Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,                    March 15, 2011

Greetings!  As promised last week, here’s a summary of the second service in our Percentage living series at Christ's Community Church, Giving God a Percentage of my Sabbath: Worship & Learning.  These weekly emails will not only summarize our worship, but outline the opportunities we have during the week.  The emails are meant to remind and encourage us as we continue our journey through this program.  They are rather long, but will hopefully provide you with a helpful resource!

This Sunday, Liz Rosca was our guest speaker and she started the service off with the Percentage Living Moment.  She spoke about growing up and growing in faith.  Two very important things to Liz are coming to church regularly to grow her faith and sing praises.  She has faithfully attended church since she was a little girl.  One day she was asked the question (along with a group of youth), “When you die, do you know you are going to heaven?”  The instructor was very patient with the youth as most stated, “They hoped they would.”  The instructor then told the youth they had the “wrong answer” and that by God’s grace they could be sure of their eternal destination.  She realized that after 17-18 years she had “flunked” this important question.  Liz has gone through many trials.  One of the most recent is ovarian cancer, but throughout all of this, she is growing in faith by attending church, bible studies, and fellowship with other Christians.  She encouraged us to grow in our faith with her.

During the celebration time, we sang “God is Good,” “Bless the Lord, Oh my Soul,” “My Redeemer Lives,” “Shout to the North,” and “I Believe in Jesus.”  There was also a choral reading of Psalm 66.

Karene Heupel delivered the Children’s Chat.  She held a teddy bear and asked the children if they knew who the teddy bear was named after.  She showed the children a book about Teddy Roosevelt.  She also asked if they didn’t know about Teddy, how could they find out?  She then showed them a Bible.  Could looking at the book tell them about Jesus?  If you can’t read, how would you find out about Jesus?  The children responded with, their parents could tell them, Pastor Jenny could tell them, or they could find out by attending children’s church, Sunday school, or through prayer. Through these acts of worshiping and learning, they could know more about God’s love and our Savior Jesus. 

Terre Stech read the scriptures: Deuteronomy 6:1-9; Proverbs 2:4-6; Philippians 2:9-11; and Matthew 4:1-11.

The message for the day was titled, “Giving God a Percentage of Our Sabbath.”  I mentioned that there is a great deal of related scriptures and that we are just skimming the surface at worship service.  I encouraged the members to dig deeper throughout the week and read a little before and after each scripture to obtain the context.  During the service we showed a few slides.
 
One slide was titled, “Worship is: exalting God, coming into his presence, joy, thanksgiving, an honor and a privilege, praise, and many other things.”  Another slide was titled, “Learning brings: wisdom, understanding, richness, goodness

The final slide contained a quote from Rev. Gary Marsh, author of Percentage Living.  “To find truth, real truth to live, means that we put ourselves in places to worship, study, learn and become all that God has in mind.”  Jesus taught us that in order to know the truth we need not just knowledge but also understanding.

A new translation of a familiar scripture (Deuteronomy 6:5) was presented, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, life and capacity!”  We applied this scripture verse to a life scenario – the interactions of 2 of my children and a vacuum cleaner (see Saturday, March 12th devotion in the CCC 2011 Lenten Devotion booklet for the full story!).  The short version is that Emily knew more about vacuum cleaner attachments than Evan because Emily had interest and took time to study the vacuum.  In comparison, while “not knowing” much about a vacuum doesn’t mean much . . . not knowing about God does!  We are encouraged to spend time with God and to get to know Him better.  We are also encouraged to grow in grace and faith by coming to worship, taking part in a Bible study, and to bring our Bibles to worship to give us context of the scripture verses.

The activity at the end of the sermon was to “finish building” a Lego bridge.  The foundation was there for the congregation to each place a brick “plank” on the bridge.  While the congregation took part in this activity the praise singers sang, “The Great Divide,” by Point of Grace.  The words resonated with the activity: “There’s a bridge to cross the great divide.  A way was made to reach the other side.  The mercy of the Father cost His Son his life.  His love is deep, His love is wide.  There’s a cross to bridge the great divide.”  The “take away” was a Lego brick as a reminder of what we talked about today . . . that by our actions we lay a firm foundation one “brick” at a time. 
 
At the end of the service, Greg Jones presented the day’s Percentage Living Challenge.  Greg asked how many of us would want to go to eat at a grand buffet and think that a pot of “pureed pre-digested” food would look good? No, we would want the “real food!”  So, that’s how it should be with our relationship with God.  We will be enriched more if we “chew” on God’s word on our own.  Don’t just settle for what someone else says!  Greg also stated that there are many blessings to receive when we resist the “excuses” that try to pull us away from attending church and studying the Bible.  Greg mentioned the adult studies that are currently offered at CCC:  Bible study on Ephesians and the DIVA’s class on Pursuing Holiness (anyone that wants to try a class will surely be welcomed).

The activity for the week is the Lenten Bible Study and Worship Service.  Also, check out the redesigned Web site.  Podcasts of the sermons will be available on the Web site to listen to (visit: www.ccc-mg.org).  And, if you haven’t already, make sure to pick up your copy of the 2011 Lenten Devotional in the Saal or church office!

Next week the guest speaker is Marian Mortenson.  She will be presenting, “Giving God a Percentage of My Time: Serving, Witnessing, and Inviting.”

I hope you can join us this Sunday as we continue learn, grow and “apply” as we will be making sandwiches for Simpson Shelter after worship on March 20th!

Blessings in Christ,
Pastor Jenny