Sunday school for all ages starts today at Praise! Join us! Class starts at 9am and ends at 10, and our worship service begins at 10:30am. Come and have some good coffee and go deep into God’s Word. Nursery care is provided for the little ones!
Here’s info on our fall schedule. I’m excited about the opportunities we’ll have this fall to grow as disciples, and I hope you can be part of it. Here’s some basic info about the fall. See you soon!
PCF Fall Kickoff Dates and Information:
September 5, 10:30am: Fall worship schedule begins
September 9, 11:30am-8:30pm: The NINES Christian Leadership Conference simulcast at PCF
September 12, 10:30am-1:00pm Fall Kickoff!
September 19, 9:00am-10:00am First day of Sunday School!
September 26, 12:15pm PCF Business Meeting
October 1-3 Men’s Retreat at Tuscarora Inn
November 6-7 PCF Mission Conference
Small Groups:
Children’s Church:
Yesterday’s sermon was a change in our plans for the GOING series. We dealt with a topic that needed to be addressed. It’s an issue in all of our lives–conflict. Conflict is a necessary part of life and can be good, but oftentimes we handle it very poorly. Conflict occurs at work, at church, and at home, and we can either respond in a loving, healthy way or respond in a hurtful way.
This is one sermon I’d like everyone at Praise to listen to–you can download it here, and the slides are here:
Here are some of the hurtful ways we respond to conflict–these hurt ourselves and others, and we called them all “conflict garbage”:
The healthy way to respond is to go directly to the person that has offended us and share how we feel. We also need to be ready to acknowledge our own faults in the situation. This can be so hard, though! Thankfully Christ has given us his love which heals, forgives, and showers us with grace.
Questions to ponder….
A next step..
The next time someone brings you their conflict garbage, will you take it and pass it along or will you encourage them to respond to conflict in a healthy way?
This Sunday, as part of our GOING sermon series, we’re doing something a little different. Most of Sunday’s message will consist of testimonies from PCF members who have seen God working in moments when faced with a choice of fear or faith. I’m excited to hear these testimonies of living faith, and I’m sure that we’ll be blessed this Sunday. Don’t miss it!
VBS has been going really well this week. I’m floored by how many volunteers are pouring their week into this ministry. Thank you for your prayers for the families God is ministering to this week.
We’re also getting ready to install our new sign, so we’ll have the new sign on display in the sanctuary, and we’ll bring in the old sign next week so you can get a closer look at it–it’s a great reminder of God’s faithfulness to our church. Keep your eyes peeled!
Are you, like me, an uncomfortable evangelist? In today’s message in the GOING series, the transformation we talked about was moving from places where we are comfortable to uncomfortable in responding to our opportunities to share the good news about what God has done in our lives. The audio for today’s sermon will be posted here soon.
It’s easy to see that sharing about God’s work in our lives is a key part of our faith, but it’s also easy to build up reasons in our minds for why we can’t be the ones to be the messengers of God’s grace. We’ve been given a wonderful privilege in having the joy of sharing God’s work in our lives, but we can sometimes make it too complicated or too difficult for ourselves.
A great approach to evangelism that I heard summarizes the steps this way: 1) make a friend, 2) be a friend, 3) bring a friend to Christ. Sharing God’s story is effective when done in the context of a friendship–and I think more and more people will come to know the Lord this way rather than through televangelism or door-to-door cold calls.
After the service today someone mentioned that even if we are concerned that we might not be a Billy Graham, we don’t have to be the one concerned about “closing the deal” in terms of leading someone to Christ. We might simply need to share what Christ has worked in our lives, and we might never see the fruit from that–it might be that you or I might be the fifth person to share the gospel with a person, but they respond to the sixth or seventh. That’s great! Paul said in I Corinthians 3:6, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.”
This week in our early morning small group (Weds., 6:30-7:30am @PCF) we’ll go into how we can be messengers of God’s story, and we’ll cover it the following week in the BIG Small Group (not meeting this week due to VBS, but picking up again on Weds., August 4, 7:00-9:30pm at Praise). Everyone’s welcome to both of these groups (and they’ve been a blast so far!).
Questions to ponder–feel free to respond in the comments section below:
What excuses get in your way when faced with a chance to talk about God or invite a friend to church?
What scares you when you think about initiating a conversation about spirituality?
What approaches to sharing good news about God have worked for you?
