are obviously more challenging than others.
3. If it is a sinful temptation to make good things ultimate, and God’s judgment is seen in giving some over to their desires (Romans 1:18-25), then we can be thankful to God when he has either taken what we loved or not given what we wanted. He is protecting us.
4. Romans 8:32—All the wrath of the Father was laid on the Son for us. Nothing that comes to the believer is from a disposition of wrath–the Son bore all of that wrath. All we face is under the loving hand of our Father, to bless us and grow us. Therefore, we can be thankful to God in the midst of bad situations, even those wherein we may have been wronged. We don’t have to be thankful for bad things, but can be thankful to God and for Christ and the work of the Spirit in our lives. God is for us, not against us. He is working lovingly for our good in all things, so we can be thankful in all things.

Here is the link to the sermon, entitled Commitment Phobia.

Toward the end of this sermon Rankin quotes from an essay by Page Benton Brown which highlights some of the wrong thinking that exists in the church when it comes to singleness. The whole essay can be found here. Here is an excerpt:

Warped theology is at the heart of attempts to “explain” singleness:

“As soon as you’re satisfied with God alone, he’ll bring someone special into your life”—as though God’s blessings are ever earned by our contentment.
“You’re too picky”—as though God is frustrated by our fickle whims and needs broader parameters in which to work.
“As a single you can commit yourself wholeheartedly to the Lord’s work”—as though God requires emotional martyrs to do his work, of which marriage must be no part.
“Before you can marry someone wonderful, the Lord has to make you someone wonderful”—as though God grants marriage as a second blessing to the satisfactorily sanctified.
Accepting singleness, whether temporary or permanent, does not hinge on speculation about answers God has not given to our list of whys, but rather on celebration of the life he has given. I am not single because I am too spiritually unstable to possibly deserve a husband, nor because I am too spiritually mature to possibly need one. I am single because God is so abundantly good to me, because this is his best for me. It is a cosmic impossibility that anything could be better for me right now than being single, The psalmists confirm that I should not want, I shall not want, because no good thing will God withhold from me.

Let us not then be ashamed to confess the Crucified.  Be the Cross our seal made with boldness by our fingers on our brow, and on everything; over the bread we eat, and the cups we drink; in our comings in, and goings out; before our sleep, when we lie down and when we rise up; when we are in the way, and when we are still.  Great is that preservative; it is without price, for the sake of the poor; without toil, for the sick; since also its grace is from God.  It is the Sign of the faithful, and the dread of devils:  for He triumphed over them in it, having made a shew of them openly (Col. ii. 15); for when they see the Cross they are reminded of the Crucified; they are afraid of Him, who bruised the heads of the dragon. Ps. lxxiv. 13..  Despise not the Seal, because of the freeness of the gift; out for this the rather honour thy Benefactor (from section 36 Lecture XII, “On the Words  Crucified and Buried”).

Cyril makes a good point regarding the centrality of the cross for the Christian.  Sins are forgiven and Satan is defeated because of Christ’s work on the cross.  He makes a mistake, however, when he says that that power can be invoked by making the sign of the cross.  My point yesterday was that the power of the cross belongs to us by faith in Jesus Christ, not by making the sign of the cross or by doing any other religious rituals (for Protestants such acts of ritualistic devotion may take other forms, as I also noted yesterday).

In John 12:36 Jesus says, “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”  To believe is to have faith–the root is the same Greek.  So, Jesus emphasizes faith in Himself as the light of the world (John 8:12).  Paul emphasizes faith in Christ as well.  In Romans he writes, ”For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:22-25).  When Paul says that God put Christ forward as a “propitiation by his blood” he is speaking about the crucifixion.  A propitiation was a sacrifice offered to avert wrath.  God’s wrath on sinners is placed on Jesus on the cross.  All who receive Christ by faith receive this this benefit from his crucifixion.  This cross work of Christ received by faith, is the basis for our salvation.  So Paul writes in Ephesians, ”For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

The forgiveness of sins and freedom from spiritual darkness purchased by Christ on the cross is ours by faith in Him.  Sadly, for many people the sign of the cross has become a ritual, rather than something that bolsters real faith in Christ.  For those who think that they are accessing Christ’s power through making this sign, it has actually become a deadly substitute for faith that saves and sanctifies.  Certainly, if one thinks that by making this sign one can be forgiven, scare demons, receive some special blessing, or bring about a substantial change in the elements used in the Lord’s Supper then one has departed from the teaching of Jesus and Paul.

We should learn from the early fathers and from the traditions of the church, but we must always to Scripture to regulate our faith and our practice.  Not one time does the New Testament tell believers to make the sign of the cross.  Christ and his benefits are ours by faith alone.

All of us are prone to limit our capacity for spiritual fellowship to those who are like us.  This tendency is not something to labor in guilt over.  Rather, it is something to be aware of so that we can work to counter it.  We miss so much of God’s blessing in the church if we fail to see that those that have nothing naturally in common with us can have everything in common with us spiritually.  Sometimes, the common interests actually allow us to have a basis in the community other than Christ, and hinder us from true spiritual blessings.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from Bonhoeffer on what lies beneath Christian community as opposed to other forms of community.  Whether or not you agree with him, I think you will find his words challenging:

Because Christian community is founded solely on Jesus Christ, it is a spiritual and not a psychic reality.  In this respect it differs absolutely from all other communities.  The Scriptures call pnematic or spiritual what is created only by the Holy Spirit, who puts Jesus Christ into our hearts as Lord and Savior.  The Scriptures call psychic or emotional what comes from the natural urges, strengths, and abilities of the human soul.

The basis of all pneumatic, or spiritual, reality, is the clear, manifest Word of God in Jesus Christ.  At the foundation of all psychic, or emotional, reality are the dark, impenetrable urges and desires of the human soul.  The basis of spiritual community is truth; the basis of emotional community is desire.  The essence of spiritual community is light.  For, “God is light and in God there is no darkness at all” (1st John 1:5); and “if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1st John 1:7).  The essence of emotional, self-centered community is darkness, “for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions com” (Mark 7:21).

If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian community in which we have been placed, even when there

are no great experiences, no noticeable riches, but much weakness, difficulty, and little faith—and if, on the

contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so miserable and so insignificant and does not

at all live up to our expectations—then we hinder God from letting our community grow according to the

measure and riches that are there for us all in Jesus Christ. That also applies in a special way to the

complaints often heard from pastors and zealous parishioners about their congregations.

Note: whether pastor or zealous member, the key to helping the community grow is giving thanks for the community whether or not it tickles your fancy.  Otherwise we hurting God’s church.