For the Cause - Global Hymn Sing
On Sunday, June 25, millions of voices in churches across the globe will rise up in worship
together. This year believers will sing For the Cause written by Keith and Kristyn Getty
and Stuart Townend, a song focused on taking the gospel to all nations.
We At Grace are taking part of this great event. Please listen to the song here to familiar yourself before Sunday.
On Sunday, June 25, millions of voices in churches across the globe will rise up in worship together. This year believers will sing For the Cause written by Keith and Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend, a song focused on taking the gospel to all nations.
Listeing to Hosea
Listening to Hosea
Every Thursday at 11am we listen to the scriptures together.
New Basketball Hoop!
New Basket Ball Hoop!
Big thanks to Phil and Corey to putting together the basketball hoop!
Email Blast 6-22-17
Biking, Reading, and Bible Studies Oh My!
New Sermon Series - The Minor Leagues
We'll be discussing one minor prophet each Sunday for the next several weeks. This week is Hosea.
Read Before the Sermon!
Beginning this Sunday, we will be studying one minor prophet's book each week as the sermon text. You're encouraged to read the book ahead of time in preparation for Sunday.
Listen to Hosea with the Church
As a group, we will gather each Thursday at 11:00 in the sanctuary to hear a dramatized reading of each week's book. This week we'll be reading Hosea. All are invited!
Laid-Back Bike Ride
We're biking again as a church family this Saturday, June 24, beginning at Grace at 8:30 am. Last time we biked 6 miles at 9 miles per hour. If this matches your speed/distance preference or you know someone who would like to come, see you there!
Women's Community Group Bible Study Inaugural Sunday
If reading and discussion of Scripture and praying together as a small group of women interests you, please join Leigh and Coli this Sunday, June 25 at 7:00 at Leigh's house as we begin a new women's community group. If you are interested and need directions, email coliescher@gmail.com or call (770) 630-4433.
For all this and more, Check out gracelutheranpsl.com
Grace and Peace
The Minor Leagues
New Sermon Series!
Starting June 25th 2017
We are looking at the minor prophets in the old testament.
Waiting for Redemption. The world is going away from God’s People, the Assyrians to the north and Babylon to the south. They will either be destroyed or taken over if they don’t watch out. But God calls in his minor league stars to proclaim His righteousness, grace, and favor to His people.
Adventure Is Good. But Planting Roots Is Essential
Even when you're feeling wanderlust.
“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. It is one of the hardest to define. A human being has roots by virtue of his real, active and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future.” – Simone Weil
Simone Weil, 20th century philosopher and writer, penned these words in the midst of a global war, yet poignant and true they remain today. In our globalizing, urbanizing world, roots to a place can be seen as unwanted tethers. Still, without ties to a community that preserves the “treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future,” in what are we rooted?
The Church - Believe
In a world which tells us that the individual is the most important thing, the Spirit of God beckons us to come together and experience forgiveness.
Slides From the Sermon
What happened this week!
![[Sunday] Divisions - Together 1 Corinthians 1-4](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1757016029499-QYKYXUZGFPWS60G27RFV/Together+1a.jpg)
First Fruits of the Spirit - Believe
How did Israel remember that God had saved them from slavery? They would give of their firstfruits and make sure the poor had food. What does this have to do with Pentecost?
Sermon Slides and resources.
Deuteronomy 16
9 “You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. 10 Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. 11 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. 12 You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
Leviticus 23
15 “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. 16 You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord. 17 You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the Lord. 18 And you shall present with the bread seven lambs a year old without blemish, and one bull from the herd and two rams. They shall be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 19 And you shall offer one male goat for a sin offering, and two male lambs a year old as a sacrifice of peace offerings.20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. 21 And you shall make a proclamation on the same day. You shall hold a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations.
22 “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”
![[Sunday] Body- Together 1 Corinthians 5-7](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1757614641277-E3RL138857X8O6C1GA6P/Together+2a.jpg)
Strengthened Faith, Fervent Love
“Christians live outside themselves: they live in Christ by faith and in their neighbor by love.”
