Every-Member Ministry

This past Sunday I read Gideon Ruhl's testimony of healing. We wanted to post it in the blog to be a source of further encouragement for you. To give you some perspective of where things were before he was healed, I'll begin with a report from Gideon's dad, Josiah Ruhl. We set aside January 12, 2017, as a day to fast and pray for Gideon. To guide our prayers here's what Josiah told us: 

Gideon's condition seems to be stabilizing, but not in the way we had hoped. While we are praising the Lord that we have not seen much digression…

Thank you to all those who participated in the initial information meeting about Safe Families For Children!

Read below for the next steps for those who continue to have interest in helping with SFFC.

We'd like to know your level of interest and to get you on our email list. You can also RSVP for the training event at the Auer's Home this Saturday.

"I'm Interested" Form

We are excited to tell you about an opportunity to get involved in our community through a ministry called Safe Families for Children. Safe Families is a volunteer ministry that exists to provide biblical hospitality, love, and support to families in crisis, largely through providing parents with safe places for their children to stay while they work to resolve whatever crises that they are experiencing, such as unemployment, homelessness, or financial difficulty. This ministry equips churches like ours to create support networks for desperate people in our community who have no one to turn to in times of crisis. They do this through creating teams of people to come alongside of these families in various roles. This is one of the really neat things about Safe Families - that there are many ways to be involved.

A few years ago we started talking about "every-member ministry," the idea that our church has a few elders but hundreds of ministers. This comes from the Bible in Ephesians 4:11-12:

Sunday we looked at the shocking act of service Jesus did when he washed the feet of the disciples. We considered the marvel of God in Christ stooping to wash the dirty feet of creatures he had made, the humility of Jesus cleaning and drying the feet of Judas Iscariot, the one who would betray him.... And at the end we read through a set of questions to help us evaluate our own service of others.

For the Advent season this year we are doing something special. First, we are providing a set of Bible readings to go along with each day of Advent (December 1-25). Second, someone from the church will be providing a reflection on each day's reading. Our intention is to have these posted first thing each morning, maybe even the night before if things go extremely well. Here are the readings and authors for each day of Advent.

In case you hadn't noticed, the Christmas season is here. Today is Black Friday, and I'm just about to head out for some shopping. We all have about twenty-seven parties scheduled in the next thirty days, and in stores and homes in that same period we'll hear about a thousand different versions of Carol of the Bells. I don't write this as a Scrooge. I love Christmas. But what I love above all the family traditions and celebrations is the Event at the center of it all: The Advent of the Messiah.

If it’s true that grief leaves you with a limp, then we must have been quite a disabled crew. Each Monday for thirteen weeks, we trudged in from the cold to pray, listen, and process the reality of our unique losses, ranging from the natural (and still devastating) loss of mothers and fathers, to the tragic and sudden loss of young life. But if you had peeked in the window at 401 Upchurch St. those evenings, you wouldn’t have only seen tears.