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Jano07

Chase

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Agape Newsletter, November 21, 2008: Special Innapropriate Reference to Moonshine Edition. ;)

Hello friends and family,

Welcome in to another action packed edition of the Agape newsletter. This week is a big week, so let’s jump right in:
Ultra-quick summary of this week at Agape:

1. Sermon this week: The Great Romance Part 3 - The Great Romance played out in the world.
1A - Coming December 7 and 14 - Agape’s Vision for 2009…Please be praying!
2. Agape Thanksgiving meal this Sunday after church.
3. Crossroads Sunday night at 5:00 pm - Focus: One Life, One Shot.

4. Crossroads: Christmas party and December schedule (see below).
5. Traci Jones surgery….meals for the Jones family.
6. Cornbread and Cranberry Sauce needed.

What an exciting week we have ahead of us! In the Thompson family we love Thanksgiving week. It means great food and fellowship, and a time of thanksgiving, of course - but also - it means Christmas music! We look forward every year to the day after Thanksgiving as the time that marks the beginning of Advent, and the breaking out of Christmas worship music that will be played throughout the day. “What is Advent?”, I hear some of you ask? “Are you Catholic?” I hear others ask. Advent, put simply, consists of the weeks leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus. In our family, beginning after Thanksgiving, we gather nightly for a candle lit devotion, responsive reading, and singing. Then we place an Advent ornament on the Christmas tree. By speaking of the birth of Jesus every night leading up to Christmas, I believe it really communicates to our entire family what this season is all about. Next Sunday, I believe I’ll be sharing more with you about Advent and family worship, so stay tuned. Also, we are not Catholic, though we have caught Abbey sneaking around with a nun’s wimple lately. (I kid…)
Speaking of Sunday’s - this Sunday we will be concluding our series on The Great Romance. Two weeks ago we looked at the amazing fact that God loves us not just as a Father, but also as a Husband - indeed we are to be the Bride of Christ. Last week, we looked at the implications of that Romance - He loves us, so we are to especially love each other in the church. Sunday, we will take The Great Romance a step further and look at how the Love of Christ compels us to go into the world and invite others to the wedding feast.
After worship and word, we will all join together to celebrate Thanksgiving. You are encouraged to bring 2 dishes - either 2 side dishes, or 1 side dish and 1 dessert. The church will be providing the meat, rolls, drinks and moonshine*.


Also Sunday, our missions team asks that you bring corn bread and cranberry sauce for the food pantry. During last week’s food pantry, we had the largest line I have ever seen here - and even this week (when no food pantry was scheduled), we had people lining up outside the doors. Help us feed the hungry!
Please be in prayer for Traci Jones, who had back surgery this week. We would like to bless her family with meals as she recovers from surgery, so please email me if you’d like to provide a meal for the Jones family!
Finally, David sends this information about Crossroads in December: December 14th after Crossroads service we are going to have a Christmas fellowship dinner at Mary and David Ledbetter’s house in Pinson. Everyone is welcome. Mary and David ask that everyone who comes bring some kind of a dish, that way we have plenty of food. We are going to have Crossroads on Dec 7th, and the 14th. The 14th will kind of be our end of the year service so to speak. We will take the 21st and the 28th off and come back on Jan 4th.

This Week’s Schedule:  (This month’s schedule online at: http://agapepinson.com/calendar_of_events.htm)
Saturday, November 22: Angel Food pick up. If you’ve ordered Angel Food for this month, then it needs to be picked up at 9:30am Saturday.

Sunday, November 23, 9:15 am - Please remember that we’ve changed corporate prayer time from 8:30 to 9:15am
Sunday 9:45 - Small groups
Sunday 10:45 - Corporate worship, prayer and word. This Sunday: The Great Romance, part 3 - Into The World…

Sunday night: 5 pm Sunday night at Crossroads, David will be teaching on: :: One Life…One Shot

Jonathan Edwards once said that he was resolved to live his life the way that he would wish he had lived it when he came to die. All around us we are surrounded by the worldly ideals of what will make us a success in life. But in light of the gospel we have experienced, what will a successful life look like when we stand before Christ? Join us on November 23rd as we look at what scripture says it means to make life count for all of eternity.


Tuesday Night, November 25th: The Nest - church volunteers leave Agape at 6:30.


Wednesday night, November 26th - We will not be having Wednesday night Bible Study, but the Food Pantry will be open - from 6 to 8 pm, and I’m sure the mission’s team would appreciate your help!


