Here’s the info for this Sunday’s service- just a little appetizer to get you ready for the meat and potatoes.

Text-

Judges 3:1-11

Songs-

God of Wonders

 

He Knows My Name

 

Arise O God and Shine

 

Grace Like Rain

 

Tis So Sweet

 

Rock of Ages

Memory Verse For This Week-

John 17:3

Announcements-

¨ Baby Shower– Thursday, February 21st at 6:30 there will be a baby shower for Heather Bertholf and new baby Asher at Tim and Nicole Pickard’s home. See Nicole for more details.

¨ Pinewood Derby– Our first ever father/child pinewood derby race will be held Saturday March 15th from 10am-2pm. Lunch is included. Pick up a car and sign up at the table in the hallway. See Pat or Jeff for more details.

¨ Women’s Mentoring– If you are interested in being mentored or would like to serve by mentoring a woman desiring mentoring contact Kathy Peterson.

¨ Women’s Prayer Meeting– Next Sunday, before service at 9am. Come invest an hour in prayer with other women. See Shannon Bell for details.

¨ Next Week’s Nursery Servants- Nursery– Susan Boatman, Nancy Thornton Toddlers– Shannon Bell, Stephanie Bell, Max Bell.

¨ Children’s Ministry– Passage: Genesis 25:21–26; 27:1–29 Principle: God chooses whomever He wants to accomplish His plan. Practice: By patiently waiting for God’s timing and trusting His ways. By seeing the ugliness of sin and hating it. Preparing for Next Week: Genesis 32

Some of you may be going out with your spouses tonight (fyi- today is Valentine’s Day) but in case you aren’t I wanted to remind us all that tomorrow is the first ever ASGF Date Night. This is a great opportunity for all couples- with kids or not- to focus on your closest and most precious earthly companion.

For those with kids we will be providing babysitting at the Canyon View Center from 6-9pm tomorrow night (Friday). Dinner will be provided for the children so please let us know if you are planning on dropping your kids off.

We hope this will be a sweet time for you to enjoy time together, share your hearts with one another, encourage one another with God’s grace, and demonstrate your passionate love for one another.

Gentlemen, if you haven’t started planning your date yet join the club. This may be a novel concept but it can be a simple way to serve your wife (just don’t look to me for an example here).

If you have any favorite date ideas or creative ideas you want to try share them below (some of us really struggle to come up with this kind of stuff).

Here are a couple of links that might be helpful.

The Auburn Buzz- Look in the event calendar section. They also have a restaurant rating system.

Auburn California Welcome Center Calendar of Events- listing of events in Auburn and other areas of Placer County.

Auburn Journal- frequently lists upcoming events and activities.

Justin Buzzard recently wrote a great article which was posted over at the New Attitude website. This is what gospel saturation is about- bringing it into things like our everyday conversations- both what we talk about and how we think about those conversations. This one is well worth the read!

How many conversations do you have per day? Ten? Twenty? Fifty?

What are these different conversations about—what topics do you tend to talk about the most? As you go about your conversations does the gospel ever make an appearance? Or, to put it another way: does the gospel that you cherish during Sunday mornings services, during private Bible reading and prayer, during your small group meeting—does this gospel receive airtime in your everyday conversations?

Here are two conversational habits I’m trying to develop and the benefits that I’m discovering along the way: (more…)

At 7:28 am this morning, February 10th, the Reed’s welcomed a new baby boy into their family.  The currently nameless gift from God was 7.7 lbs at birth and 20 inches long (by the way they are looking for suggestions for names so feel free to give yours in the comment section below).

Baby and mom are doing great.  Praise God for the miracle of birth!  Congratulations Reeds!

Justin Taylor posted the following quotes over at Between Two Worlds this last week.  Thought-provoking and gospel centered stuff- enjoy!

Robert L. Dabney, from his Systematic Theology, p. 716:

Prayer is the vital breath of religion in the soul. It cultivates our sense of dependence and of God’s sovereignty.

By confessing our sins, the sense of sin is deepened.

By rendering thanks, gratitude is enlivened.

By adoring the divine perfections, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory.

From all this it is apparent that prayer is the Christian’s vital breath. If God had not required it, the Christian would be compelled to offer it by his own irrepressible promptings. If he were taught to believe that it was not only useless, but wrong, he would doubtless offer it in his heart in spite of himself, even though he were obliged to accompany it with a petition that God would forgive the offering. To have no prayer is, for man, to have no religion.

Lee Irons comments:

The great danger is to turn the duty of prayer into a law that leaves you feeling guilty for your lack of prayer. The paradox of law-based motivations to godliness is that the more guilty you feel, the less you will do what you know you ought to do. And the more you fail, the more guilty you feel. It is the never-ending spiral of law-sin-guilt from which one cannot be extricated apart from the gospel.So try something new. Follow Dabney’s encouragement and think of prayer as something that you already do without realizing it. Or, perhaps more accurately, as something that your regenerate heart wants to do, if only you would capitalize on those irrepressible promptings from the Spirit and turn them into conscious prayers. Instead of thinking of prayer as something arduous and requiring tremendous amounts of discipline and effort, see it as something easy. As soon as the thought, “I should pray about this,” pops into your heard, do it right then and there. Just talk to the Lord, even if for the briefest moment, even for a second or two (what I call “arrow prayers”).

