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     — Edited

    Winter Wonderland (Birth-Gr.5) Saturday, Dec. 7 from 9-12 - Register Here

    A free and fun event for kids!
    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdGJzMrUPhMjqUwhH9WG81yYyIscNSKotGThaAhG3tP1vws9Q/viewform?usp=sf_link

  • posted an announcement

    Christmas Eve Service

    Tuesday, December 24th

    1. 7pm?

  • https://faithlife.com/posts/2084622

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      9 Words to Change My Day: Living for What Matters
      sermons.faithlife.com

      1. Sparks (birth-gr.5): Winter Wonderland Saturday, December 7, 2019 9am-12pm; A wonder-filled morning of decorating gingerbread houses, reading the Christmas story, making a service project, and having fun! Parents, drop off your child(ren) to enjoy wintertime activities at the church. Teens, grades 6 to 12, join us to help.

        1. Washington, D.C. October 3, 1863 By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth. By the President: Abraham Lincoln Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day The following document has often been confused with Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation. Lincoln believed that the civil war was God's judgment on the nation for it's sinfulness. And in an omimous echo of the words of the King of Nineveh in Jonah 3:7-8, Lincoln made this proclamation of a national day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. Washington, D.C. March 30, 1863 By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation. And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh. By the President: Abraham Lincoln

          1. What a leader! What words- “The gracious gifts of the Most High God, Almighty God, All Mighty Hand” - humility, repentance; how our nation, our world, needs those words spoken from our leaders and, of course, each other.

        2. Read the Bible with me: Acts 23-25

          Acts 23–25

          Paul puts into practice in these chapters exactly what we have been studying in 1 Peter on Sunday mornings, namely how to act with a good conscience and witness before those who act against you to do you harm. Some of the lessons we can learn here include:

          • when you are wrong, admit it. Paul speaks harshly to the high priest not knowing who he was, and when called out, he admits his mistake. (23:1–4)
          • Be wise and crafty, but innocent. Seeing an opportunity to divide those who would harm him, he exploits their disagreement over the resurrection in order to escape the situation. (23:6–10)
          • Listen to the voice of the Lord. Paul’s witness would not end in Jerusalem as the events he was facing might suggest, but instead he receives courage from the knowledge that God would send him to Rome. (23:11)
          • Do not shrink from sharing the Gospel. Paul testifies to the leaders of the gospel (apparently the early church had taken up the name “The Way”) and others had done so before him, which we see because Felix, the governor, had learned enough of it to have an accurate knowledge. (Some surmise that his wife had become a Christian.) This testimony extends all the way to Herod II, grandson of Herod the Great, who was ruler over Israel.

          When you are confronted by those who are hostile toward you because of Christ, strive to implement these 4 lessons that Christ might be glorified in your circumstance.


          1. posted an announcement

            Operation Christmas Child Relay Center Hours this week

            Mon, Nov. 18: 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM Tue, Nov. 19: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM Wed, Nov. 20: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM Thu, Nov. 21: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM Fri, Nov. 22: 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM Sat, Nov. 23: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Sun, Nov. 24: 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM Mon, Nov. 25: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Come drop off your boxes or volunteer your time helping receive and transport boxes.

            1. Read the Bible with me: Acts 20-22

              Acts 20–22

              What does it take to be faithful all the way to the end? Next to Jesus, there may be no greater example than Paul. He was bold and faithful to speak the Word of God - sometimes too long for some- just ask Eutychus. With such a promising start from a worldly perspective (a student of a well respected teacher, a man of pedigree, a leader, and a Roman citizen), he laid it all aside, becoming hated by his own people for the sake of the gospel. What was his secret? We find it in 20:24.

              Acts 20:24 (ESV): 24 But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

              Paul was a man of singular focus - to be faithful to the Lord who had mercifully saved him on that road to Damascus. He didn’t get caught up in the dramas and desires of earthly life. He fixed himself fully on Christ. Just because there will never be another Paul, does not mean that we cannot follow his model to be ourselves faithful to the same Lord who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Let Acts 20:24 ring in your ears today. Meditate on it. Ponder what it would change if you adopted his outlook.