LINKS

.

Retirement
After 37 years of service to Faith Presbyterian Church, Dr. Carl W. Bogue, is retiring. We at Faith Church will be hosting a “Retirement – Farewell” reception at Faith Church on Saturday, January 13th, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Everyone is invited to come for the whole three hours or as long as you are able. Refreshments will be provided. Casual attire is appropriate.

It would be helpful if you could RSVP (by email if possible) to Jennifer Stone (WIC acting President) at Jenncstone@yahoo.com by January 5th. An RSVP is not required for attendance, but will be helpful for the ladies planning the reception. If you have any questions please feel free to call Jennifer Stone at (330)

The annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. this year is scheduled for Monday, January 22, 2007. Anyone wishing more information may contact the Right to Life of Akron at (330) 762-2785. A bus will be leaving Akron for Washington D.C. on Sunday evening, January 21st, but space is limited. Call Akron RTL as soon as possible to reserve your spot on the bus.


Congratulations to Pastor Buchanan and his wife Donna! They recently found out they are expecting twins!

Two newborns at one time will require a lot of new “equipment” and the WIC of Faith Church has taken on this challenge to help out the Buchanan family. WIC is setting up a “Buchanan Baby Fund” to help off set the enormous expenses they are facing (two high chairs, two cribs, two car seats, mountains of diapers as well as added medical expenses).

If anyone would like to donate toward the group gifts please give your donation to Carol Tasseff (checks should be made payable to Faith Presbyterian Church). If you would prefer to purchase one of these items rather than give a donation please see Carol Tasseff to find out what items they have the most need of.

After the babies are born Jennifer Stone will be organizing meals and volunteers to go to the Buchanan home to help with household chores, etc. If you would be able to volunteer please see Jennifer Stone to volunteer a meal or your time.


BETTY HAWLEY
While many of our readers are no doubt aware of this, it is appropriate to let all those past and present who have been connected in any way with Faith Presbyterian Church and/or our earlier connection with Allenside United Presbyterian Church, that our former church secretary, Betty Hawley, passed away in November. Betty, for over 25 years, was the cheerful voice who answered the phone and faithfully served the pastor and the church in correspondence, bulletins, newsletters, filing, and a multitude of miscellaneous duties – as well as much that was above and beyond the call. We will miss her, but we will always be grateful for her cheerful service.


New address for Josh Matthews:
Mr. Josh and Mrs. Cailan Matthews


New email address for church secretary:
Melinda now has email at church!
You may email her at: faith.secretary @faith-pca-akron.com


New contact person for prayer chain:
If you have an item to place on the prayer chain please begin contacting Sandra Taylor beginning January 1st. You may call her at home at (330) 633-0502 or email her at: prayer.chain@faith-pca-akron.com


January Preaching Schedule

Jan. 7: AM: Rev. Buchanan
PM: Rev. Kobb
Jan. 14: AM  Rev.Buchanan
PM: Rev. Buchanan
Jan. 21: AM: Rev. Buchanan
PM: Rev. Kobb
Jan. 28: AM Rev.Buchanan
PM: Rev. Buchanan


Prayer Chain

Nov. 24:Sue Caler’s condition is much improved. She is off the ventilator and is able to whisper. She is much stronger and was able to sit in a chair.
Nov. 26:Sue Caler is no longer in the ICU and has been moved to a regular room.
Nov. 26.Carl Childers is doing well. He is able to eat and his heart is no longer racing. Carl and Earleene appreciate everyone’s prayers and ask that you continue to uphold them in prayer.
Dec. 2:Sue Caler had more surgery yesterday. She is in some pain, but the doctors think she will have a quicker recovery this time around. Please continue to pray for her.
Dec. 3:Carl Childers is able to have visitors, but he is quite weak so please limit your visits to 5-10 minutes.
Dec. 7:Robbie Jamison asks for prayers for her friend Jeanette who has cancer. She is not a Christian. Also, please pray for Michelle and James as they will soon be reunited after his year in Afghanistan. He should be home for Christmas.
Dec. 9:Please pray for Steve Totaro’s family. Steve’s nephew, Cory, committed suicide. Cory lived here locally and was 17 years old. Please pray that the Lord will comfort them during this difficult loss.
Dec. 12:Carl Childers came home yesterday. He is doing well. His strength is still an issue and his weight has dropped. The Childers would like to thank everyone for their prayers, cards and well wishes. Please call before coming to visit as he is being visited by nursing services, etc.
Dec. 14: Bruce and Donna Buchanan just found out they are expecting twins! Please keep Donna in prayer. Everything looked fine on the ultrasound except that one baby is breech so Donna will probably have to have a C-section.
Dec. 15: Sue Caler is still in Barberton Hospital. She will be there for an unspecified length of time. She is gaining strength and would like to have visitors.


Missions Update

Bill and Susan Carr – South Africa: Bill reports that the office building of the seminary is now finished and just thirty feet from the office where he is working. Sleeping rooms are being constructed as well as a library and classrooms for the seminary. They hope to have everything finished by the end of February. The phone line that was requested eight months ago has finally been installed and they will soon have internet access for the staff and students. This past summer Bill’s father and brother both had heart attacks. His father required surgery, but both are doing well. Please pray for Charles Magagula, who is part of the office staff, and is planting a church in Zithobenia, where he meets much opposition in this traditional African community. The battle for Charles is very intense. He has done much preaching and counseling, suffering much from the words of those against Christ. Pray for his protection and that the Lord would make His congregation grow in number and strength. Please remember their daughters in prayer – Vanessa and Rebekah – in the U.S. It is hard for the Carr family to be separated.

