If there were ever a Sunday NOT to miss church, this Sunday is it! This Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, that moment in Acts 2 when the church was born! We will look back to this unforgettable, historic event and give thanks for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We will also confirm 6 young people in the faith. Two of them will be baptized by full immersion. Come witness this powerful moment. Come support these young people and reaffirm your faith! The Good News is Pentecost: It Keeps Happening!
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Don’t forget Sunday is Mother’s Day! If you haven’t bought a gift yet or even if you have, come Sunday and hear about a great gift idea for moms everywhere! The Bible is full of stories about Unforgettable Mothers who sacrificed and risked a great deal for their children. On Sunday we will look back at one of those mothers, Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Luke 2:1-7. We will also learn that the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth are not ancient history for many women and children today. Come Sunday and hear a call to take action to help make motherhood a life giving experience not a life ending one for all moms everywhere! Come and help make Mother’s Day unforgettable for all moms everywhere!
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‘Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid.’ Yeah right! Have you seen the news lately? Have you read the headlines? What is there not to be afraid of or troubled by? These sure look and feel like troubling times. Jesus spoke these words of reassurance, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid’ to his disciples as he prepared to take leave of them in the events leading up to his crucifixion. Sensing their fear and anxiety, Jesus sought to provide them both comfort and confidence. In the text for Sunday, John 14:23-29, Jesus offered his disciples two incredible gifts. Come Sunday and learn what he promised them and discover that Jesus is still about the work of offering any and all who follow him Blessed RE-Assurance. Come Sunday and receive a peace unlike anything this world can offer!
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There is a popular song that many famous artists have covered over the years entitled, ‘What the World Needs Now Is Love’. Most of us would agree that this is true. In light of recent events, it feels even more evident that what the world really does need right now is love, sweet love. But what kind of love does the world truly need? To what degree, as followers of Christ, are we called to share love? In our text for Sunday, John 13:31-35, Jesus issues a new commandment. Upon first read it might not sound so ‘new’ at all. The call to love dates back to even the Old Testament. So what is new about this command? Come Sunday and hear first hand about this ‘new’ call to love just as Jesus has loved us. Come and hear the call to imitate Christ’s love in the world. After all, Imitation is The Highest Form of Discipleship.
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April 25, 2013 – 12:04 pm
We pride ourselves on being good judges of talent and potential. We think we are pretty good judges of character. Many of us enjoy participating in fantasy sports leagues where we get to draft players to be on our team. Even more of us love studying, preparing, and then filling out our NCAA basketball brackets. Yet more often than not, in reality our picks don’t always pan out too well do they? After just one weekend of play in this year’s NCAA tournament, there were only 2 perfect brackets remaining – out of 81.5 million submitted! But what about the Lord? He has a mission to carry out. Who does he draft to carry it out? What is his draft strategy? Come Sunday and find out who God drafts to carry out the mission of taking the Good News to the Gentiles, Acts 9:1-20. Prepare to be shocked! With The #1 Pick, The Lord Chooses…
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Have you ever failed miserably at something? Have you ever come up short, not met expectations, or screwed up in your home, work, or faith life? Well, you are in good company. In our text for Sunday, John 21:1-17, we find the disciples failing miserably on multiple levels. Yet it is in the very midst of their failure that the Risen Lord appears to them and invites them to breakfast. Over the meal Jesus not only feeds them, he also forgives them and restores them to right relationship. But this is not all. He doesn’t stop at forgiveness, he also re-commissions them for feeding and tending the needs of the world. Incredibly, instead of firing them – which the disciples deserve – Jesus rehires them! So come Sunday and discover the shockingly good news, You Mean We Aren’t FIRED? But Rather REHIRED!
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I hope you had a great Easter day last Sunday! And I hope you had a great Easter day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week. That’s right, just as we celebrate 12 days of Christmas, we celebrate 50 days of Easter. That is 50 whole days to celebrate the Risen Lord! We are Easter People! And yet, if your life is anything like mine this week, it doesn’t really feel like Easter anymore. I’m exhausted from Holy Week and Easter Sunday, life is back to normal, and it’s time to play catch up on everything I missed! But that is precisely why it is so important to gather back together each and every week. It is an opportunity to gather with other believers, hear proclaimed that Jesus is Risen, and perhaps experience the Lord first hand! It is the community that reminds us of this truth when we aren’t able to fully believe it or live into it ourselves. So join us this Sunday as we hear the disciples’ encounter with the Risen Lord (John 20:19-31) and worship him together!
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March 25, 2013 – 10:05 pm
John Ortberg in his book, When The Game Of Life Is Over: It All Goes Back In The Box, writes, “You and I were created to have a mission in life. We were made to make a difference. But just as we all have a mission, a way of contributing to God’s Kingdom that we were designed for and gifted for, we also have a shadow mission. A shadow mission is what we might be led into IF we allow temptation and selfishness to take over.” What Jesus faces in our text for Sunday, Matthew 4:8-10, is the temptation to live into a shadow mission instead of his God-given mission. The tempter says, ‘All this can be yours, IF you will fall down and worship me’. We face the same temptation. Come Sunday and see how Jesus responds to the tempter. Come and find a model for living boldly into your God-given mission. Come and say a bold ‘yes’ to the non-transferable role God has designed and gifted you for. Will there be another miracle on Six Forks? There will be IF we each step up and let God work through us to Prepare the Way for the Lord!
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We want to win titles, trophies, and awards. We want to be admired and popular. Fifteen minutes of fame sounds good! Our culture tells us that there is no room for 2nd place, weakness or vulnerability. The world tempts us to strive to be spectacular. However, in the pursuit of spectacular, it is not hard to lose sight of values, integrity, and the truth. We see it happen to celebrities and politicians all the time. In our text for Sunday, Matthew 4:5-7, Jesus faces the same temptation – the temptation to be spectacular. The mission given to him at his baptism by God is to be a servant who sacrificially serves the least, the last, and the lost. Talk about a choice! As Christians, we are essentially faced with the same choice: the choice to be spectacular or to be a servant. What does Jesus choose? What are we choosing? Are we striving to be spectacular or are we Choosing NOT To Be Spectacular? Join us Sunday for a powerful service of worship and hear an invitation to follow the example Jesus sets for us.
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Are you sure God loves you, no matter what? Are you certain God can be trusted to fulfill your needs? Can you prove it? These are some of the underlying questions the devil raises with Jesus in the wilderness during his time of temptation (Matthew 3:16-17, 4:1-11). Thousands of years later the same dark voice continues to work tirelessly to raise similar questions, doubts, and uncertainties within us. Does God love me? Can I really trust God to fulfill my needs? Don’t I somehow need to prove, earn, and or merit God’s love? Sadly, unlike Jesus, we often allow the voice of the tempter to drown out The VOICE of the one who from the beginning proclaimed us beloved, child of God, and one with whom God is well pleased. Come Sunday and be reminded anew that God can be trusted and that you truly are Beloved No Matter What.
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