It's Monday!

We had a pretty good day yesterday. Good crowds in all of our services... Several first time visitors... A good number of decisions made in worship services...

A few people to thank...

• Choir and Pastor Shawn for the great special just prior to the message in the 10:45 service.
• The Hatfield family for preparing a great meal for our church wide fellowship honoring our recent new members.
• The Dickover's for doing the coffee set-up for the 6:30 service.
• The preschool choir for kicking off the 5:00 service.

I am looking forward to this week!

• We've got a number of people already signed up for the new member's class on Wednesday at 6:30. (Give us a call if you would like to attend and are not yet on the list.)
  
• Today I hope to spend a few hours doing some preparation for my Easter Sunday message and the two messages that will follow.
• I have a few appointments this week with first time guests who have attended one of our services in the last couple of weeks.

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Let me share with you something I read in my devotion time this morning...

Part of my reading was from Joshua 22.

In verses 9 & 10 we learn that the men of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-tribe of Manasseh left the other Israelites after the war to return to their land on the other side of the Jordan river.

On their way, they built an altar to the Lord.

This bothered the other Israelites because they thought that these men were trying to establish a new place of worship in violation of God's commands.

So the other Israelites decided to wage war against those who had built the new altar.

Just before the war ensued, the leaders decided to sit down and talk. As it turned out, each group had misunderstood the intentions of the others. Once everything was aired out it turned out that everyone agreed on everything!

What a great lesson! I wonder how many 'wars' have been fought between believers simply because we have misunderstood the intentions of others and we have let our pride keep us from sitting down and having a frank and honest discussion.

I pray that I will always have a heart that desires to talk first...

Pastor Noel

Update for the Week

Things have been pretty busy at church this week... as usual.

Good news on this week's New Member class... Carla just let me know seven people have made reservations thus far. It is great to see God adding new people to our church almost every week.

We've had four people make professions of faith in the last two morning worship services!

When I put out my preaching schedule a couple months ago for the Heart2Heart series, I said I would be preaching from Exodus 35 this week. I will still be teaching from that passage, but my focus will be on Joshua 6. If you are reading ahead for Sunday, that would be the best place to study.

In the evening Soma-Kristou worship, we will continue our series on the Holy Spirit.

Each Sunday night we take about 5-10 minutes to answer a general question from the Bible. In recent weeks we have answered questions such as...

• What does the Bible say about Suicide?
• Where in the Bible is the Pope?
• How old is the Earth? How can that be reconciled with Science?

If you have any suggestions for future questions (and you are an Ohio reader), you can drop them in the submission box at the greeter desk in the main foyer.

Pastor Noel