Jack and Sherri Campbell – Pendelton, S.C.: Jack reports that this year his mission agency, RMI Inc., asked him to expand his missionary call by serving as an “International Missionary.” Therefore he has been evangelizing and discipling the international students at Clemson University assisting Dr. Peter Doyle (a PCA teaching elder in Alabama and the President of RMI Inc.) In discipling the student leaders of Auburn University. Thankfully most of their supporting churches see the incredible opportunity the Lord has given them to evangelize and disciple the best and brightest students in the world and thus truly be International Missionaries. They are happy to report that only one church has dropped their financial support since they are not in Spain, and they said they would continue their support until January. Seventy to eighty percent of these international students at Clemson are from Communist China. They are very open to the gospel and receptive to having deep discussions about biblical topics. This semester they are hosting a lunch time study about “Creation vs. Evolution” from a classical Reformed position. They are using the great material from Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis. Most of the students are atheists, but are for the first time hearing a biblically reasoned position for good science and biblical authority. Pray that many would come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.


The Ordinary Means of Grace – Prayer
by Rev. Bruce Buchanan
With a final (8th) article I bring to a close this series on the Ordinary Means of Grace. My desire has been that you would grow in your appreciation for the worth and the benefit of participation in God’s regular and non-flashy, non-gimmicky means of communicating with his people.
It is a characteristic of fallen human nature to be unsatisfied with the ordinary wonders. The spiritual presence of God isn’t enough–we want visible hocus-pocus. Real contentment is a spiritual grace, in which God the Holy Spirit gives the believer eyes to see that his covenant love is “new every morning” (Lam. 3:23). The infinite God is the one inexhaustible source of refreshment, who by his very nature cannot be boring.
But by the same token, this one source is not approachable from an infinite number of directions. In the first place men are not free to approach him at all unless he wills it, nor by their own designs, as if they were sovereign themselves or equal with God. The basic restriction on coming to God puts men in their place. And of course in the second place, men are not only creatures of God, but fallen rebels, and thus any approach to God must come through a Mediator, that they be “not consumed” (Lam. 3:22). “Our God is a consuming fire” (Dt. 4:24; Heb. 12:29).
The following is a conflation of the answers to the Larger and Shorter Catechism questions “What is prayer?” “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, by the help of his Spirit; with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies” (LC 178, SC 98). As much as it is discontentment to seek or demand a Word from God apart from the Bible, so too it is intractability that will not seek God’s face in prayer according to the will of God (Ps. 27:8).
So, how do men pray in ways that are not ordinary, not according to God’s will? They may insist on facing a certain direction, contrary to Jesus’ word to the Samaritan woman (Jn. 4:21). They may pray in an unknown tongue—be it Latin as the Romanists, or gibberish as the Pentecostals—contrary to Paul’s teaching (1 Cor. 14:14). They may spin wheels, thumb beads, or stuff paper into cracks in a wall—just variations on the “vain repetitions” that Jesus condemned (Mt. 6:7).
They may incorporate rituals into their prayers, believing that without them God will not heed (1 Ki. 18:28). They may perform even abominable sacrifices to ensure their prayers be heard, but which God never considered requesting (2 Ki. 3:27; Dt. 18:9-13; Mic. 6:7; Jer. 32:25). They may pray to dead persons or attend to priests and other “holy persons” to intercede on their behalf, since God, they think, is more likely to heed certain prayers, when Scripture teaches that God alone hears prayer and commands all men to pray (Ps. 65:2).
These, then, are some of the ways men attempt to make their prayers “special” or “extraordinary.” Such views consider God as some sort of cosmic vending machine or Santa Claus. They view him not as the Sovereign God, who delights in prayer and who has incorporated the prayers of his people into his eternal decree for his world. Prayer is among the “good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Thus, it is not merely the ends he has appointed, but also the means to the ends. And he has decreed that he should be moved in this instance and that instance by the prayers of his people to help them (Ps. 18).
We do not pray because we have a particular answer in mind that we must have, or God will incur our resentment. We are obliged to pray “if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (Jas. 4:15), even as Christ himself prayed “Lord, not my will but thine be done” (Lk. 22:42). We pray in faith, believing God will only do what is best for us, because he loves his own (Rom. 8:28). That knowledge is motivation not only to pray to God, but to trust his answers are not only good, but the best possible (Ps. 84:11). Those who lose faith in God for “failing” them never had him for “the God of [their] righteousness” (Ps. 4:1) in the first place.
“Scientific” studies of prayer are useless, for God’s movements are not predictable outside of his promises, or reducible to actuarial statistics (Rom. 11:33). God seems to enjoy defying expectations of men (Is. 19:3). But the godly trusting in him and in his wisdom are not confounded (Is. 45:17).
Finally, do not forget that prayer is the most important activity on earth. In our bodily lives, we think that our most vital kingdom work is done in the flesh, the body. How mistaken! So, when you are laid low by illness, disease, frailty, or injury, take that time to be strengthened in the inner man, and to engage yourself with most exertion in the greatest labor of all—the spiritual (1 Tim. 5:5).