Announcements
Prospective
Member Luncheon—Interested
in joining New Hope? Want to learn more about being a member? On
May 5, following worship, there will be a luncheon for all those
interested in joining.
Family
Promise Picnic—On Saturday, April 27,
New Hope will present the families at Family Promise with a picnic
luncheon. If you're interested in being part of this, please reply
and let me know.
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 in the grocery cart.
8 oz. Styrofoam bowls
New
Hope News
Sunday
School—This Sunday, the adult class will study 2
Thessalonians.
Session
Meeting—Sunday,
April 21 @ 12:15.
Pray
For:
Christine
Dyer
Connie
Robinson
Colleen
& Gary Smith
David
Smith
Links
When
God is your therapist (H/T to Troy for this)
Keith's
Random Thoughts
Blasts in Boston. Blasts in Texas. Blasts in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Syria... Too many explosions. Too many lives shattered by concusive
force, too many hearts torn apart, rendered incomplete, by shrapnel
and debris sent flying through the air. Too much violence.
This world is a broken place. Sin and death abound, and our head
spins to try and keep track of the places around the globe that are
torn asunder by tragedy. Each and every person caught up has family,
and those families are never the same. Parents weep for children,
children weep for parents, and the world grieves as human life is
lost, and we are never the same.
I watch Caleb as he runs around the house, gleefully chasing the cats
and genuinely believing that having a toy taken away is the single
worst thing in the world, and I hope and pray that I can teach him
that the world is a good place, a safe place, filled with good
people. I know that this image will one day be shattered like the
cheering at the finish line of the Boston marathon, but I want him to
see the good in people, in the world. I want him to see the evil and
brokenness of the world overwhelmed by the goodness and the love of
those who rush to help, to serve, to love, to heal, to console. I
want him to see his brothers and sisters in this world as people who
can be depended upon to help one another wander this walk of life.
Life is broken. It's no more broken now than it was when Cain
usurped God's authority and took the life of his brother Abel. It's
no more broken than when David broke relationships and had lives
discarded in his pursuit of Bathsheba. It's no more broken than the
day Herod had infant boys put to death out of fear of a new king.
The difference is that now we know the one fact that changes
everything: love wins. In Romans, Paul writes that we are
more than conquerors through him who loved us. The images of
Revelation are clear pictures of a God who has the power to destroy
sin and death. We know that God reigns forever in peace and in life,
and he invites us into his Kingdom of life.
And so we stare into the brokenness of life, and while we endeavor to
invest our lives in picking up the pieces of our own lives as well as
the lives of those around us, whether they are shattered by violence
or have fallen apart due to neglect, we also trust that God knows
where all the pieces go and has the power to reassemble them into a
mosaic more beautiful than we can picture. In the brightness of the
light it will shine anew, and we will recognize how sad the powers of
darkness look in comparison to the piercing intensity of Christ's
light. In that moment, when we are renewed and made whole, we will
recognize what true love is.
Until then, may our own lives be images of that love, and may we
share it with our brothers and sisters who are in desperate need of
our assistance.
Text
for this Sunday
John
2:1-11
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the
mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been
invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus
said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman,
what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’
His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’
Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of
purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to
them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the
brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief
steward.’ So they took it.
When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not
know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water
knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone
serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the
guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’
Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and
revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
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