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Faith is choosing to believe God’s dream for your life and the life of your church.
While sitting in an apartment in Riga, Latvia with two new children I spent some time on what the future was going to hold. Each morning I start my time with a number of devotional readings and one by Rick Warren caught my attention. While he wrote it for a person I believe we can also apply to the Church. Continue reading
October is done. We had some beautiful days, didn’t we? The trees are turning brilliant colors. There is a red tree on Lake at the park that I have been watching. The month ended with one of my favorite holidays – Hallow-een. Love to see the children get dressed up. They are just pre-cious and they are so excited. But the holiday is not just for children. We, adults like to dress up, too!
October brought us two annual events: The Pie Sale and the Creative Craft Bazaar. I hope everyone had a chance to order some pies. These are wonderful pies at a good price plus CAWS receives the profits. Also, the pies are easy to take to family gatherings and office parties. The pies will arrive on November 19 and can be picked up from 4:00 – 5:30 just in time for Thanksgiving.
Also, CAWS had it’s 4th Creative Craft Bazaar. It started out slow with the cool temperature and rain but we did better after the weather cleared. I want to thank those who donated baked goods to CAWS. Also, I would like to thank everyone who volunteered their time to make the bazaar a success. We
appreciate your support and thanks does not seem to be enough. We could not have done it without you.
In addition, October gave us – School pictures, Chapel Time on Wednesdays, work done to the playground and Halloween celebrations.
As November begins, we will prepare for Thanksgiving and the pies orders to arrive. We will celebrate Fall, harvest time and the children will learn about everything that pertains to the changing of the seasons. Also, we will have parent confer-ence during the third week of the month to inform parents how their child is doing.
The children and the teachers will begin practicing their songs and finger plays for CAWS’ Annual Christmas Gathering. It will be Thursday, December 12 at 7:00pm. Everyone is invited to hear the children, have cookies and punch afterward, and see Jolly Ol’ Saint Nicholas. Come join the festivities. So mark your calendar.
I hope you have a great month and Thanksgiving.
Rhonda
This Wednesday I sang a little song with the weekday children during the chapel time. We sang the line, “God is Love, God is Love.” Notice the line doesn’t say God is a form of love or God represents love. . . No it is GOD is LOVE. My contention is that until we have a relationship with the Father (God) through the Son (Jesus) empowered by the Spirit (Holy Spirit) we can never truly know what LOVE is. We have all kinds of experiences around us that are forms of love but never the true love like God’s Love.
All of us go through times of doubt in the spiritual journey, seasons where it seems like we don’t really know God like we thought we did. It’s a normal part of the spiritual journey for us to struggle with doubts about our faith, doubts about whether we’re truly following Jesus Christ or not. If you’ve struggled with those kinds of doubts, that’s probably a pret-ty good indication that you are following Jesus, because people who don’t follow Jesus Christ really aren’t all that con-cerned about it.
These seasons of doubt cause our hearts to condemn us, our feelings accuse us of not being Christians, of being failures, of not measuring up. God’s invitation to love so radically impacts us and we realize how far short we fall, and often our hearts become anxious and even condemning, and we wonder if we truly know Christ the way we thought we did. So John (we have been studying 1 John each Sunday) wants us to put that struggle in proper perspective, that it’s not whether our feelings are at rest or whether our feelings condemn us that determines whether or not we’re on this spiritu-al journey, but it’s whether God has received us through our faith in Jesus Christ.
You see, God is greater than our feelings, he is bigger than our emotions of doubt or assurance, and what God thinks carries more weight than what I’m feeling at the moment. So how do we set our hearts at ease? By remembering that our assurance doesn’t rely on our emotions but on God and then by pressing forward to obey God’s commands. John sums up God’s commands in the words “believe” and “love.” The order is vitally important, that we first trust our lives to Jesus Christ, we place our faith in him to forgive our sins and to bring us into a relationship with God built on grace. Then once we do that, we launch on a spiritual journey of loving other followers of Christ, to walk together on this journey we’re on. Believing comes first, then belonging. We first establish a personal relationship with God through belief in Jesus Christ, and then we find ourselves on this journey the bible calls church, of walking this journey together.
More and more people in our culture are trying to live the spiritual life alone–just by believing but not by belonging, or by just being spiritual (I hear that one a lot these days, “oh they are so spiritual.”) –yet John says that both are vitally important to live the spiritual journey of the Christian life.
So here we find another way our love for others demonstrates our faith. Is your heart at rest before him, are you filled with assurance and peace. God’s inviting you to an even greater level of boldness and confidence in loving others, that this will enable you to ask God for what you need to love with confidence, and then as you see needs you’ll want to meet those needs. God looks to our obedience to his commands to believe and to belong with each other as a demon-stration of our faith. How do we demonstrate our Christian faith in a world that’s going crazy? The primary means is by our love for each other. When we love each other we demonstrate our difference to the world, we demonstrate our care to Christians, and we demonstrate our obedience to God. When we refuse to love each other we demonstrate our resem-blance to the world, we demonstrate our callousness to Christians, and we demonstrate our rebellion to God. Which kind of statement do you want to make?
Pastor Mark Gough
September went fast at CAWS. We have enjoyed most of the weather. It was nice to have cooler days. We celebrated the “Second Day of Fall” on Monday, September 23 with great food and activities that reminds us of autumn. CAWS’ Families and Staff had a super time at the “Pick-up and Pasta” dinner. Thank you to everyone who made the dinner a success.