Even when you have sunk into a pit of spiritual emptiness, where even the thought of trying to crawl out makes you feel exhausted and hopeless, the irrepressible promptings of the Spirit are there, perhaps nothing more than the simple, abject cry, “Lord, help me!” It is not really the case that we are prayerless. It is just that we have such an exalted conception of prayer that we have overlooked the many prayers that we have despised as unworthy of the name of prayer.

Here’s the details for this Sunday.  Look over the passage, sing the songs with your kids, and anticipate a time of rich corporate worship with the body of Christ.

Text-

Judges 2:6-23

Songs-

Blessed Be Your Name

My Stonghold

Help My Unbelief

Beautiful Scandalous Night

My Jesus I love thee

How Great is Our God

A while back on the Pulpit Magazine blog Jesse Johnson posted an article entitled “A Practice Not a Program.”  His emphasis on the members of the body getting out into the world and proclaiming the gospel is vital for us as we think about what it means to be gospel sent.   Here are some excerpts from it.

…our philosophy of evangelism hinges on the idea that evangelism is not a program. A church does not transform a community through activities and events. In fact, church-sponsored evangelism programs generally do not produce results. Rather, a church impacts its community through the lives of its members. The kingdom is expanded as believers are faithful in evangelism in their individual lives.

All believers are to be active in evangelism. In fact, all four Gospels end with Jesus commanding believers to bring salvation to the lost (Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47; John 20:21). Jesus’ last earthly words were another repetition of this same command, to bear witness to the gospel (Acts 1:8). It is not an overstatement to say that all Christians should be driven by a love for evangelism. After all, it is our mission in life.

But while all Christians are called to be active in evangelism, not all Christians are equally gifted at this particular calling. Acts 21:8 and Ephesians 4:11 both imply that some have the gift of evangelism and some do not. But God in His wisdom has still called all Christians to evangelize.

Thus, one of the marks of a Christian is a love for evangelism. If you are fearful, evangelism gives you the opportunity to trust God for courage. If you are timid, evangelism gives you an opportunity to trust God for confidence.

As Christians, we love what God loves, and God loves the lost. As we become more and more sanctified, we become more and more like Christ. This growth causes us to grow in our love for those who are still God’s enemies.

Don’t get me wrong—we do have evangelistic programs and outreaches, and we do have structured events. But what has consistently produced more fruit than any program is the faithfulness of individuals who express their love for their neighbors through evangelism.

The New Attitude website has recently featured a number of blog entries and articles having to do with church involvement and membership (you can find a number of those articles on the local church here).  Their website, and especially the article and audio sections, contains great resources.

The following is an excerpt from an article by Mark Dever (it actually comes from his new book “What is a Healthy Church?”).

Healthy churches, we have said, are congregations that increasingly reflect the character of God. Therefore, we want our earthly records to approximate, as much as possible, heaven’s own records—those names recorded in the Lamb’s book of life (Phil. 4:3; Rev. 21:27).

A healthy church aspires to receive and to dismiss individuals professing faith, just as the New Testament authors instruct. That is, it aspires to have a biblical understanding of membership.

Biblical Membership Means Commitment
A temple has bricks. A flock has sheep. A vine has branches. And a body has members. In one sense, church membership begins when Christ saves us and makes us a member of his body. Yet his work must then be given expression in an actual local church. In that sense, church membership begins when we commit to a particular body. Being a Christian means being joined to a church.

Scripture therefore instructs us to assemble regularly so that we can regularly rejoice in our common hope and regularly spur one another on to love and good deeds (Heb. 10:23–25). Church membership is not simply a record of a box we once checked. It’s not a sentimental feeling. It’s not an expression of affection toward a familiar place. It’s not an expression of loyalty or disloyalty toward parents. It should be the reflection of a living commitment, or it is worthless. Indeed, it’s worse than worthless; it’s dangerous, as we’ll consider in a moment.

Biblical Membership Means Taking Responsibility
The practice of church membership among Christians occurs when Christians grasp hold of each other in responsibility and love. By identifying ourselves with a particular local church, we are telling the church’s pastors and other members not just that we commit to them, but that we commit to them in gathering, giving, prayer, and service. We are telling them to expect certain things from us and to hold us accountable if we don’t follow through. Joining a church is an act of saying, “I am now your responsibility, and you are my responsibility.” (Yes, this is countercultural. Even more, it’s counter to our sinful natures.)

Biblical membership means taking responsibility. It comes from our mutual obligations as spelled out in all of Scripture’s one another passages—love one another, serve one another, encourage one another. All of these commands should be encapsulated in the covenant of a healthy church.