ATTN COLLEGE STUDENTS On Sunday May 1 be sure to stop at the table in the Fellowship Hall to pick up a “Finals Week Goodie Bag”.  There will be 300 bags available on a first come, first serve basis.

This week’s story is about the fulfillment of David’s desire to build a permanent place for the ark to reside. David’s son Solomon built the temple to house the ark and the other important  elements of the tabernacle. In the fourth year of Solomon’s reign he began building the temple,  a process that lasted for seven years until it was …

Our spring worship takes us to five Psalms that paint a picture of God’s people finding joy in the middle of all life gives us.  When we take a step back from our relentless pace, we look back to see God’s goodness to us.  And he is good!  So good, in fact, that if we gaze at how good he is, we will burst with tears of joy.  And that pause, that kind of joy, gets us ready to live into the future God lays out for us.  

This week we’ll discover there are many ways that we get lost, broken, and wrecked.  And, no matter what way you got lost or broken or wrecked, God’s love for us in Jesus rescues us and sets us free.  The Bible says we get “redeemed.”  And we will learn what people do who know what God has done for them.

Here are some photos and highlights from the Rainbow Club Celebration Night.  Thank you to all the leaders and children for another great year!

This week we moved on from David as The Gospel Project takes us to David’s son Solomon. Solomon was the second son of Bathsheba and became the next king of Israel. Once David died, Solomon had a dream in which God told him to ask for anything he wanted. Solomon told God that he was a young man and that what he wanted most of all was the wisdom needed to be a good leader for Israel. 

Our spring worship takes us to five Psalms that paint a picture of God’s people finding joy in the middle of all life gives us.  When we take a step back from our relentless pace, we look back to see God’s goodness to us.  And he is good!  So good, in fact, that if we gaze at how good he is, we will burst with tears of joy.  And that pause, that kind of joy, gets us ready to live into the future God lays out for us.  

This week we will be looking at how joy and gladness intersect with the sorrows and difficulties we face in life.  The Psalms are filled with not only rejoicing, but tears, sadness, grief and loss.  Last week Psalm 126 declared, “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.”  What does this look like?  Can God really bring joy out of our most painful experiences in life?

We have a lot to be GLAD about. WE ARE GLAD.

This week the kids looked at the lesson of the 10 Lepers.  We focused on giving thanks to God for all that He has done for us.  In the story of the Lepers only 1 of the 10 healed came back to thank Jesus.  We know that God is worthy of our praise.

This week marks the beginning of what we pray will be five weeks of incredible joy: joy over God’s grace to us in Jesus, joy over God’s blessing to us personally and as a church, and joy over the work that the Holy Spirit invites us to continue.

The gospel is called that! It means “good news.” If the story ended with everyone being separated from God because of sin, it would be terrible news. But God is full of love, mercy, and grace and He wants to be glorified. So He provided a way for people to be forgiven and made right with Him again.

Through the centuries, followers of Jesus have made it their practice to gather on the first day of every week to celebrate the resurrection.  That’s why most churches worship God on Sundays.  Every Sunday is a mini-Easter.

But the specific celebration on Easter Sunday is the biggie!  We take time to read again the story of Jesus rising from the dead.  The human writers of the Bible tell us the resurrection story through the people who experienced it.