Church Family,
What an incredible week we just experienced as a church! During Impact Week, we were able to give 418 local missions hours to our community! It is always so encouraging to me to see our church being intentionally on mission. Thank you for being the hands and feet of Jesus and both proclaiming and demonstrating the love of God to our city.
Just last week, I had a problem. I grabbed my phone off the charger, but it was nearly dead. I was confused because I had it plugged into the charger all night. Then, as I looked closer, I realized the charger had disconnected with the outlet. My phone didn’t receive power because it wasn’t connected to the power source. To go out and effectively live as ambassadors for Christ, we need to make sure that we are living our lives empowered by the Spirit. To stay empowered, we need to stay connected to God. We can’t do it in our own strength.
Jesus talks in John 15 about how we must remain in Him. He says He is the vine, and we are the branches. If we stay connected to Him, we will bear fruit. However, apart from Him, we can do nothing. Let’s make sure we stay connected to Him.
One way to stay connected to Him is by participating in our midweek activities. Every Wednesday night, at 6:00 p.m., we have a few different Bible Study options for you that will help you stay connected to the vine. Gloria Fox will be leading our Women’s Bible Study through Job in the Fellowship Hall. I will be leading a time of prayer and a study through Praying through the Bible by Donald Whitney in the Dining Room. I know that my prayer life has been strengthened by this study, and I can’t wait to see how it impacts your prayer lives as well! Also, as an added bonus, I have been given a few dozen copies of this book by Crossway Publishing. Everyone who comes to our Prayer and Bible Study time will receive a copy until we run out.
There are also opportunities to serve on Wednesday evenings. We’d love to have you help out in AWANA with our kids or in the Rafters with our youth. Please contact Kathy Scott or Kyle Baldwin about ways to get involved.
In addition to those options, we also will be having a meal one Wednesday evening a month before these various midweek options get underway. For September 21, we will be having meatloaf! Make sure to sign up for this meal, which is free (but donations are accepted).
Will you join me in praying that we stay connected to God throughout the week? We want to bear fruit, and to do that, we must remain in Christ!
In Him,
Pastor Zach Crook