Announcements
Family
Camp!—There
will be no worship service held in the sanctuary on September 2. Our
worship service will take place at Camp John Knox. Please let us
know if you would like to join us for the day.
Lookouts
Game—We'll
head down to catch a Lookouts game on Saturday, August 18th.
Let Keith know if you're interested in joining us.
Sunday
School—On
September 9 the kids' Sunday School is re-launching! Please plan to
be there!
New
Hope News
Sermon
Series—We
began a new sermon series last week. We'll be exploring the 'I Am'
statements in John. It is my hope that we can learn about our own
identity by focusing on what Christ says about his identity.
Sunday
School—We'll explore Jeremiah this
Sunday @ 9:45.
Sunday
Evening Prayer Service—We're
having a service of gratitude this week!
6:00
Pray
for:
Give
thanks for the blessing of today
Links
This
is one of the best sermons I've heard in a long time (About 35
minutes long)
Book
Recommendation
I'm
not big on recommending books that I haven't read, but I found an
aritcle about The
Jewish Annotated New Testament
and thought it looked pretty interesting. What Amy-Jill Levine has
done is heavily annotate the New Testament to help the 21st
century modern reader better understand many of the references that
often pass us by as we read the New Testament. We miss the
references not because we don't care, but because we don't understand
the culture in which they were rooted. Levine has set out to enable
us to understand the statements and stories as they would have been
understood back then, giving us a fuller picture of the New
Testament.
Random
Thoughts
Today,
I'm having my annual physical exam. I can't say that I'm looking
forward to it, but it's nice to hear a doctor say that it doesn't
look like any limbs are going to fall off or that the end is near.
It's an important part of keeping our physical health in good shape.
I
wonder what an annual exam would look like for our spiritual health.
Maybe it would be a good idea if the church prescribed some time and
some tests to examine if we are on a healthy track. Just as the
doctor needs to sit down and have a serious conversation with someone
who has practices in their life that are destroying their physical
body, shouldn't we be able to check our spiritual practices and see
if they are harming our spiritual life? What might that look like?
I'd
imagine that it might involve taking a day, or perhaps half a day,
each year to be still before God. It would involve solitude and some
honesty, neither of which are easy for most people. We'd have to
spend some time looking back on where we've been, on the highlights
and the lowlights, and then take some time to look forward, to
anticipate what God might be doing in the coming year and think about
how we can join in with God's work.
I
don't think this would be easy, but I imagine it would pay dividends
throughout the years. It might help us be more spiritually healthy,
more aware as to what the Holy Spirit is doing in the world, in our
lives, and perhaps we would stop running about so aimlessly, so
filled with stress, and enable us to slow down and enjoy the grace of
God that showers down around us.
Text
for Sunday, August 19
John 11:11-18
‘I
am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the
sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own
the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs
away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired
hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I
am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as
the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for
the sheep.I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must
bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be
one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me,
because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one
takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have
power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have
received this command from my Father.’
New
Hope on iTunes
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