How has God used people in your life to lead you to him?
This summer we’re trying a couple different formats for our small groups. Last year was an exciting time for our small group ministry–we had 9 groups meeting at one point, which is a record for our church, and this makes me excited for the fall. Most of our groups shut down for the summer…but not all of them.
If you want to connect into the church, if you want to go deeper into God’s word, if you want to care for others and be cared for, or if you want to grow spiritually, then join a small group.
There are a couple small groups running through the rest of the summer that are available for you:
The Early Morning Summer Small Group: This group runs 6:30-7:30am on Wednesday mornings through August 25 at Praise. This group is great for those who have busy evening schedules but can make a short study before work. The group is open and goes deeper into the topic from the previous Sunday’s sermon. We’ve met twice so far, the group is great and growing, and you’re welcome to join us (and there’s food and coffee!).
The BIG Small Group: Two of our small groups have decided to meet together for five weeks and invite the rest of the church to join them–this group starts tonight, July 21, at Praise, at 7:oopm. We’ll be together in a large group for a teaching time, then split into smaller groups for discussion and prayer. If you’ve never been to a small group or want to get into one, this is a great opportunity. It’s a short-term commitment (the group ends on August 25) and is open to anyone who wants to attend. This group will also be going deeper into our Sunday morning topics. I’m really excited about this group and I’m hoping that a lot of people will be able to attend–it should be a lot of fun! Please note that the group won’t meet on July 28 because we’ll be running VBS at Praise that week.
During my sermon on July 11, as part of the GOING series, we took a survey about where we are now as a church and individuals, and where we see God leading us–it was well received and we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about it. If you missed the chance to complete one, it’s right here (below)–feel free to fill it out and send it in to me or the office by July 26.
GOING Survey
Please take a moment to answer these questions—please fold and hand back to an usher when you’re done—thank you!
1. What do we do really well at Praise?
2. What do you think we could be doing better?
3. Is there anything you’d like Praise to try out – regarding worship (i.e., seating in the worship service, different worship time, different music styles) or outreach?
4. How big should our church be?
5. What should PCF be like in 10 years?
6. What would you like to see change physically at PCF?
7. What groups of people – communities, cross-section of society, etc – would you like to reach out to?
8. What is one obstacle that prevents you from bringing a friend to church?
9. Who specifically would you invite, and how can we support you in that reach-out?
10. How much ministry time should the average person give to the church?
11. How much ministry time do you give to the church?
12. How many hours a week do you give to God?
13. What do you think God wants from YOU? (Based perhaps on your gifts, resources, time and abilities)?
14. Do you feel that you have grown spiritually in the past year?
15. Do you have personal devotions?
16. Are you in a small group? Do you want to be in one?
Today was the second part of the introduction to the GOING series (the audio will post here). Even though God performed many miracles before the Israelites, each generation had to come before the Lord personally. No one rode in on the coattails of their parents. And as we look at Judges 2, we see that the people in the OT were continually turning from the Lord and refusing to give over parts of their lives.
That applies to us as well. We as individuals and as the church continually need to be drawn back to God. It’s so tempting as Christians to think that we’ve “arrived” at this perfect stage of spiritual maturity, yet there is always deeper growth and change waiting for us. As sinful beings, we hate change and resist the transformation God desires for our lives.
Here are the Powerpoint slides:
Here are some questions to mull over–please leave a comment as well:
How have you sensed God calling you back to him?
What parts of your life have you not wanted to turn over to him?
How does God transform the church to remain obedient?
How did God speak to you through His word today?
For further reading: Keep reading through the book of Judges to see God transforming rebellious people like us.
We’ve just started a new sermon series at Praise called GOING–and it’s all about God’s transformation of our lives as we personally commit to the mission he’s given us. We’ll be talking about different aspects of this transformation Sundays, 9:30am, July 4-August 22.
Each week there are a couple ways that we can continue and personalize the conversation and application. You’re invited to participate in the discussion here at PCF’s new blog each week, and you can also attend the new early morning summer small group which will meet on Wednesdays, 6:30am-7:30am, at PCF, starting July 14.
When it’s posted, the sermon can be heard here:
Going – The Wilderness
Here are the PowerPoint slides:
After today’s message, “The Wilderness,” I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the following questions:
To leave a comment, simply click on the “leave a comment” link at the bottom of this post. Thanks for sharing and enriching our spiritual growth!