Next Sunday, November 23 (right after worship: Thanksgiving fellowship meal and celebration.

This Week’s Links:

*****    In San Francisco, a group of 13 young adults with the San Francisco Justice House of Prayer, were physically and sexually assaulted by 200-500 homosexuals who were angered by the passage of proposition 8. The response of the 13 is a great example of love under fire. http://www.jhopsf.org/


*****    Serbian doctor who performed almost 50,000 abortions, becomes a pro-life activist. A must read!: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08111304.html
*****    Let the shaking begin! http://www.crosswalk.com/spirituallife/worship/11584250/

*****    Tragedy in India: Hindu extremist groups are offering rewards of food, money, and alcohol to those who kill Christians and burn their homes: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5186703.ece


*****     For you artsy folks, the Bible in sand (a video): http://www.crosswalk.com/spirituallife/worship/11584250/

I look forward to seeing you this Sunday! 

Chase

*moonshine not available at all churches. Including ours. Why, the very thought of moonshine at a church - shame on you!  ;)

Jano07

Chase

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Agape Newsletter - 9-20-2008 (Special Escalade Edition)

Hello everybody, and a happy Friday to you. Welcome to another Agape newsletter, and happy birthday to my beautiful wife, Janet. (Does this constitute abuse of power?) :)

For those of you that have been newly added to the recipients of this newsletter - I try to send it out once a week (usually Friday afternoon). It contains announcments, prayer requests, fun/interesting links, and lots of corny humor.

Hope you all have had a great week, and that you have a wonderful Saturday tomorrow enjoying this crisp, clean fall air, and perhaps a few football games. Speaking of football games, here are my picks for the weekend: Take Florida over Tennessee by roughly 10 points - Tebow and company are too good for the Vols this year. I think The Georgia Bulldogs will handle Rudy Carpenter and the Arizona State Sun Devils fairly easily as well -by at least a touchdown, maybe a touchdown and a field goal. As for my beloved Crimson Tide, I see them beating Arkansas by two touchdowns - though next year the game might be significantly closer. I’m not a big Petrino fan, but he is certainly a good coach. As far as Auburn goes? Here’s a shocker: I think LSU has better personel, but Tommy Tuberville is the better coach, and AU often shines in this kind of matchup. I’ll take LSU as Chase’s loser this week - Auburn will win by a field goal. Please don’t use my advice for gambling purposes - that would be a bad idea on several levels, both morally and practically!  :)

Enough nonsense - here are some announcements for you:

Announcements:

September 21 - The Leadership team meeting that was originally scheduled for 4:00pm has been postponed due to child care issues revolving around our involvement with Tres Dias.

September 26, 27 - Men’s Golf Outing.  For more information, see Brian Perkins or Andy Gray - there is a sign-up sheet on back table. Alright men, listen up: I’m going on this golf outing, and I absolutely stink at golf - I haven’t played in about 3-4 years, and even when I was playing regularly (3-5 times a year) to call me a duffer would be an insult to duffers everywhere. The whole point of the golf outing isn’t really to play golf - it’s to hang out, to fellowship with each other, to be men, etc. YOU SHOULD COME - SIGN UP THIS WEEK!

September 28 - David McConnell will be preaching, as well as filling us in on the rebirth of Crossroads on October 5th. I know that David’s message will be timely, anointed and powerful. (see below for more information on it):

Oct. 3,4 Youth Trip to Stewart Center in Atlanta, Georgia- see John Clayton King for more details.

October 5 Sunday Night: Crossroads, the Sunday night teaching and worship time led by David Mcconnell (teaching) and John Talley (worship), will begin again at 5:00 - this time on a more permanent basis. After Crossroads that night, we will resign to the parlor of the parsonage for food, fun, fellowship and fencing. (bring your sabre).

Oct 11 - Youth Quake - Cullman - see John King. Here’s the website http://youthquake.org/cullman/index.html
Sunday morning: 8:30-Corporate prayer…meet in the right hand corner of the sanctuary.
Sunday morning 9:45 - Small groups
Sunday morning 10:45- Corporate worship.

