Last night I got to attend Re: Generation, the young adult ministry at New Life Church, with a young adult friend of mine. It was encouraging for me to get to worship with so many young adults who are so passionate about Jesus. It was a great experience for my friend who is looking for a community of Christian young adults to plug into.
Beyond that, it was good night of worship for me. We looked at the scriptures in James 4:11-17. Pastor Scott gave us a great reminder of our need to realize that life is short, and thus all of life ought to be about God and His will, not our own.
We sang one song that was particularly inspirational to me, and I thought I would share it with you today. It reminds me of one of my favorite verses in the Bible Acts 17:28: "For in Him we live and move and have our being." The song also mentions Colossians 1:27: "God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."
May Jesus be your everything today!
New Life Church has a prayer focus each week. Our prayer focus is broken down into three categories of ministry: 1. We pray for another local church that is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. 2. We pray for a Global Outreach Partner who is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. 3. We pray for a ministry of New Life Church that is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ locally.
Area Church: First Baptist Church – Canby, OR, Pastor Lee Wiegand
Global Parner: Rich and Cheri Strahm – Equippers Network International
Following our snow policy, since the West Linn-Wilsonville School District will open two hours late due to weather, Women's Bible Study has been cancelled. Bible study will resume after Spring Break, on April 5th.
This year New Life Church will be celebrating Easter at all three locations:
March 8th was not an ordinary Thursday for our Coffee Cart volunteers Shirlene Littrell, Andie Haugen and Darlene Laski. It was a record breaking day with 139 students and staff members stopping by for food, beverages, and conversation.
And, today was another record breaking day for Coffee Cart. They passed last year's record attendance of 10,034 and have served to date 10,094 with nearly 60 days remaining in the school year. Thank you Coffee Cart volunteers!
Jeannette and I deeply appreciated our retirement celebration.
We appreciate the encouragement. It has been a joy to serve you.Pastor Bill Kramer
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (Col 4:2 NIV)
The call of God on the life of a believer is clear. We all know that we should pray. We all know that we need to pray more. We all really want to be people who are devoted to prayer. But even knowing those things we often struggle to find time or to make time to actually pray. It seems to me that if any significant change is ever going to happen in our devotion to prayer we need a plan. More than likely you are not just going to wake up tomorrow morning, roll out of bed, and set the world on fire by the transformation of your prayer life if you have no plan. The truth is, if we don't make a plan, we will do things exactly the same as we did them yesterday and the day before and the day before that.
I thought I would encourage you today by sharing my plan with you. Plans don't have to be sophisticated. In fact, the simpler the better. My current plan has three parts:
1. Praying with the other pastors every Tuesday afternoon- When you share requests on your keeping in touch cards, those really do get prayed for every week by our pastors and elders. We also pray for each other and for other things concerning the church. This scheduled prayer time is an important part of my plan. Let me encourage you to find a couple of other people that you can schedule time to pray with on a regular basis.
2. Praying with folks from the Robinwood Congregation every 2nd and 4th Monday- We are convinced that God wants us to draw near to Him and ask for things like a child asks for things from his father. The scripture says, "you have not because you ask not". We are committed to drawing near to our Father and asking Him to move in powerful ways in our congregation. Would you be willing to carve out a few hours a month to pray with someone for the ministry context where God has place you?
3. Personal and Family Prayer- We try to spend time as a family talking to God each evening after some time in the scriptures. But when we are tired, it sure is good to have a plan for what we are going to talk about. Recently I have chosen a specific focus for personal and family prayers each day. It's not that we can't pray about other things that day, it just really helps me to have a plan. I'll list my categories for each day below. Maybe you'd like to chose different categories for your personal and family prayer time. Whatever you do, make a plan to pray!
Monday- Men. Praying for specific men in our church community to grow in Christ and develop into Godly leaders in their homes and in Christ's church.
Tuesday- Seizing the Time. Praying about things that God is doing in my world, through our church, in our community. Asking God what He is up to, asking Him to help us seize the time, to make the most of every opportunity, to do far beyond all we can ask or imagine in and through me, my family, and our church family.
