July 2016

Brothers and sisters,

Happy Monday! I hope your Monday is going well. It was good yesterday to worship with the family of God at East Madison and learn how Jesus is working among every group in society from top to bottom. God was among us, even answering our prayers as we met! It was also fun just watching people interact after the service was over and enjoying being together.

We are missing those of you away for activities, vacations and health reasons. All of you are being prayed for this week. Remember your brothers and sisters love you! It is good being able to get away from routine and spending time in special activities, enjoying beauty and possibly catching up with family. I hope all of you have that opportunity this summer. It is also good to come back together and be with God’s people. Carla and I worshipped with my sister and her husband, my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter, and Carla’s parents while we were in Oklahoma. That was special! But there is also something special about worshiping with our church family, with people whom we know and love and serve God with week by week. Yesterday was sweet!

We have two more Tuesday’s for “Let’s Eat Out.” Let’s make the best of them inviting and meeting neighbors.

Have a great week!

Love being your pastor,
Bob

Brothers and sisters,

Happy Monday morning! I hope you are having a great Monday. Yesterday we met and it was wonderful to have been together and worshipped the God of justice, mercy, love and forgiveness. It was wonderful to worship the One who gave His life for our salvation. We took His supper together remembering that and remembering we are one in Him.

We talked about some things believers can do in response to last week’s horrible tragedies in our country that claimed the lives of seven people. We can grieve with those family members and friends who have suffered these horrible losses. We can seek to listen to those who have different experiences and perspectives than we have. We can, we must, pray that God would intervene and use us to be instruments of His justice, forgiveness and peace to others around us.

The message reminded us that when we truly believe in Jesus, He changes us and makes us different. He enables us hear His Word and empowers us to put it into practice. Those who simply hear the Word of Jesus but do not trust in Him and who do not put into practice what Jesus says simply delude themselves. We learned that what we do today is what we really believe and everything else is just religious talk.

I forgot to announce that next week, July 17, Kevin Phillips will be bring the message from Psalm 63.

Remember “Let’s Eat Out” Tuesday night on the church property from 5:00 PM to 7:30 PM.

Have a great week!

Love being your pastor,
Bob

Brothers and sisters,

I hope you had a wonderful day celebrating the United States’ Independence Day yesterday. I pray God would be gracious to this nation. May the church as God’s people humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways. May God’s people stop throwing stones at those who are already condemned because they do not know Jesus. Many of them have never even truly heard the good news of forgiveness in Christ. May we be continually telling them the good news that Jesus died to forgive sin, Jesus rose again and lives, Jesus loves, and Jesus will forgive, redeem, rescue and save anyone who will call on His name.

Sunday was a wonderful day as we worshipped together and were challenged by Tim Craig. The good news of the resurrection of Jesus is the best news the world has ever received! We need to be continually telling the story of Jesus’ resurrection and the story of how He changed each of us. We as individuals walking with Jesus together and sharing this good news can make a huge impact!

Have a great week!

Love being your pastor,
Bob