This Sunday, Feb. 8th at 9:40, I'll be offering an Info Class for those who are interested in knowing more about the church.
This Sunday is MOPS Sunday. MOPS moms will be helping lead the worship service and there will be lunch offered at noon. Extra food is available for those who did not sign up.
This coming Wednesday, Feb. 11 night at 6 p.m., Samantha Butterfield, a recent graduate from PHS, will share about her ministry to the street children of Honduras. She has moved to Honduras and is living with the children she is helping. Her story about living and working with families who live on the edge of the town dump and survive on what other people have thrown away is very powerful and challenging.
A men's Lifegroup will begin again this coming Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Hope House. They will be studying the book of James.
Do you have a Fellowship Prayer Partner? Talk to Kurt or David or Beverly Walkup if you're interested in knowing more.
I'll be preaching on the topic of heaven this Sunday. Here are a few songs and quotes, I found helpful:
I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger, A-trav'ling through this land of woe.
And there's no sickness, toil or danger , In that bright world to which I go.
I'm going home to see my family, I'm going there no more to roam;
I'm just a-going over Jordan I'm just a-going over home.
I know dark clouds will gather 'round me I know my way is rough and steep;
But beauteous fields lie just beyond me Where souls redeemed their vigil keep.
I'm going there to meet my mother , She said she'd meet me when I come.
I'm just a-going over Jordan I'm just a-going over home.
I want to wear a crown of glory, When I get home to that bright land
I want to shout Salvation's story , In concert with that bloodwashed band.
I'm going there to meet my Saviour, To sing His praises forevermore.
I'm only going over Jordan I'm only going over home.
Another old hymn goes:
The world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.
Two quotes from C.S. Lewis:
"If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought the most of the next… It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one."
“Heaven is that secret that we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We can not hide it because in our experience is constantly suggesting it. We betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.”
As Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes,
“Earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God.
Buy only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.”
Simon Tugwell well says: “If we imagine that is it we who have to look for God, then we often lose heart. But it is the other way around: God is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high rebellion against him. God knows this and has taken it into account. God has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms. The goal is simply to respond to God’s gift of love that is being held out to us every moment of every day.”