Wednesday- World Missions. Praying for the missionaries that our family and our church family supports. Praying for unreached people groups and countries. Pray for opportunities for our church and for my family to be involved in bringing the gospel to the nations.
Thursday- Thankfulness. You might try having fun seeing how many things you can thank God for on Thankful Thursday!
Friday- Family. Praying mostly for immediate family, but also extended family.
Saturday- Salvations. Praying for people on our lives that don't yet know Jesus to come to know Him.
Sunday- Sermon. Obviously I am pretty motivated to pray on Sunday mornings. But Sunday mornings before church are a great time to pray for your church family and for how God might use you to build up the body of Christ at church that day.
New Life Church has a prayer focus each week. Our prayer focus is broken down into three categories of ministry: 1. We pray for another local church that is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. 2. We pray for a Global Outreach Partner who is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. 3. We pray for a ministry of New Life Church that is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ locally.
Area Church: Sandy Baptist Church - Sandy, OR, Pastor Fred Vogel
NLC Ministry: Ignite
Sara and I are always looking for resources to help us in raising our kids in a way that pleases God, helps them to follow Jesus, and keeps us from going crazy! Children are a blessing from the Lord, but there is a heavy responsibility and a lot of hard work involved.
So what role does our faith in Christ play in parenting? It means everything! Not only is our most important role to guide our kids to know and love Jesus, but there is no way we can do the work of parenting without God's supernatural intervention. In a word, we need grace.
Grace is something that God gives to us that we don't deserve. In the gospel, God poured out His amazing grace on us by sending His Son, Jesus, to live a perfect life and then give His life as a sacrifice for our sins. He rose from the dead. And then, amazingly, God reached out to us (sinful people) and drew us to faith in Christ! Our salvation comes to us not because of anything we have done, but because of what Christ has done for us. Amazing grace.
The concept of the book "Grace Based Parenting" is for us to parent our children in the same way God the Father parents us. God knows we are sinful people, and yet He still reached out to us and loved us in the gospel. In the same way, we know that our children are sinful people. After all, they are the products of sinful parents. Our role is to continue to reach out to our kids and love them even when they fail, which we know they will. We point them toward the amazing grace of God toward them in Christ. We forgive them and then guide them to walk in the truth.
Some people misunderstand grace. They see it as a license to live any way they want to because God will always forgive them. We call that abusing the grace of God. Not good. If we teach our kids that they can live any way they want to, we do them an eternal disservice.
However, others receive the grace of God and think that now they have to remain in God's good graces by never doing anything wrong. They set up a law for themselves (and their children) so that they will never step out of bounds. Obviously there are things we should and shouldn't do. But the law of love laid out for us in the gospel is one in which we are compelled to love God and love our neighbors because of what Christ has done for us. When we fail to follow that law of love, we have sinned. We are called to confess our sin to God, but we are never outside of His grace. Each day, each hour, each minute is chance to renew our relationship with God.
O may God help us to continue walking in His grace each day, and be parents who show that grace to our kids. Check out Tim Kimmel's book "Grace Based Parenting". I see it as a bit of a primer for helping us parents to live out the grace of God as we raise our kids.
Tomorrow, March 11, 10:00am PDT, all three congregations of New Life Church will gather together at the West Linn High School Auditorium for a combined worship service. It promises to be a great morning. Worship leaders from each congregation will make up the band. We'll have a special presentation. Annual Reports will be distributed after the service. We'll have some goodies and a time of fellowship across the street at the Riverfalls building. Hope to see you there!
Don't forget to set your clock ahead tonight! Daylight Savings Time embarrasses someone every year who forgets to adjust their clock and walks into church an hour late...You don't want to be that person! See you tomorrow!
New Life Church has a prayer focus each week. Our prayer focus is broken down into three categories of ministry: 1. We pray for another local church that is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. 2. We pray for a Global Outreach Partner who is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. 3. We pray for a ministry of New Life Church that is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ locally.
Area Church: Barton Community Baptist Church – Boring, OR, Pastor Thom Turner
Global Partner: Rick and Mary Beth Holladay – The Art Factory, Deutschland
NLC Ministry: Middle School
