Thursday, October 24, 2013

10/24 New Hope E-News

Announcements

Trunk or Treat-- Saturday, October 26 from 2-4! Join us for this celebration! Bring your car and decorate your trunk to give away candy. If you'd like to donate candy to be given away, please speak with Lynne Brock or Judy Smith. Also, they're looking for donations of Little Debbie items for a cake walk.

Potluck!-- This Sunday!

New Hope Worship-- We're blessed to have Rev. Don Kaller leading us in worship this Sunday! Please be in prayer for Don as he prepares to lead worship.


Community Kitchen Spot

There are a lot of hungry and homeless children of God and the community needs some help feeding them. If you would like to help out, please bring the following items to church this Sunday & put them on the bookshelf.
#10 Cans of Sweet Potato / Yams
#10 Cans of Italian Style Green Beans
No-Bake Pumpkin / Apple Pies
No-Heat Dinner Rolls
Plastic Forks, Knives, Spoons
Dinner Napkins
Heavy Duty Sectional Dinner Plates
Dessert Plates
3 Oz. Souffle Cups


New Hope News

Sunday School—This Sunday, we'll continue our study the 6th chapter of Matthew, which is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

Wednesday Bible Study-- We start our Bible study at 6:30 and will be exploring the kings of Israel.



Pray For:
Lynn Meyer, Norma Capone& Christine Dyer

Folks in your city that just don't have enough. Not enough time, not enough money, not enough support, not enough hope. It's easy to sit and judge them and offer advice about how they could gain more. It's much harder to love them and pray for them and help them.


Links










Keith's Random Thoughts

(This got wordy. I'm not apologizing--just preparing you. If you're looking for some concise & wise thoughts... well, then “Keith's Random Thoughts” probably isn't the place for you!)

It's really tempting to run and hide.

Just this morning, someone got shot in bank robbery here in Chattanooga. A teacher has been found murdered in Massachusetts. I'm sure the headline violence in Syria, Afghanistan, & Iraq continues. Thousands of other events, small but meaningful brutalities, continue around the globe. Many won't even make the evening news, but they persist, trees falling in the forest of noise that ought to shock us, shake us, but instead leave us numb. We turn off the news, fade from the headlines, and the crazy world spins on.

It's so tempting to run and hide.

I'm off for Haiti tomorrow, a place that doesn't seem to know what life without chaos is like. I could list the reasons for suffering, but I doubt they can be counted. They are probably best measured by the sadness in the eyes of those who have witnessed corruption, disaster, disease and strife.

I'll be honest and admit that a large part of me doesn't want to go. I want to stay home with my wife and children, to hear the cackling laughter of my son and watch my daughter's widening eyes. I want to lock the door and leave the chaos at bay and pretend that all is well in the world. It's tempting.

I believe that God is renewing the world, and that there will be final redemption, when all the sin and sorrow will be washed clean from the earth. All residue of its existence will vanish, just as we forget about our rubbish the moment the garbage truck disappears down the street. It will simply be gone.

But I also believe that evil will fight on until the very last, thrashing about like the dying beast that it is, whipping its threatened tail and entwining countless lives in its wake. Those going about the business of life will suddenly find the chaos of evil descending unexpectedly upon them, and then there will be darkness.

I believe that God still speaks into the darkness, into the chaos, into the violence: Let there be light.

Our ultimate hope is in Christ, the light of the world. His light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overwhelm it. For those caught up in darkness, Christ's light will continue to shine. Because of the resurrection, we can peel back the shroud of death and see that light shines even there. Where violence attempts to speak with finality, it finds its false truth repudiated by a greater Truth. What evil tries to crush, Christ resurrects.

We must remember this. If we forget this, we will surely despair in the face of all the evil in the world. If our fingers slip from our grip on the solid foundation of Christ's Easter hope, how can we face a world in desperate need of hope that is greater than its problems? No victor humanity can raise up is stronger than the forces of evil that bombard our every facet of life.

We must also live into this. We cannot retreat and withdraw into our fortresses, boarding up the doors and windows and hoping that evil will stay far from us. I will not pretend that I am striding boldly into the world to engage with all that is being thrown at us. We are all so very tempted to run and hide. But we must find ways to live into our hope. We must stand tall and proclaim that the chaos will not consume us, that the maelstrom will not win. We all need hope, and those of us who believe that our hope will win need to be a beacon for those who are searching for hope in the midst of the chaos.

I don't even know where to begin. I don't think we need to figure out how to fix it all at once, because that problem is more daunting than my feeble imagination can handle. Perhaps our next step is with the next person we meet, the next troubled student we come across or the next anxious soul that crosses our path. Maybe these tiny acts of selflessness that seek to shatter what isolates us will begin to spiderweb across our neighborhoods and towns and states and country, and maybe as we begin to build meaningful relationships that address the deepest hurts within our lives we'll begin to recognize the ways the light of hope is shining for us today. While I believe there is much that God is doing in Haiti and I'm anxious to see it, I don't think we all need to pick up and go to Haiti. God is at work here and now, and somehow we need the Holy Spirit strength to fight back against that temptation to run and hide. I'm no expert at this. I love pretending that I am safe. I like the thought of being safe. We all do. To a certain extent, we need this.
But we also need to recognize that in our baptisms, we have already died in Christ, and since he has been raised we, too, have been raised. Our resurrection has already taken place—death has been defeated. In Christ, the future is secure.

If we believe that is true, then the chaos and violence ought not to make us afraid. If we believe that we are alive forever, and if we believe that nothing (not even death!) can separate us from the love of God, then we are free from fear, right? Because whatever happens to us, we know the answer of God in Christ is 'Yes'.

In my head I know this to be true. I pray for the courage to let my heart believe it, to fall into the promises of God, and to be transformed by such a fact. I don't know what the future holds, and I'm often scared by the thought of what might happen. I pray for God's wisdom to change my mind and my heart, that I might trust in what has already happened, and know that the certainty of resurrection in the future might allay my fears and allow me to use my time faithfully, that I might be changed by the living hope in Jesus Christ.






Text for this Sunday

John 4:43-54 (ESV)

43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.

46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. 

51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.



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