Our church had a games night on New Years Eve that Harmony and I attended. It was a great combination of fellowship and competition. Some of you know that we love the board game "Settlers of Catan". However, since we arrived in ND we'd yet to find anyone to play it with...until Monday night that is. I taught a dad and son from another family in the church and they thoroughly enojoyed it, so we ended up playing it the whole time! Now, maybe we'll be able to get in some practice before visting Evanston in the spring (which we're planning on doing by the way) and taking on some of our Settlers-loving-friends there (you know who you are!).
On Sunday I started a series through the OT historical book of Ezra. In the first chapter we saw that God works in history to fulfill His will including using Christians and non-Christians alike and making His promises a reality. I'm excited to study through this book with the church as I believe it has a lot to speak to our context here in small town ND. Unfortunately, I am having problems uploading my sermons online so that I can link them on my posts. Hopefully I will get this resolved and when I do I'll link them here.
The basketball team hasn't had any games in awhile (over Christmas break) but we've had some 9-11am practices. We're looking forward to a tournament this weekend. I'll try to remember to let you know how it went in my post next week.
If anyone subscribes to the magazine "Christianity Today", there were some especially good articles in it this month inlcuding one on widows and one on Turkey (the country not holiday meal). There was also an article on "Church Shopping" that I believe missed the point. The author seemed to be defending those who don't stick with one particular denomination but get plugged into churches that God leads them to or that meet their needs. However, I believe the bigger problem in evangelical Christianity is not denominational loyalty but people's unwillingness to plug into a church, pursue memebership, use their spiritual gifts to serve and allow others to be used by God in their lives as well. The author did not seem to address this aspect of Christian consumerism. If I could give one piece of advice to Christians moving to a new town or students going off to college it would be to find a solid church and get involved immediately. This may mean spending a few weeks checking out churches but once you've identified a good one, get plugged in.
By God's Grace, Jeff.
1 comment:
We are HUGE Settlers fans over here. Hmmmm. How long would that take? 15 hours? :)
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