Rev. Bart Day Letter: Strengthened Faith, Fervent Love …
Strengthened Faith, Fervent Love …
“Christians live outside themselves: they live in Christ by faith and in their neighbor by love.”
That was one of Martin Luther’s most brilliant “ahas”! It runs right along with his observation that the nature of sin is “to be curved in on yourself.”
Consequently, the effect of Christ’s Gospel in His appointed Means of Grace seizing hold of you is that it begins unbending you. It begins lifting up your eyes to behold with joy the certain promises of God in Christ. To know them as true for you. To begin to be filled with the hope that flows from them. And at the same time, it opens your eyes to see and meet the needs of your neighbor with a fiery love, a divine compassion.
How Pentecost Sunday Changed Everything
Pentecost weekend marks one of the most important events in human history.
Every generation has its watershed moments, events that divide time and make the “after” somehow different than the “before.”
For millennials, 9/11 stands out as the prime example. For Gen Xers, perhaps it is the fall of the Berlin Wall or the O.J. Simpson trial, and for baby boomers, maybe the assassination of JFK. But did you know that many churches this weekend will recognize a more impactful era-defining watershed moment than all of the aforementioned events combined?
REDISCOVERING PENTECOST
According to the Church’s storied liturgical calendar (or Christian year), this Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, a day where Christians for nearly two millennia have celebrated the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on God’s people. However, when people hear the word “Pentecost” these days, they may be more likely to think about a particular denomination, sprightly choir robes, tambourines and ecstatic glossolalia (i.e., speaking in tongues).
Pentecost - Believe
It seems like we are always trying to ascend to God. We built a tower to God, we want to ascend in our prayer life, and we talk about rising in spirituality. However, throughout the Scriptures we see that God comes down
Slides from Sermon
Sin Spanx
In Luke chapter 18, Jesus tells a story of a spiritual girdle that we Christians wear far more often than we’d like to admit. This spiritual girdle, just like with Spanx, is one that we’d rather no one knew about.
Have you ever heard of Spanx? Although they’ve only been around since 2010, their predecessors have been around for centuries. Basically, Spanx are a 21st century girdle. Like other girdles, Spanx streamlines your love-handles and lumps making you appear much thinner and fitter than you really are.
In Luke chapter 18, Jesus tells a story of a spiritual girdle that we Christians wear far more often than we’d like to admit. This spiritual girdle, just like with Spanx, is one that we’d rather no one knew about.
Here’s Jesus’ story from Luke 18:9-14
"He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The King - Believe
It’s popular to say today that Jesus is Lord (King) of your heart. But is that the story in the Bible? Today we are seeing how God became King over all the creation.
Slides from the Sermon
The Wicked Way We Become More Like Jesus
“I’ve never had a better look at Jesus than when I’m lying flat on my back with the walls of my life burning down all around me.”
I'm always surprised to hear people say, “If I could do it all again, I wouldn’t change a thing.” But we’re all sinners and we all sin every day. Some of us screwed up a lifetime ago and others fell short just last night. But everyone has THAT thing they would give anything to change. Pay any price to take back. And if you don’t have that… just wait. You may not have lived long enough yet.
I remember believing my own lies. Tell yourself a grenade is a flower enough times and you may just believe it enough to pull the pin. I have. And I blew myself to pieces.
But it’s never just about you. The shrapnel from your own explosion penetrates the souls of everyone around you. As hard reality starts to set in, you can’t bear it. You’re bleeding out as you spit venom, sin, and excuses. Even more shrapnel from your tongue lodges itself in those closest to you. Sin upon sin. It’s like struggling in quicksand. But sadly you didn’t just fall in. You dove in head first thinking it was a hot spring. You mistook the roaming lion of the Devil outside your door for a house cat. Then he ripped you wide open like a Christmas present.
Instead of treating the body as a means for selfish gain, Paul's message points to a greater purpose where our bodies are made into a holy dwelling for God himself.