Printable Newsletter        Decemeber Calendar

Lord’s Supper

Changes In
 Worship Service

 We will celebrate the Lord’s Supper on December 7^th during morning worship. Please prepare your hearts and minds to come to the Lord’s table. (A special offering will be taken during communion to be given to the PCA Compassion Ministry)

 

On December 7 we will be having our evening worship service at 2:00 p.m. Our morning schedule will remain the same and we will have a Congregational Dinner between the services. (Everyone should bring a dish to share.) The first Sunday of each month we will have morning worship at 10:45 a.m. and the second service at 2:00 p.m. with a meal in between. The other Sundays of the month remain the same.
 

Foundations Bible Study: Foundations will meet permanently on the second Sunday of each month following the morning worship service.

Visitor Fellowship Meal: The Visitor Fellowship Meal is permanently changed to the fourth Sunday of each month following the morning worship service.

Fellowship Time: Fellowship Time is permanently changed to the last Sunday of the month following the evening worship service. We will still celebrate birthdays of the next month.

Shepherding Group : Has not changed they will still  meet on the third Sunday of every month.

Junior Choir: Junior Choir will continue to meet 9:30-9:45 a.m. every Sunday morning. The changes to the schedule include also meeting the first and second Sundays at 1:00-1:30 p.m. following the planned meal.

Men’s Bible Study and Breakfast: For December ONLY the Men’s Bible Study and Breakfast has been moved up one week to December 20^th at 8:00 a.m.

Nurture Group: For December ONLY the Nurture Group at Tasseff’s will meet the first and third Tuesday (Dec. 2 and 16) at 7:00 p.m.

L.A.M.B.S.: The Ladies AM Bible Study will meet Dec. 4^th at 9:30 p.m. and then suspend until March.

Congregational Dinner – Budget Meeting

Mark your calendars! December 17^th is our annual Congregational Dinner – Budget Meeting. Come at 6:00 p.m. with a dish to share for dinner. Following dinner at approximately 7:00 p.m. there will be an abbreviated Prayer and Praise followed by the budget meeting. The 2009 budget will be presented for discussion and a vote. This is an important meeting and all members of Faith Church should attend! Non-members are welcome in the meeting, however, only members will be allowed to vote.

Deacon Tidbits

The deacons are seeking an individual or family to furnish the drinks for the meals held at the church. The cost of the drinks can either be donated or reimbursed. Please contact Greg Blasiman if you are willing to serve in this capacity.

For December ONLY the newsletter deadline has been moved back one week to December 29^th. Please submit your articles for the Jan. Newsletter by 12/29.

MESS HALL  *  STING

Dec. 5 and Dec. 19: Meet at the Scholten’s House at 6:30 p.m.

Coming Up: The Rastetter family is planning an activity for December what is “still under construction.” As soon as details are available they will let you know!

Welcome

The 2009 sign up sheets

Sunday, November 30^th, we welcomed new members into our church family:
Hope Kadlecek
Karli Kadlecek
Audrey Tasseff
Samantha Tasseff
Bethany Scholten
Bethany Rastetter
Kathy Scholten
Kevin Anderson and Amber Anderson.

The 2009 sign up sheets are on the vestibule bulletin board. Please consider signing up for hosting a meal, hosting a Mess Hall Activity or being a Door Greeter. The church can’t function if we don’t all pitch in.

OUR MISSIONARY TO SOUTH AFRICA

Bill and Susan Carr (MTW missionary to South Africa) have a new email address: billsusancarr   @  gmail . com

Looking ahead: The Carrs will be here at Faith Church in March 2009!

Please check the most recent church directory and update the church secretary on any changes that need to be made. If you would like your cell phone or email address added let her know (they are optional if you prefer your privacy). If there are any errors please bring them to her attention. faith.secretary@    faith-pca-akron   .com

Three Joy-inspiring Doctrines

Our sovereign God
First, the sovereignty of God. If there is one doctrine for which Calvinism is known, it is this one. The Bible, say the Calvinists, teaches that God rules over all of creation, over all of history, decreeing and determining, in the words of the Shorter Catechism, ‘whatsoever comes to pass.’ Joseph can look back at his wretched circumstances when his brothers sold him into slavery and say ‘God meant it for good’ (Gen. 50:20). God says through Isaiah, ‘I am ... the One forming light and darkness, causing well-being and calamity, I am the Lord who does all these’ (Isa. 45:7). He works ‘all things after the counsel of his will’ (Eph. 1:11). He ‘causes all things to work together for good’ (Rom. 8:28). There are no exceptions to this. Sparrows don’t fall out of trees and hairs don’t fall out of heads apart from His will (Matt. 10:29, 30). Everything is controlled and determined by God. Including evil? In one sense yes, in another no. God is not the author of evil, but neither is evil running loose in God’s universe outside of His sovereign purposes. Even the crucifixion, that most evil of all human deeds, was said by Peter at Pentecost to be carried out by the ‘predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God’ (Acts 2:23). The early church said that Herod and Pilate and the rest did whatever God’s hand and purpose ‘predestined to occur’ (Acts 4:28).Every atom of existence is under the direct control of God. There is not even ‘one maverick molecule,’ as R. C. Sproul says. Everything is under the control of God.

Human depravity
The second cardinal doctrine is that of the depravity of man. Are people basically good or basically evil? The Christian church has historically said that people are by nature evil. Within Christendom, there is no theological perspective so pessimistic about human nature as that of Augustine and Calvin. Historically we have used the terminology of ‘total depravity’ to describe the human condition, meaning by it that people are corrupted, poisoned, and anti-God in all their faculties. Again, using the language of the Westminster Standards: (Man) is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite unto all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil and that continually (Larger Catechism Q. 25).

Is the Bible really as negative about humanity as this indicates? Survey the Scriptures. God said of man in the days of Noah that ‘every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually’ (Gen. 6:5). Through Jeremiah he says of the human heart, ‘The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?’ (Jer. 17:9). In Ecclesiastes we read, ‘... the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil, and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives’ (Eccles. 9:3). Paul, in Romans, quotes the Psalms in saying, ‘as it is written, “there is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one” ’ (Rom. 3:10-12). Jesus said simply, ‘men loved the darkness rather than the light’ (John 3:19, 20). The problem is deep within us, in our desires, in our natures, in our loves and hates.

Thus, we may summarize with Paul’s ultimate metaphor, man is ‘dead in his trespasses and sins’ (Eph. 2:1-3). He is dead to good. He is dead to God. He is helpless, hopeless, and hellish.

Sovereign grace
Third, the sovereignty of grace. This follows necessarily from the previous two points. Man is so incapacitated by sin that unless God acts to rescue him nothing will happen. He will remain dead and blind. Thus the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, plus that of the depravity of man, leads us inexorably to the doctrine of sovereign grace. We cannot live spiritually unless we are born ‘of God’ or ‘of the Spirit’ (John 1:13; 3:8). We remain dead unless we are ‘made alive’ with Christ (Eph. 2:5). We cannot come to Him unless He ‘draws’ us (John 6:44). We cannot choose Him unless He chooses us (John 15:16). We cannot love Him unless he first loves us (1 John 4:19). We cannot believe Him unless He gives us faith (Eph. 2:8, 9). If we are to be saved God must sovereignly do it. ‘By His doing you are in Christ Jesus,’ Paul writes (1 Cor. 1:31).Salvation is ‘of the Lord’ (Jonah 2:9).

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