Truth

"Truth is the consistency and agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God." - Jonathan Edwards

Smile

To put this next to a notice for a memorial service may seem tacky. But, I think Rick would have enjoyed this very much. . .and so will you.

Rick Sollers

Rick Sollers (7/11/53 -- 11/27/06) was called home unexpectedly Monday morning. He was an important man in the lives of so many people at New Life Church and beyond. He will be dearly missed.

A memorial service is planned for Saturday, Dec. 2, at 3:00 at New Life Church Riverfalls. Please be in prayer for Cindy, Matt, Holly and the rest of their family.

Young Adult Ministry

The Young Adult ministry that has been meeting every Sunday morning at 10:45 had dinner and a game night last Saturday with several students who were back from school for the holiday. "Playing 'Mafia' is a great way to get to know people," said Amanda Orendorff who had them to her house. (Great! Every pastor wants his church to pretend to be the mafia!). Obviously they need your continued prayer.

Budget & Election Meeting

Next Sunday night, 12/3, at 6:00pm (not 7:00 as initially announced) at our Riverfalls location we will have our annual budget and elections meeting. Dale Austen and Scott Haugen are nominated to be elders for the next term. The budget was presented on 11/19 and has been posted for a couple weeks.

Growing A Healthy Church

I have been cleaning out some of my old Growing a Healthy Church notes and ran across this quote that I still find provocative:

The typical church is an activity trap. Having lost sight of the higher purposes for which it was originated, it now attempts to make up for this loss by an increased range of activities. -- George Odiorne

Sonlife ministries has been very helpful to me and our church. My experience as a trainer has reaped rewards in personal and pastoral ways, one of the many things I have to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving Baskets

Thanks to a great volunteer crew, we were able to provide Thanksgiving dinner to 22 families this year. Thanks to all those that donated food and money and to a wonderful group that volunteered their time to pack and deliver those baskets with the love of our Lord.

Pictures of Animal Embryos!

Here are some amazing pictures of animals in the womb.

Turning Thanksgiving into Thanks-living

by Laura McCorkle

When I was younger, Thanksgiving was pretty much just a holiday -- a day when I got to eat a whole lot of good food and nibble on all the sugary stuff I wanted. In fact, one year it only took my sister and me two forks and about 30 minutes to finish off the rest of the pecan pie, while everyone else was either glued to the football game or snoring in a recliner. We had no regrets, and I'm still thinking it was one of our tastier Thanksgivings. ...

But besides being a holiday when I had permission to indulge, thanksgiving was also a word my grandfather always incorporated at the end of his prayers: "And with thanksgiving, in Jesus' name, Amen." I always wondered why he used a word that made me think of cornucopias and construction-paper turkeys; but he was the Bible scholar in our family, and I was not. So I knew he must have had a good reason.

Years later, I think I now understand. In that one word, he was saying "Thank You for giving." You, being God. From my grandfather's example, I see that thanksgiving was more than a one-day family gathering. It was and is a way of living, a daily act of expressing gratitude to our Maker who first gave to us.

At this time of year, I sit and think about when I last thanked God for giving me anything -- let alone His son, Jesus Christ. I'm ashamed to admit that I don't remember. But I know that I want to make such gratefulness as prominent as the giant turkey on the table and see thanksgiving become a way of life.

finish the article here Turning Thanksgiving into Thanks-living

Port of Call Hospitality House

We've done some work projects and some short term mission trips before, but we've never had someone on the receiving end make a webpage that features our trip. . . until now. Here is a set of photos from our trip to the Port of Call Hospitality House. Check out their page!

September 30th, we took 8 team members. We stopped at Ft Lewis hospitality house and dropped off 4 - Bob & Barbara Montgomery, Cris Austen, Louise Bennett - and Paul Metko went with the others to Bremerton. At Ft. Lewis we painted inside the new kitchen cupboards. When the cupboards are on floor level you sure to have to practice your stretching before you attempt to get into that space!!! There was also some sanding and finishing of benches. And we topped it off with yard work.

