Thursday, November 8, 2012

11/8 E-News


Announcements
Shoeboxes—These are due this Sunday! Please remember to bring them in.

Relief Drive—The Samaritan Center, Adventist Disaster Relief and Bill Brown Trucking are partnering to collect donations for the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. A truck will be set up as a donation drop-off point at the Samaritan Center from 10am to 6pm on Tuesday, November 6 thru Monday, November 12. A list of items that will be welcome is available on the Samaritan Center's website. Thank you for helping us come together to share with our brothers and sisters in New England!

New Hope News

Sunday School—This Sunday, the adult class with study the book of Habakkuk.

Men's Breakfast—Saturday, November 10th @ 8 am. We've got something exciting to talk about!


Pray For:

Roger Meyer & Linda Brandon, as they heal from their surgeries

All those who are un-employed & under-employed

Pray for those who do not know Christ.

Links




The Grateful Gobbler is November 22. (Monies raised go to support Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition.


Keith's Random Thoughts

In case you spent your week watching the live feed from Loch Ness in search of the monster, there was a little election that went on Tuesday. Barack Obama won, Mitt Romney lost, and Roseanne Barr received 21,000 votes.
Much has been written about the reasons Obama won and the reasons Romney lost. I don't know how much has been written about the reasons Roseanne had 21,000 people voting for her. One of the things I've heard from many corners is that the Republicans lost because the party hasn't responded to the shifting demographics of the country. You and I can both pick apart this argument and examine its merits and downsides, but I think it's more helpful to examine whether the same can be said about the church. You don't read this for my political thoughts, anyway.

Today, the church in America looks out the window and sees a very different world than it did thirty years ago. Society has changed. Families look different, and they interact differently, too. Schedules are based around soccer, and the family meal is often the exception rather than the rule. Sundays are often no different than Saturdays, another hectic day. Several states voted to legalize recreational marijuana use, while others voted to allow gay marriage. The world is changing.

The church worships a sovereign God who is still Lord of all of life. God hasn't handed over the reins to go on vacation. God hasn't given up on us. God still wants to use his disciples as channels through which to announce the Good News of God's Kingdom to the world. All of it. Including every single person in this country.

But we need to take some time and examine our hearts. The minor prophets talk repeatedly about how God wanted the hearts of the people, and if their hearts were turned from God, the worship of the people was empty.

Are our hearts focused and centered on God? Is the church today passionately in love with God? Or is church a habit, a routine? Is God the Lord of every moment of your life, or someone to whom we turn in a crisis?

As the church falls in love with Christ, we recognize that Christ leads us out to love the world, to embrace the world, to flee from our own sin and embrace God's holiness, letting God's Spirit set our agenda and our values. Then, we live a Christ-centered life, one that is focused on selfless love of the other. We stop worrying about ourselves and pick up the needs of those around us. We demonstrate to the world a church that is absolutely relevant. We show them a God who cares about every need, from drug abuse to broken homes to underemployment to overwhelming debt, and we demonstrate a Christ who has love enough to meet every true need that we have and who helps reveal to us the lies that bind us.

I don't have all the answers. But I know the church has some self-examination to do, and we need to focus our eyes on Christ and run our race with faithfulness and passion, that Christ might use us to reach out to a changing world.


Text for this Sunday
1 Kings 19:19-21

So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ Then Elijah said to him, ‘Go back again; for what have I done to you?’ He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.


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