Printable Newsletter     October Calendar

Changes In Evening Worship Service

Changes In the “Foundations Bible Study / Changes In the Men’s Bible Study and Breakfast

On October 5 and November 2 we will be having our evening worship service at 2:15 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.) About half of our church body travels at least thirty minutes to arrive at church. We believe that this change may increase our fellowship and enhance our worship together. This is something of a trial run. Session will meet in November to decide if an afternoon service would benefit the church. We may not change anything, or may have an afternoon service once or twice a month, or every Lord’s Day. We realize that this makes a long day, and that small children need naps, and the increase in fellowship meals is an additional burden. We are seeking your feedback on this possibility.

Due to the changes in our evening worship service on October 5 and November 2 the Foundations Bible Study will meet on the second Sunday of October and November on October 12 and November 9 following morning worship service. The meeting times after November will be announced depending on any changes made to our evening worship service times on a permanent basis.

Reformation Weekend

October 24 and 25 

Several reformed churches in Northeast Ohio will be sponsoring a Reformation Weekend Conference at Grace Church in Hudson. Scott Wright will be speaking Friday night at 7 pm on the Victory of Truth. Saturday morning at 9am Jeffrey Fartro will speak on the Warmth of Affection. Following a break, David Wallover will speak on the Blessing of Service. This conference is a resurrection of the Reformation Conferences that we participating in in the past. We will like to make this an annual event and your attendance is greatly encouraged. There will be a nursery for those three and younger and refreshments will be available.

This conference is FREE but please help us to prepare adequately for the conference by registering on line or by calling the church.

• Online Registration (web site)

If you are interested in singing in the Reformation Choir during the conference please contact Cynthia Miller at crmiller@neo.rr.com. You must attend at least two practices (there have been two already in Sept.). Practice times for October are October 7 and October 18 (and October 23^rd if needed).

Oct. 18:          STING meets at the Scholten’s home 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. before the service project.

Deacon Tidbits

baptism

 The church tithes and offerings for the year of 2008 are budgeted at $143,170. The church tithes and offerings for the 8 months ended August 31, 2008 were $87,582, which is less than the YTD budget amount of $93,800.

The Deacons will be working on the 2009 budget over the next couple of months. If you have any suggestions or recommendations, please provide to one of the deacons in writing by November 2, 2008.

Bill and Faith Blankschaen presented their two young sons, Ethan Riley Blankschaen and Elias Bailey Blankschaen, for baptism on September 21. It was good to have this young and growing family in our midst once again.

Needed: Person to help with audio and church web site

If you would be interested in helping with the audio and church web site please see Dave Rastetter. Interested persons should have computer knowledge and be willing to learn Microsoft Front Page.

Update from Chaplain Shannon Philo

Thanks for the care package of hygiene items and snacks sent on 23 July. I was able to go home for 18 days of R & R to the MS Gulf Coast during August. I just returned and found the package. The heat index when I arrived was 150. It is a scorcher. We deployed last Nov 07 and redeploy Jan 09. Two missed Thanksgivings and Christmases. Such care packages you at Faith Church and the brethren of First Presbyterian Church have sent boost morale and spirits of our soldiers, especially over this upcoming holiday season and help the Soldiers make it one more lap around a 15-month track. We appreciate your continued prayers and support! Shannon

CH (CPT) Shannon K. Philio, USA
HHC Company, 703d BSB
Unit 40623
FOB Kalsu
APO AE 09312

FREEDOM TRAIL
by JI Packer

            In Boston, Massachusetts, there is an official Freedom Trail, a tour of key sites connected with the War of Independence. Christianity knows another freedom trail, which the foregoing pages have sought to point out. The Boston freedom trail celebrates the gaining of political independence through fighting the British. The Christian freedom trail has to do with surrendering personal independence as one ceases to fight God. The point I have sought to make is that the freedom for which we were created is only ever enjoyed under the authority of God in Christ, and the only way we come under that authority and stay under it is by submitting in faith and obedience to what is in the Bible. The path to true personal freedom under God is acknowledgment of the authority of the Bible and its Christ. The gospel finds us rebels, guilty, lost and hopeless, and leads us for salvation to the feet of Christ, who teaches us to live by Scripture.