As many of you can see, we have been working on our playground. We received a grant from Associated Churches to make some changes and to purchase some new equipment. The playground is a work in progress. It will take some time to complete everything that we want to accomplish. Hopefully, it will be completed by winter. We only work on Saturdays from 8:00 am – 12:00pm. Please contact our office, if you would like to help.
October will be a fun filled month with CAWS’ school pictures, the “Creative Craft” Bazaar on Saturday, October 19 and enjoying the autumn weather. Oh! Don’t forget about the CAWS’ Board Member’s Pie Sale. These are the best pies and with the holidays coming, it is a win-win situation. These pies make life a little easier during the holidays. See a Board Member or call our office to place your order.
Thinking farther into the future, well at least as far as December, mark your calendar for CAWS’ Christmas Gathering. It will be Thursday, December 12 at 7:00. Plan on being there to hear our wonderful children sing songs, recite poems and finger plays. The children will be making cookies again to serve for refreshments. It will be a fabulous night.
Have a great month and enjoy the wonderful autumn season.
Rhonda
I am very excited about the Series we began last Sunday called: A Roadmap for the Journey.
We will spend the next number of weeks in the book of 1 John because the little book of 1 John provides us with a reliable guide to navigate the rough terrain we’re likely to encounter in this spiritual journey we find ourselves in.
You see, the apostle John–who wrote the book of 1 John–was the only one of Jesus Christ’s original apostles to not be murdered by the Roman government. Not that they didn’t try! But John was a codgy old man who didn’t die easily. Eventually the Roman government banished John to an Island called Patmos. John was an eyewitness of Jesus Christ, one of the first of Jesus’ followers, and he wrote five books in our New Testament: The gospel according to John (the fourth book of the New Testament), three let-ters–1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and then finally the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. Before being banished to the Is-land of Patmos by the Roman Government, John served for many years as an overseer for all the churches in ancient Asia Minor.
John lived as a kind of spiritual mentor–the last living apostolic witness to Christ’s life and resurrection–so he kept himself busy helping the Christians in Asia Minor develop into fully devoted followers of Jesus. John most likely wrote his Gospel for use among these churches in Asia Minor, to give them an accurate account of the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. John wrote his first letter in order to encourage people in the Christian and to keep them from taking dangerous side trips in their spiritual journey. John is writing this letter as a roadmap to help the confused and troubled Christians in Asia Minor (the people he originally wrote the letter to) navigate these unexpected twists and turns in the Christian journey, to help them stay focused on the true Jesus and not be led astray down a different path. John wanted to re-ignite joy in this spiritual journey.
Each week we will be lifting up areas that will help us along the way in our spiritual life now matter what stage of the journey we find ourselves in. . .
The first Sunday we covered four points to the roadmap under the title of “Joy For the Journey.” Those points were as follows:
Building On the Right Foundation (1 John 1:1-2)
The Right Companions (1 John 1:3-4)
The Right Source (1 John 1:5)
The Right Goal (1 John 1:6-7)
People today are striving for joy in the journey, turning over every rock along the way to try to find the secret. Some pursue it in pleasure and success, still others in money and security. John would tell us that joy is to be found by having the right foundation, the right companions, the right source, and the right goal. If we build our spiritual journey on reality, share it with other Christians, based it on God’s revealed truth in the Bible, and allow it to transform our lives, our joy will be full, even as John’s was when he wrote this letter.
I hope you will plan to join us each Sunday as we discover the “Roadmap for the Journey.” Oh, yes and bring your friends and relatives. I promise it could change their lives.
Pastor Mark
School has arrived. With the weather seeming more like autumn, school is right on time. It is really awesome to see the children during the first weeks. They are excited about new rooms, teachers, getting a locker, seeing old friends, meeting new friends and just the electricity that is in the air.
At CAWS, we had shutdown in August. We were lucky enough to get in 9 – 10 hours of training plus get the rooms ready for the children. Many children stay with us, just moving to the next room. During shut down, we were able to get some areas painted that really need it. We were also able to wash some of the dirt off the walls.
Also, the first of August, CAWS was visited by a group from Walgreen on Day of Caring through United Way. The crew painted 2 classrooms plus one that was not scheduled. The crew was fast and we appreciate their hard work. CAWS bought the paint, brushes and rollers.
CAWS has received our grant check from Associated Churches’ Lets Grow Grant. Some of the materials have been ordered. So watch for some changes on our play-ground. We will begin working on Saturday, September 7, if you would like to volunteer some muscle. Not all the work is physically hard. We need painters, dirters, rakers and builders. Come join us.
Have a great September,
Rhonda
Take a break and join church members and the Crescent Avenue Weekday school families for a free spaghetti pasta meal in the church dining room. This is the kick-off event of our new vision to Connect (with the community), Grow (as followers of Christ) and Serve (the needs of others) and we expect to ‘connect’ with the Weekday School families as they pick up their students. The kids’ artwork will be on display for a vibrant addition to the evening. We hope for everyone from Crescent Avenue to attend for fellowship, plus the tasty food. All are welcome, so bring the rest of your family, too, on Thursday, September 26th from 4:30-6 p.m. If you think you might be able to come, just let Kay know, so we know how many noodles Marty needs to make! By the way, cooks, hosts, servers, cookie bakers, talkers and cleaner-uppers are welcome, too, so if you can help for a bit, we sure would love it. Questions? Ask Kay at 422-6461 days, 489-1649 evenings or Kay (at) Feichter.net