Upcoming Sunday Mornings:

For this Sunday morning, we will be finishing up our series on Worship by looking at the value of worship in the midst of adversity, and how living a life characterized by worship will lead us to a life of overcoming trials and intimacy with God. Next week,.noted Scotsman and preacher  David “Angus” McConnell will be bringing the word, followed by a bagpipe solo entitled “ode to my odious Tigers”. The next week after that - October 5th, I’ll be bringing a word on Godly leadership in the church - what the Bible says about Elders, Deacons, Pastors, etc. Following that, we will begin the process of choosing several more deacons to be servant leaders/ministers in our congregation. Be praying about that, please!

As I was typing this newsletter, I noticed that David was online, so I thought it might be a good idea to hear from the horse’s mouth (so to speak) what he would be teaching on next week. Here’s the transcript of our chat. (I’m me - He is David. He calls me Razor - perhaps because I remind him of former WWF wrestler Razor Ramon. I get that a lot.)

me (Chase): Hey yo

David: ’sup Razor..
me: Do you happen to know what you are preaching on next week?
David: Yes
me: Our readers are interested - could you fill us in? (This will be included in the newsletter)
David: How God wants us to be rich and drive Escalades
me: Wow! That should pack the pews. Can you back it up Biblically?
David: Nah - does that matter?
me: It might - many of the people are quite Biblically literate.
David: Oh well, guess I better change it. Seriously, are you about to send it out? I can type you up something real quick.
me: that would be great. I shall await your email
David: Ok - give me about 10 min
me: No problem - thanks on behalf of our readers. ;)

Just to be crystal clear (since emails can often be misunderstood), David was joking about the Escalades.

Here’s what David sent me:

I recently read a book in which the author started his work by saying: ‘We know very little about the gospel today.’ So the question should come to our mind: is this true? Do we understand the gospel in its entirety? Are we seeing people experience it on a daily basis? Are we proclaiming from our hearts the message of hope that lives within us?

Sunday the 28th we will preview where we are going beginning in October, at our Crossroads service. We are going to begin a journey together to fully study the gospel that is the power of our salvation. We are going to look at the gospel from several different lenses. The gospel must be understood, it must be experienced and it must be proclaimed. Along the way, we are going to ask some hard questions; questions that are being asked everyday by unbelievers. We are going to challenge ourselves and test our faith, because it will make us stronger and better prepared to share the hope that sustains us. The gospel is the single most important communication of God to mankind, and it has been entrusted to us. I pray that we will have a deep hunger to study its entire message together.


David

That sounds inspiring, and exciting, doesn’t it?! I hope you make plans to join us at Agape Next Sunday to hear David bring the word - I know I’ll be there.

Some links worth checking out:
*****     As some of you heard this week, Christian singer Ray Boltz (”Thank You”, “I Pledge Allegence To The Lamb”, etc) has come out in the press and now claims to be gay. How do we as Christians respond to that? Think Christian has a good article that addresses the issue (Click Here).

*****     Here’s an interesting article from Chuck Colson - Churches Must Choose Courage over Comfort. A quote from the article (from a succesful lawyer who left for ministry at the height of his career): “If I can rescue one child from the unspeakable horrors of prostitution, it would outweigh any sacrifice.” Sean got his wish and a lot more. Through his efforts, he and his staff rescued hundreds of women and girls from sexual exploitation.” Click here for the article.

*****     Speaking of Crossroads, as we did above, the main focus of the first six weeks of Crossroads was on Spiritual Disciplines. Quaker Richard Foster wrote one of the best books on Spiritual Disciplines, entitled, “A Celebration of Discipline.” Here’s an article from Christianity Today that has an extensive interview with Foster. (Click Here).

****    Here’s the free music from last week, in case you forgot to download it - this is good stuff:  Everybody likes free music, right? Here’s a link to an entire worship album available for free and legitimate download. The music is very beautiful, Christ centered and scriptural. You can download the whole album (look for the link) or you can download each individual song by right clicking on them and saving them. My favorite songs on the cd are: Resurrection Song, Psalm 103, and Beatitudes. Resurrection Song is on of the most powerful and hopeful worship songs that I have ever heard. Here’s the link: http://www.christourlife.ca/new_worship_cd.html
Finally, last week’s message was led off by 2nd Corinthians 11:3, which interestingly enough, was the lead Bible verse for that day’s Utmost for His Highest devotional, by Oswald Chambers. I’ll include it below for your edification:

Arguments or Obedience

. . . the simplicity that is in Christ —2 Corinthians 11:3

Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your “arguments and . . . every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you ( 2 Corinthians 10:5 ). Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25 ).

Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment. This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God’s will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing you Sunday,

Chase