            The importance of recognizing biblical inerrancy as a fact of faith is that, on the one hand, it reminds us that all Scripture is instruction in one way or another from the God of truth, and, on the other, it commits us to consistency in believing, receiving and obeying everything that it proves to say. The more completely heart and mind are controlled by Scripture, the fuller our freedom and the greater our joy. God’s free man knows God and knows about God. He observes God-taught standards and restraints in his living and in his relationships. He trusts God’s promises, and in the power of Bible certainties lives out his days in peace and hope. Modern man needs to hear more of this message of freedom from the church. The church needs to learn again how basic to that message is the truth of the inerrancy of Scripture, on which the fulness of biblical authority depends.

            We have reached a place in the history of our culture where stable relationships based on respect, goodwill, fidelity and service are breaking down and alienation is becoming commonplace. Husbands and wives, parents and children, students and their instructors, employers and their employees, are increasingly estranged from each other in loneliness and hostility. A new and nasty feature of this eroding of relationships is that it is justified in the name of freedom, meaning the abandoning of restrictions and restraints. Actually, the idea that freedom requires uncommittedness or an adversary relationship toward other people is a sign of how far our society has drifted from its former understanding of what it means to be truly human and (equally important) godly. Our negative attitudes in relationships and our insistence in doing our own thing, pursuing personal pleasure no matter who gets hurt, show that we are not really free at all. We are estranged not merely from men but also from God and are in bondage to the grim perversion of nature which the Bible calls sin.

            "When you were slaves to sin," wrote Paul to the Roman Christians. "you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God" (which is what becoming a Christian means; when you put your trust in Jesus Christ you become God’s slave through repentance and are freed from sin’s dominion by regeneration), "the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:20 ff.).

            True freedom — freedom from sin, freedom for God and righteousness — is found where Jesus Christ is Lord in living personal fellowship. It is under the authority of a fully trusted Bible that Christ is most fully known and this God-given freedom most fully enjoyed. If therefore we have at heart spiritual renewal for society, for churches and for our own lives, we shall make much of the entire trustworthiness — that is, the inerrancy — of Holy Scripture as the inspired and liberating Word of God.

WIC Retreat

“Bearing One Another’s Burdens”

Get ready for food, fun and fellowship!

When:             October 10-11

Check into your room as early as 2:00 p.m. on Friday. We leave for dinner at 5:00 p.m. Breakfast Saturday is at 9:00 a.m. Check out is 11:00 a.m. Saturday.

Where:            Dutch Host Inn in Sugarcreek, Ohio on State Route 39. For driving directions or to see the accommodations go to www.dutchhostinn.com

Cost:               $25 per person (includes meals and room). Each room has two double beds, a coffee maker, and a refrigerator. (Please let Marianne Sevcik know if you have a roommate preference).

Bring:             Your Bible, a small notebook and a pen. If you wish you can bring games, cards, snacks and drinks for free time. (The conference room has a full kitchen and a microwave if you choose to bring shacks that require preparation.)

If you have not received the retreat handout and questionnaire please see Marianne Sevcik (check your mailbox first). Please answer the questionnaire and return it to Marianne’s mailbox as soon as possible.

See any WIC officer to make your payment and reservation. If you need help with the cost please let Marianne

Entertainment, Evangelism, and Worship

Dr. Robert Godfrey

            The call for entertainment in worship in our time is often cast in a particularly seductive form. Entertainment is often sold in the name of evangelism. We are told that we must make worship interesting and exciting for the unconverted so that they will come to church and be converted. At first glance that argument is very appealing. We all want to see many brought to faith in Christ. Who wants to be against evangelism? But we must remember: entertainment is not evangelism, and evangelism is not worship. People are evangelized, not by a juggler, but by the presentation of the Gospel. And while evangelism may occur in worship as the Gospel is faithfully proclaimed, the purpose and focus of worship is that those who believe in Christ should gather and meet with God. 

            In 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 the apostle Paul comments on the presence of an unbeliever in a worship service. He does not call for the church to entertain the unbeliever or make him feel comfortable. Rather, in the clear and understandable articulation of the truth, the unbeliever should be convinced that he is a sinner. “So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’” Faithful worship, where the primary purpose is the meeting of God with his people through his Word, may well have the secondary result that unbelievers will come to faith. But worship must not be constructed for the unbeliever. Rather, it is for God and the church. 

