Card

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We received a card in the mail yesterday that perplexed us. Maybe you can help us figure out what it means.

The outside:
A Prayer for Overcoming An Addiction

The inside:
Dear God,
I really need your strength
in overcoming my addiction
This craving has become
a dominant force in my life.
I need your love
to unchain me from
this prison I've created.
Please surround me
with Your love and guidance
to help me fight
this great temptation.
Give me strength so that
I can win this battle.
I know with you
everything is possible.
I so need Your love and support.
Amen

The signature:
Friends who care (in a child's handwriting)
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Volunteer Coordinator

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Cameron and I met the new Volunteer Cooordinator at NCCF tonite. He seems like a sensible, likeable person. It sounds like we may have an opportunity at another service or two per month, which is something we've been thinking (and informally praying) about.
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Recording

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For those of you who are interested, here is the recording from yesterday's sermon at Greenville Fellowship.
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Flattered or Offended?

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I'm not sure whether to be flattered or offended.

Custom at Greenville Fellowship is to allow 20-30 minutes for feedback/testimony relating to the sermon at the end of the service. My experience has always been that at least one or two people have something to add or amplify. Today, however, not one single soul had anything to say.

I'm not sure whether to be flattered that there were no contradictions or offended that there were no accolades; flattered that there was no dissension or offended that there was no complimentation.
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Dead in Sin to the Glory of God

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The following outline is what I plan to be preaching from on Sunday at Greenville Fellowship (and also NCCF in the afternoon). If you plan to be there please feel free (and encouraged) to print this out for reference.

Dead in Sin to the Glory of God
Ephesians 2:1-7

1) Dead IN sin
a. Dead – nekros – a corpse
i. John 12:1 Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead (nekros)
ii. Revelation 3:1b To the angel of the church in Sardis write: …‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. (nekros)
b. In trespasses (and sin) – paraptoma - (unintentional) error or (wilful) transgression

2) Remember slavery
a. Romans 6:16-22
i. free will / power of choice

3) Remember depravity
a. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11a
b. Colossians 3:5-7
c. Titus 3:3
d. Romans 11:30-33

4) God’s mercy
a. But God…
i. …seeing our inherent value?
ii. …recognizing our general moral goodness?
iii. …taking pity on our condition?
iv. …being lonely without us?
v. …BEING RICH IN MERCY!!

5) God’s favor
a. Justification
b. Even when we were
i. …dead in sin [He] animated us in Messiah
c. Grace – charis – graciousness, divine influence on the heart, favor
i. Grace exemplified

6) Our position
a. Sanctification
b. Glorification
c. Past tense – made alive, raised, seated

7) God’s glory
a. Why?
i. In order that or with the intent that…..
b. Titus 3:3-7

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Job Opening

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The position of Volunteer Coordinator has opened (read: been created) at New Castle Correctional Facility. This position would be one of recruiting volunteers and coordinating all volunteer services (religious or otherwise). The current chaplain has recommended that I pursue it. It doesn't quite offer the salary that Renita and I feel is necessary to facilitate our standard of living. Also, I'd need to purchase an economical vehicle for the 90 mile round trip daily.

Please pray that I'd be hearing the Father's will in this matter.
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Fact

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For I know that nothing good dwells in me
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Job Search

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I'm off!

One interview scheduled and bushes to rattle!
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Time Marches On

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Monday, January 9, 2006
It started like any normal Monday for me. I remember little (if any) before 1:50pm. I undoubtedly got up and went to work that morning. Being a Monday, I presume I (at some point or another) was in and out of the office and probably got product for delivery either that day or the next. About 1:40 I arrived at my children's school to teach elementary music from 2:00-2:45. Then the phone rang......'Dad's not reponding.'

Two years ago today time stood still in my life. Two years ago next Monday (according to date), or this Saturday (according to weeks), I saw my Dad's body for, presumably, the last time on this earth. Who would have thought that day that time would ever move again?

Time marches on!
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How Should We Respond...

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...to the culture.

Should we...
...engage it as the emergents say?
...or ignore it as the anabaptists say?
...incite it as fundamentalists say?

Suppose you found out that I spent an evening in a tavern in an attempt to rub shoulders with a specific person, to live where they live, to experience their experience, to feel their pain, to be qualified to share truth into their specific situation, what would you think?

Would your opinion change if you found out I had smoked a couple cigars?

How much more would it change if you found out I had a couple shots of whiskey?
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Hark!

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Is that a ship (job opportunity) I see on yonder horizon? Behold, it was simply a mirage; a figment of mine over-wrought imagination.............................
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My Life

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OUTTA CONTROL!!!
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Church Planters Anonymous

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Why does it seem like everyone wants to plant a church?

No matter where I turn anymore, someone is talking about, or moving ahead in, church planting. I want to plant a church for__________. I feel called to plant a church to __________. My heart goes out for a church plant in ___________. There needs to be a church that ___________. Why?

I remember a man one day walking down the streets of his local town. He said he felt like a complete stranger although he had lived there for several years. Heavy on his heart weighed the need for a church plant to reach out to the outcast and downtrodden in that town. He said he was the new 'Rabbi' in town looking for a place to 'hang his shingle'!

Another friend of mine who was very active in the local leadership of his particular church decided one day to start another church in the same community. His vision? To reach out to 'the least, the last and the lost' of that particular community.

A man I just met within the last two weeks has just moved to the area from another state. He states that his heart is for a church plant in the area. This same man walked away from a youth ministry to go into full-time construction work because of financial reasons. Heart for a church plant?

Why?

Do we really need MORE options? Can the visions of each of the above mentioned men not be met within the available 'churches' already established? Does each new vision (which is not really new just new to the individual) require a new start? Does everyone have to re-invent the wheel?

Just thots..........
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