Yesterday we completed our verse-by-verse study through the book of Romans.
What a joy it has been to study and to teach this tremendous book!
This is our 2nd time through Romans in the last 18 years.
I am not sure where we are going next, but as long as it is God's Word - I know it will be be good!
This past Sunday I preached a prophetic sermon that was received with great enthusiasm (as most prophesy sermons are).
The Wednesday night crowds have been dwindling and I'm not sure why.
I refuse to believe it has any connections to the "church cleaning" following each Wednesday service!
We are in Romans 15 and are learning what it takes to make a good, effective Christian worker.
We have already spent 2 weeks in chapter 15 and will no doubt spend 2 more there.
Last Sunday was a good day (98% of them are)!
The choir did an awesome job again!
I look forward to hearing them sing every week.
I can still remember when they first started and when they sang once, maybe twice a month. They have come a long way, and I enjoy listening to them on Sundays AND throughout the week!
I preached from John 15 - "THAT YE BEAR MUCH FRUIT"
I felt as though it went well.
We had a good dinner and afterward had birthday cake in honor of Shannon's birthday as well my daughter-in-laws birthday, both of which were on Monday the 14th.
We had two visitors for the afternoon Q&A service - we of course hope that they will return!
Hmm...
If I don't blog a recap of the day right away I have a tendency to forget what happened!
Rather than sit here for hours and rack my brain for accurate information - these services will fade into oblivion except maybe to those who attended:
Sunday, April 6
Wednesday, April 9
WHAT A GREAT DAY!
Congregational Singing (A+)
Special Music & Choir (A+)
Food & Fellowship (A+)
I won't give the preaching a grade (:o), but I will say that I enjoyed preaching this Sunday and felt great liberty and fluidity (yes that is a word) while preaching.
The attendance was good, but we still had several people gone for one reason or another.
In the afternoon service I answered 5 questions that had been previously submitted.
It was good to be in the house of the Lord! Amen!
Let me know if you would like a DVD of the service.
We continued the teaching in Romans 14:6-12
The gist of the evening's lesson was that...
While we DO have liberty in Christ we must keep in mind:
(a) the weaker brother
(b) the Lord
(c) the judgment seat
The cleaning is still going well.
I overheard someone say that the work that is done in 20 minutes would take one person 3 hours.
So far... so good!
Our choir (this is not an updated photo) did a tremendous job on Sunday morning singing a Resurrection Musical! I so enjoy listening to them sing. They came from the very bottom and have worked their way to a very respectable choir in just a few short years!
The preaching on the other hand left a lot to be desired. I was very disappointed with the sermon that I gave, and pray that it was not preached in vain. Every once in awhile we preachers "lay an egg"... How terrible is it to lay an egg on Resurrection Sunday!?
We had a wonderful meal afterward - you know the kind... ham, potatoes, green beans, rolls, etc...
The church house was pretty full, and we had several visitors which is always nice.
All in all - a good day!
This past Wednesday we began Romans 14 and made our way from verse #1 to #5 as we taught about the weaker brother and matters of conscience.
Afterward we held our prayer meeting and then the congregation dispersed throughout the building to clean. This week seemed to move even smoother and quicker, and the entire church was cleaned in about 20 minutes.
This group cleaning also seems to provide an air of fellowship as well - so far I am very happy with this new arrangement.
[There are no basketball pictures this week. The players were few and I played every game and was not able to snap any pictures.]
This post is rather late, as tomorrow is Sunday again.
We had a good day last Sunday.
The attendance was pretty good.
We enjoyed the choir singing...
Child of the King
We enjoyed the quartet singing...
Then Came the Morning
The congregation sang all of its songs about the crucifixion/cross/death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I then preached - Jesus at Golgotha -
the third stop (Gethsemane, Gabbatha, Golgotha) before the grave.
As always...
we then enjoyed lunch together, and then we finished our day with our Bible Q&A session.
Wednesday night was a good night.
I finished Romans chapter 13 after spending 2 weeks on verses 11-14.
Paul uses some great analogies when he speaks of:
dark/light
night/day
sleep/awake
bed clothes/day clothes
~
To hurry the cleaning along on Wednesday nights I purchased 2 more vacuum cleaners.
I have come to detest "bag-less" vacuums. The one we have at the church boasts that it has no dirty filters inside the dirt cup. Well, it DOES have dirty filters everywhere else! You vacuum twice and you have to take the vacuum outside and spend 15 minutes dealing with THREE filthy filters.
So, I decided I would buy 2 "bag" vacuums. I was informed which inexpensive bag vacuum was in the top of Consumer Report's list. I could not find it at the several places I checked so I purchased 2 "Bissell Powerforce" vacuums. They were inexpensive ($38), and as soon as several of our people saw them - they informed me that they were junk.
The remainder of the night I joked that when the bags were full we would just throw the vaccums out and buy two more just like them! :o)
