To God's Beloved At Cloverdale Baptist Church:
Why is it so important that we live our lives in community? What does that even mean? One of the themes of our summer updates will be CONNECTING. Connecting deeper with God and one another, and in our culture it is much easier to keep people at a distance, and away from our lives. Sometimes it is hard to connect, even as we attend a church, but don't feel anyone notices or knows us. I have had more than a few people appreciative when someone notices they have missed a few weeks, or knows their names. This is so important in our world, especially when we are distancing ourselves as a culture, this longing to connect will also grow stronger and stronger.
It is important to be connected to the community of faith because our fight for holiness in our lives can only be done effectively in community (Hebrews 3:12-14). This is how God has set it up, and how we are to pursue living. I love hearing how people in our family choose to go out of their way to do this. I have friends who let me know when they haven't seen people for a while so I can actively love, others who text one another every day with their favourite verse of the day, and impact on their lives. We live in a world that is constantly driving us away from God, and into selfishness, and being around one another is not only commanded, obeying this command will help us to avoid crisis!
How should you connect this week? Two ways, one deeper, one wider. Deeper: Text, email, or phone a friend who loves Jesus and share what you are learning from the book of Psalms. If you want to make it a daily deal, that would be great, but for this week, do it once. Wider: on Sunday look for someone to actively engage with, ask them their names, welcome them, show them we are a loving church. Then a week from now go out of your way to find them. If each of us do these two things, we will be a much deeper and wider church in God's time, and my prayer, quickly! Yes I want more than this, but what a great start at CONNECTING!
Sunday Lunch: We are having our Canada Day Lunch on Sunday! Thank you to all who are helping us celebrate Canada Day and love one another. Please plan on staying after church on Sunday and joining us in a great BBQ meal and time together. A great chance to meet some new people, eat great food, and discuss the Psalms (and other things). Please join us! CONNECT!
Kids Camp: I am excited about our Kids Camp that is right around the corner. Robyn, Hannah, and the interns, and so many others are working hard to make this successful! Please pray for them! We still need 10 more people to help us. Please seriously, prayerfully consider this and let Hannah or Robyn know. WE NEED YOU, and the impact you can make at a camp like this can not only change the course of life of a child through God's love, it can change their families eternity. IT IS WORTH IT! One of the greatest ways to connect is SERVING.
Prayer Meetings Start: Every week in the summer we are going to be spending time together in prayer. We want you to come and connect in, and PRAY. Jutrice's will be there sharing and we encourage you to come and get to know them and other in our church family. They are on Tuesday nights, and start at 7, and we promise to try to be done by 8. We want to be a PRAYING CHURCH and this includes corporate prayer!
Unison: We are having a night of praise on June 29, at 7:00. If you enjoy singing, the volume a little louder and the song selection a little more Hill Songy, this is for you. Dawson (our Young Adults Intern) is preaching on Psalm 95. We want to make sure that on Sunday mornings we choose to praise in a style that engages the vast majority of our people, and then give more specific tastes options to praise at other times. If this fits you, we would love to see you there!
Sunday Is Coming:
Many of you have shared you are reading Psalm 1 and another Psalm every day and it is a blessing. If you have done this, keep it up all summer, if not start today and enjoy this RICH part of God's Word!
Text: Psalm 23
Title: The Lord Is My Shepherd
This is a great Psalm that is very well known and loved and familiar. It is SO RICH and powerful in what it teaches about God and those He loves!
Read this Psalm a few times in preparation for Sunday as if you had never read it before and notice and enjoy the I WILL statements. Might be helpful to read it out loud as family and friend to remind yourself of the preciousness of what it teaches.
If the LORD is our Shepherd everything changes, and my hope is that the richness that made this Psalm so familiar will sing again in our hearts!
Have a very blessed week!
Serving Him, by serving you,
Pastor Rob