The Bremerton team - Larry Latimer, Mark Hannifan, Dale Austen, Lee Bennett and Paul Metko focused on re-doing a stone retaining wall. Larry Latimer got himself into a hornets nest and was stung on the hand several times. God stopped the bees from doing more damage by using Larry's inside out sweatshirt. The fuzzy fleece foiled the frenzy!

Tired sore muscles were the order of the day, but that is nothing in comparison to what Cadence workers do day in and day out! It is always a blessing to help out and do the things that we can to relieve the Cadence workers to minister to the soldiers.

Operation Christmas Child

Thank you for your generous contributions to Operation Christmas Child. Today 59 hope-filled shoeboxes were delivered to the area drop-off center located at Rolling Hills Community Church. Please pray for the children who will receive these gifts, and for their families, that the Lord will prepare their hearts for the Gospel message that will be included with each shoebox.

God's Good Pleasure

Sovereign Lord,

Your will is supreme in heaven and earth,
and all beings are creatures of Your power.
You are the Father of our spirits;
Your inspiration gives us understanding,
Your providence governs our lives.

But, O God, we are sinners in Your sight;
You have judged us so,
and if we deny it we make You a liar.
Yet in Christ You are reconciled to Your rebellious subjects;
give us the ear of faith to hear Him,
the eye of faith to see Him,
the hand of faith to receive Him,
the appetite of faith to feed upon Him;
that we might find in Him light,
riches, honor, eternal life.

You are the inviting one, may we hearken to You;
the almighty instructor, teach us to live to You;
the light-dweller, inaccessible to man and angels,
hiding Yourself behind the elements of creation,
but known to us in Jesus,
Fill our minds with the grandeur of Your perfections.

Your love to us in Jesus is firm and changeless,
nothing can separate us from it,
and in the enjoyment of it nothing can make us miserable.

Preserve us from hypocrisy and formality in religion;
Enable us to remember what You are and what we are,
to recall Your holiness and our unworthiness;
Help us to approach You clothed with humility,
for vanity, forwardness, insensibility,
disorderly affection, backwardness to duty,
proneness to evil are in our hearts.

Let us never forget Your patience, wisdom, power, faithfulness, care,
and never cease to respond to Your invitations.

Taken from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 222.

Youth Ministry

The High School youth group, IGNITE, at New Life Church is off to Trout Creek Bible Camp for their fall retreat. Please pray for a Spirit-filled weekend for them. Also, there will be no middle school or high school youth meetings next Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.

New Life Trivia: Four people from New Life Church have served at Trout Creek Bible Camp. Do you know who they are?

Baby Clothes

Dear Family @ New Life Church:

You will be delighted to know that the women had a fabulous time picking out clothes. We sold 190.00 euro and have about half of the clothes sold. They decided to ask 5 euro for each piece. It is really a great help as the owner of the building gave us the bill of the increase in the taxes that are to be paid by the church for renting the building for the last five years.

Please tell the children that as part of the gift that was given, Danielo recieved 30.00 euro to go to the Scout program with Guilio. Their family would not have been able to send him.

Thanks so much for keeping us encouraged!!!
The family in Ostia sends you greetings.
Dan, Alice, Michele and Anna

First Day Morning

Worship

O Lord,
We commune with thee every day,
but week days are worldly days,
and secular concerns reduce heavenly impressions.

We bless thee therefore for the day sacred to our souls
when we can wait upon thee and be refreshed;
We thank thee for the institutions of religion
by use of which we draw near to thee and thou to us;
We rejoice in another Lord's Day
when we call off our minds from the cares of the world
and attend upon thee without distraction;
Let our retirement be devout,
our conversation edifying,
oiur reading pious,
our hearing profitable,
that our souls may be quickened and elevated.

We are going to the house of prayer,
pour upon us the spirit of grace and supplication;
We are going to the house of praise,
awaken in us ever grateful and cheerful emotion;
We are going to the house of instruction,
give testimony to the Word preached,
and glorify it in the hearts of all who hear;
may it enlighten the ignorant,
awaken the careless,
reclaim the wandering,
establish the weak,
comfort the feeble-minded,
make ready a people for their Lord.

Be a sanctuary to all who cannot come,
Forget not those who never come,
And do thou bestow upon us
benevolence towards our dependents,
peaceableness toward our neighbors,
opennes towards our fellow-Christians.
-- Valley of Vision, p. 209.