            The whole service in the church, then, must not be shaped for either entertainment or evangelism. Instead, it must serve to unite the people of God for their meeting with God.

Worshiping with the Heart

            We have focused much of our attention in this book on the forms or externals of corporate worship. But we must remember that such forms are at the most only half of the story The most faithful, biblical forms will not guarantee true worship. Using good forms may only mean that we are formalists, going through the motions in worship. Jesus quoted Isaiah as saying, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matt. 15:8). In a similar vein Paul warned against those “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:5). True worship occurs when we worship with the heart. 

Preparing for Worship

            To meet with God we need to come to worship prepared. We need to come well-rested, expectant, thoughtfully ready to meet with God. We need to be aware that God will be present in the elements of worship that he has appointed. He will be present to speak through his Word and will be present to hear our praise and prayers. We need to come with clear understanding of the ways in which worship with God’s people will bless us and should come looking for that blessing. 

            We come to worship in faith. Faith is trusting Christ, resting in his finished work for the forgiveness of our sins. Our faith must be real as we come to church, so that our reliance on Christ may deepen. We come to worship with repentance, acknowledging that we are sinners and seeking the grace of God so that we more and more turn from sin and pursue holiness. We come to worship with love for God and for his people. Such love will make us desire communion with the people of God and long to draw nearer to God.

I rejoiced with those who
said to me,
“Let us go to the house of
the LORD.” (Ps. 122:1)

            When the heart is prepared for and engaged in worship, we can enter into the sentiments of the Psalmist:

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.
I will praise you, O LORD my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever
For great is your love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of the grave. (Ps. 86:11-13)

Search me, O God, and know my heart: test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Ps. 139:23-24)

I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; before the “gods” I will sing your praise.
I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. (Ps. 138:1-2)

When the heart is prepared by the Word of God and by God’s Spirit for worship, then the worship we desire is the worship that delights God. We come not to be pleased, but to offer God the worship that pleases him. We move from the self-centeredness that characterizes those who do not know God, to the God-centeredness that should characterize those who do know him.
 
Evaluating Worship
            With so many approaches to worship and so much variety from church to church, the Christian must become an evaluator of worship. The question “How should we worship?” is inevitably linked to the question “Where should we worship?” Once we know what pleases God in worship, we need to be where such worship occurs.
            To evaluate worship properly, you need to begin with yourself. You need self-evaluation. You need to ask the following of yourself:
§    How much do I know about what the Bible says about worship?
§    Who can help me learn more about biblical worship?
§    Do I want above all to draw near to God in worship?
§    Do I want to please God rather than myself in worship?
§    Do I understand my responsibility to worship God with his people regularly?
§    Will I seek God’s will in worship while avoiding a judgmental and legalistic spirit toward others?
  
You also need to ask these questions about the worship of any church you plan to attend:
§    Does this church love and believe the Bible?
§    Is the worship of this church filled with the Word of God?
§    How much of the service is given to the reading of the Bible?
§    How much of the service is given to biblical prayer?
§    How much of the service is given to singing that is biblical in content and character?
§    What is the content of the preaching?
§    Is preaching a substantial part of the service?
§    Is the Law of God clearly present in the service?
§    Is the Gospel of Jesus Christ clearly expressed and central in the service?
§    What is the role of the sacraments in the ministry of the church?
§    Are there elements of the service that are more entertaining than biblical?
§    Are both joyful thanksgiving and reverent awe expressed and balanced in the service
 
            We cannot be casual about matters of worship. They are too important. We need to be thoughtful and biblical. To do that we need to shoulder our personal responsibility to study and pray about worship. We should seek help from faithful ministers and friends. And we must seek a church where worship is faithful to God’s Word.
 
An Invitation to Worship
            In this study we have thought together about worship in a variety of ways. But at the end we must remember that God wants us to worship him.
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. (Ps. 95:6-7)
            We need to heed that call to worship and to identify with a congregation that worships faithfully. We must worship in a way that pleases God, for our God is a consuming fire.