Hi everyone! Pastor Mark here with your weekly "What's happening at CR" blog post. My Friday is off to a great start this morning! How about you? Early this morning during my prayer time at breakfast, I confessed to God my weakness and discouragement. I asked God for strength and encouragement. Yes, your pastor both needs and practices what we've been talking about this summer! Anyway, 20 minutes later Patty, my waitress, came to me and told me that there were two other local pastor friends having breakfast and they wondered if I would like to join them. The next hour was filled with encouraging words from friends who've been there! What are you praying for this morning? Believe that God will answer you in amazing ways!
This Sunday we will finish our summer series of single sermons from the Old Testament. This will be our 15th sermon in our series that's not really a series. Remember back when we started this baseball themed sermon series at the beginning of June? The Cleveland Indians were in first place and baseball seemed so promising and summerish! Summer ends this week and the Indians' best hopes are now focused on not being in last place in the entire MLB!
Nevertheless we have great hopes for this week's talk about Daniel and the Lions Den. The title of Sunday's talk is "Tackling Treachery." (See how I slipped in the football term, "tackling"? Ha!) This is a particularly timely talk because it deals with politics and betrayal. We are very aware of the national political scene right now, but I won't be talking about Republicans or Democrats. I will be talking about the truth that all of us are involved in some kind of politics - family politics, work politics, and/or church politics. What are the three choices that we should make whenever we find ourselves on the wrong side of political turmoil? What were the three choices that Daniel made that God so favored?
Grayden and Anna. One more cool thing will be happening Sunday night. Remember last month when we enjoyed all the children reading the story of David and Goliath? We've invited two of these kids to come back and read one more story for us: Daniel and the Lion's Den. Grayden Pierce and Anna Scott have been practicing all week long. They are both excellent - and dramatic - readers. Let's come together Sunday and cheer them on!
Pavilion and YouVersion. I've been invited by Pastor Aaron Rose to preach this same message Sunday morning at Pavilion Community Church, 225 S. Mill St. Lexington, Ohio 44904. You all might remember that Pastor Aaron filled in for me at CR back in August when I took a week's vacation. This weekend I get to return the favor. If you can't make it to Church Requel Sunday night, feel free to join me at Pavilion! Their Sunday morning service begins at 10am. For those of you who want a head start on this weekend's talk at both churches, you can check out the sermon notes on the YouVersion website.
New Sermon Series Starts Next Week! I'm very excited to tell you about a new sermon series that will begin next Sunday, September 23rd, at Church Requel. It's called "40 Days In The Word." For the next seven weeks we're going to talk about the importance of the Bible in our lives. This sermon series, originally written by Rick Warren at Saddleback in January, and since shared with thousands of churches, will help us to build our lives on God's Word. We'll learn why we can trust the Bible, how the Bible changes us, how to study and integrate the Bible into our daily lives.
What is so special about this series? Beyond the importance of the weekly sermons there will be 3 more components that will set this time apart for our church. First, I'll be asking each of you to invest into a daily devotional time every day for 40 days begining September 24th. I want you to go to www.40daysintheword.com and sign up to participate. This is provided for you absolutely FREE! Sign in and when asked tell them you want to start your daily devotionals on Monday, September 24th. Then each day for the next 40 days we will all be participating in the same daily devotional. They each take less than 10 minutes a day. You can watch a video or listen to an audio from 40 different leading pastors from all over the country! This first component - the daily devotionals - will support the weekly lessons we're learning at Church Requel.
The second component is Bible memory. Each week, for six weeks, we will be memorizing one verse together as a church. Next Sunday I will be passing out a bookmark to everyone at CR with the six memory verses on it. Together we will be hiding God's Word into our hearts and lives. The third component is a small group study. We will be passing out a small group questionaire that you and your family or friends can follow together. The sermons, the daily devotional, the Bible memory, and the small group studies all follow the same theme. We've never done anything like this before at Church Requel. Commit yourself now not to miss a single week!
Church Requel September Social. Remember the fun we had together six weeks ago at the summer picnic? Let this great photo be your reminder. (Click the pic to make it full size!) We want to enjoy another great day together next Saturday, September 22nd. We plan to meet at Pleasant Hill Lake Park, located at 3431 State Route 95, Perrysville, OH 44864 at 4pm. The cost of admission is FREE!!! There will be fun, food and games to play together. Steve and Bryan will fire up their massive gas grill to cook the unlimited hamburgers and hot dogs for everyone. Paper plates, cups, and eating utensils will also be provided. You bring all the rest! Each family should bring two dishes of any kind. Single folks bring one dish to share. Bring your hungry self ready to play and have fun. Bring a friend. We'll have a pavilion that will shelter us - rain or shine. Let's make this first day of Autumn a memorable one!
Clothes Closet Ministry Starting Up! There is just so much to tell you this week! Isn't God good to us? This week I met with Jennifer Carrick, Sara Scott, and Lisa Hatfield. They have been working on starting a brand new ministry at Church Requel. Each weekend between now and October 20th, bring in any clothes that you no longer wear that someone else might like to own. Jennifer, Sara and Lisa will collect the adult and children's clothing your bring in and will save and organize the clothing for distribution on Sunday, October 20th. From 5pm until 8pm on this third Thursday in October, you will have the opportunity to browse through all the clothing your fellow parishioners have donated. Anything you find that you can use - or that you know a friend or family member can use - will be FREE for the taking! All the clothing left after that will be donated to local shelters and ministries. If this idea works well these ladies would like to continue to do this every quarter. What can you do to help? (1) Donate clothing. (2) Donate plastic totes / containers that could store clothing. (3) Volunteer your time to help setup and tear down the clothing displays on October 20th.
I am always amazed at the good things God does through such a small church like Church Requel. Aren't you inspired by all the great things going on? I hope so! I'd like for this to be the best fall season yet at Church Requel. Hope to see you Sunday night. Come early. Come ready to experience God's presence! Come with a friend!
With great affection, Pastor Mark
