Announcements
Sunday
Evening Prayer Service—Come
check out a prayer service this Sundy evening @ 6:00 in the McMillan
Building. This week will be an evening prayer service from the Book
of Common Worship Daily Prayer edition.
After
School program—If
you have any interest at all in being involved with some sort of
after-school program here at New Hope, please call or email Mandy.
(If you don't have her contact info, reply to me and I'll put you in
touch with her.)
New
Hope News
Lookouts
Game—On
Saturday, April 28 we're going to head down to the Lookouts game.
We'll leave from the church around 6(ish), so let me know if you want
to carpool. Also, if you want to get together and eat beforehand,
that would be great!
Sunday
School—We'll
explore 2 Samuel this Sunday—what a story it is!
Magazine
Offer—I
don't know how many of you are big magazine people, but if you're
looking for a good one filled with thoughtful articles on
Christianity, I'd highly recommend Christian Century. They
have a special offer going right now.
Pray
for:
David
Smith
Madeline
Sims—give her a call if you get the chance
Eleanor
Hall
Links
Book
Recommendation
Jonathan
Kirsch's The
Grand Inquisitor's Manual is a fascinating look into the
inquisition.
Random
Thoughts
I
wanted to share something I read over the weekend at Cursillo. I'm
getting close to the end of The
Mission of God, and
I was reading a section on the ethics of Israel. In summary, what
Christopher Wright was proposing is that Israel wasn't given the Law
in order to earn their salvation—it was so that God's mission to
the world might be fulfilled. The same is true with us today—we
don't lead ethically and morally upright lives so that God will
justify and redeem us. God does that freely. We live that way
because God's mission works more effectively through us when we are
faithful to our calling as Christians. It's not about us increasing
our standing with God. It's about us making God's mission more
visible to the world through us.
Think
about a water pipe—in a new and clean water pipe, water flows
straight through it. How often do you think about water pipes? Not
very often, I bet. But I imagine you're pretty grateful for the
water that runs through them. In the same way, when we are leading
upright lives that focus on God, others can then experience God's
grace flowing through us—it's not about us, though.
When
we put kinks in the pipes, though, it makes it more difficult for
water to flow through the pipe and reach the destination. I remember
my dad telling me that every 90 degree elbow in a pipe decreased the
water pressure, and so the idea was to have your pipes as straight as
possible. In the same way, the sin and brokenness in our lives makes
it more difficult for God's grace to flow through us to others. Our
fundamental status hasn't changed, and we're still beloved by God,
and when we straighten ourselves out we aren't 'better pipes'--we're
just better able to let God's love flow through us to others.
Text
for Sunday, April 29
Genesis 1:26-31
26Then
God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our
likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild
animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon
the earth.” 27So God created
humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and
female he created them. 28God
blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and
fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the
sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that
moves upon the earth.”
29God
said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon
the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you
shall have them for food. 30And to
every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to
everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath
of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31God
saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And
there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
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