Blowing Into Fall

We recently completed our study of the Minor Prophets in our Sunday morning worship sermons. Our study began with the books of Joel and Micah and finished up in September with the book of Hosea. The study of the Minor Prophets revealed that God could simultaneously judge His people for their egregious sin and show them grace by promising the coming Messiah and the Millennial Kingdom. As God’s children we must see both sides of God’s character, judgment and mercy, and learn to live on His merciful side as much as we possibly can.

Our Sunday School lessons have been most fruitful as we have been studying other denominations, a study that I call “Dueling Denominations.” We have been concentrating on a simple overview, knowing that to study each denomination in detail would take years. We began with Catholicism and then studied Episcopalians, Lutherans and are currently studying Presbyterians. In order to understand the beliefs and practices of others a working knowledge of church history must also be studied, so we have been learning much as we have gone along in our study. We are certainly looking forward to the study of the Baptist church so that we can figure out what we’re actually doing (.....?)

 We will be finalizing our Christmas celebration schedule for this year. We have the opportunity to have a special fellowship this year and with the Songspinners performing with Nancy and Greg, but it will have to be another night other than December such as Friday night the 9th. We can then have our potluck fellowship on Sunday night the 18^th; be thinking about what we can do to celebrate the season.

Daylight Savings Time ends November 6^th this year
Christmas and New Years will be on a Sunday-we will have worship services those mornings at 10am with no Sunday school (unless there are any other ideas about the scheduling of those two Sundays)

Current Sunday School: Dueling Denominations
Presbyterians: Lesson #3
Exists today in America in two main groups, PCUSA (Presbyterian Church USA) and PCA (Presbyterian Churches in America)
Reformed Theology vs. Presbyterian Church theology
Major differences with Baptists: baptism, Lord’s Supper, church government, beliefs on predestination and freewill

Sunday October 16 Sermon
We will study the book of John section by section-not as a series-with topical sermons presented to break up the study; John was studied in 1990 and it’s time to update
John 8 – The Light of Jesus Still Shines
John 8:1-11                    Woman in Adultery/Pharisees in Hypocrisy
John 8:12-20                  Jesus the Light of the World