Announcements
Wednesday
Night Suppers-- In
the fall, our Wednesday Night Suppers may look a little different
than they have in years past. Due to busy and changing lives, we
simply don't have the number of cooks that we need in order to
provide meals like we have, and catering is prohibitively expensive.
We're going to experiment, and we ask your patience in advance.
We're trying to listen to everyone's voice and be good stewards of
the resources we have available to us.
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.
ZIPLOCK SANDWICH BAGS
BROWN PAPER LUNCH BAGS
# 10 CANS VEGETABLES
COFFEE CREAMER
CEREAL
CANNED TUNA
NAPKINS
METAL FORKS / SPOONS
New
Hope News
Sunday
School—This Sunday, the adult class will continue to study
Revelation. We'll pick up in chapter 7.
Building
& Grounds—There
will be a building & grounds meeting on July 31 @ 6pm. Speak
with Larrie Mansfield if you'd like to attend.
Outreach
Committee—There
will be an
outreach committee meeting on August 6 @ 6:00.
Pray
For:
Norma
Capone
Give
thanks for our new members!
Those
in Spain affected by this awful train crash
Gary
& Colleen Smith
David
Smith
Links
Keith's
Random Thoughts
We're trying to get ready to
switch Caleb from the nursery to his own room so that we can make
room for another occupant in the nursery. (Only ~7 weeks to go!)
We've taken a lot of things out of what used to be our guest bedroom,
and the room is looking pretty barren. No one is going to mistake it
for a Siberian jail cell, but it's not a warm and inviting room that
a toddler will fall in love with, which is what we're going for.
All this means I'm in furniture
building mode. (Which I love)
So there I was, sanding down the
edges of a toy box, when I started thinking that sanding would be a
pretty painful process if wood had feelings. (I don't think it does.
I suppose I'd feel pretty guilty if it did.)
Think about sanding. You're
running a highly abrasive material over rough edges in the hopes of
transforming a piece of wood into something more appealing. You're
hoping to remove eyesores and difficult spots as you build towards a
finished product. It takes work and time.
We're all trying to do the same,
I believe. We all have rough spots in our lives, difficult patches
that need to be removed. We are aiming to be like Christ, to be
imitators of him, to grow up and mature spiritually, but right now we
still have a lot of sin, a lot of parts of our lives that don't
resemble Christ. Those need to be removed, sanded down, so that we
more closely resemble the finished product.
This can require difficult
change on our part. It can be abrasive and exhausting and lead us to
a point where we just want to stop and go back to comfort.
But Christ calls us forward, and
the Holy Spirit reminds us that we are moving towards our goal of
Christ-likeness. Our deepest desires can only be met by him, and
only when we are like him will we be truly happy. So we follow God's
calling, and we continue sanding away, removing those rough spots,
praying for wisdom and courage and guidance, that we might more
closely resemble Christ, that we might be like him in every way.
Text
for this Sunday
7
When you pray, don’t talk on and on as people do who don’t know
God. They think God likes to hear long prayers. 8 Don’t be like
them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask.
9
You should pray like this:
Our
Father in heaven,
help
us to honor
your
name.
10
Come and set up
your
kingdom,
so
that everyone on earth
will
obey you,
as
you are obeyed
in
heaven.
11
Give us our food for today.
12
Forgive us for doing wrong,
as
we forgive others.
13
Keep us from being tempted
and
protect us from evil
New
Hope on iTunes
Keith's
Blog
& Devotionals
for your Kindle
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