The Lord's Day

Come, dearest Lord, and bless this day,
Come bear our thoughts from earth away
Now, let our noblest passions rise
With ardor to their native skies.

Come, Holy Spirit, all divine,
With rays of light upon us shine;
And let our waiting souls be blest,
On this sweet day of sacred rest.

Then when our Sabbaths here are o'er,
And we arrive on Canaan's shore,
With all the ransom'd, we shall spend
A sabbath which shall never end.

Church Planting Bibliography

Here's a bibliography about church planting. Some of you might find it interesting.

Crazy For You

Four students from New Life church are performing or playing in West Linn High School's first production in their new auditorium. Natalie Douglass and Jon Binswanger are part of the cast. Mackenzie Pricer and Hannah Cochran are playing in the orchestra. The reviews from the first weekend are very positive. They have three more performances left. Check the West Linn High School website to find out more.

Go Deep

The Funny papers were theological today. Some of you have done this to me! Have fun. Fox Trot

The Scandal

Tim Challies at Challies Dot Com discusses an important lesson to learn from the tragedy that is unfolding in Colorado Springs.

Thanksgiving Dinner @ Cascade Summit

On November 15th, Pastor Tim and Bree are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for the residents of Cascade Summit apartments. Last year we served a Thanksgiving meal to close to 100 residents. Several people from New Life help last year to help make the event successful. We are looking for help in several areas again this year, would you consider helping us "Share our Treasure" with our neighbors?
Specific needs include:

• Cooking a Turkey (we are cooking 4)
• Transporting Tables and Chairs
• Set-up prior to event
• Carving Turkeys
• Misc. Kitchen duties during event
• Serving / busing tables
• Clean-up

Contact us for more information or to volunteer and remember to pray for us,
Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ....
(Colossians 4:2-3 ESV)

Communion Sunday

Eternal King, enthron'd above,
Look down in faithfulness and love;
Prepare our hearts to seek thy face,
And grant us thy reviving grace.

Long have we heard the joyful call,
But yet our faith and love are small;
Our hearts are torn with worldly cares,
And all our paths are fill'd with snares.

Unworthy to approach thy throne,
Our trust is fix'd on Christ alone;
In him thy cov'nant stands secure,
And will from age to age endure.

O let us hear thy pard'ning voice,
And bid our mourning hearts rejoice;
Revive our souls, our faith renew,
Prepare for duties now in view.

Make all our spices flow abroad,
A grateful incense to our God;
Let hope, and love, and joy appear,
And ev'ry grace be active here.

Family Devotions

Occasionally on a Sunday I will talk about family devotions. The Reavely family's "Bible Times" consist of reading a chapter of Proverbs, working on a memory verse and praying together.

We have been reading a chapter of Proverbs every day for two years. We are talking about what we might do in 2007 to give us a break from Proverbs. After two years the kids are often finishing the proverbs after I start them. Often we'll talk about some event or attitude we've experienced that connects with what we are reading.

Our memory verse program we really like. It exposes us to verses that we frequently use and that help us with our attitudes and our faith. The program is called "Fighter Verses" from Desiring God ministries. I recommend it to everyone, whether they have family devotions with kids or not.

When we pray together we try to keep it from being too repetitive. It is very easy to get into a rut and merely mouth the same words time after time. So, to keep things on fresh we mix it up. We have "Missionary Monday" when we pray for missionaries, "Two-fer Tuesday" when we pray for two people, one in the family and one outside our family, "Whatever Wednesday" when we pray for whatever we want, "Thankful Thursday" when we go around the circle several times saying one thing we're thankful for, and "Family Friday" when we pray for people in our family.

Christmas Shopping

You have 54 Days until Christmas. How many presents do you need to buy? It's almost overwhelming to think about.

If you are going to shop online for some of your gifts and buy things from ChristianBook.com or Amazon.com then you can support New Life Church when you shop! Because we are part of affiliate programs with both companies, if you go to their sites through our website bookstore the church will get a small percentage of each purchase. It is a small way to help. But if you are going to buy from those sites anyway, you could make a difference with your gifts in more ways than one.