Monday Digest

Well, yesterday was an adventure, wasn’t it?  A suddenly and inexplicably malfunctioning projector meant that we were without song lyrics, sermon slides, or the congregation’s part of the liturgy.  But a heroic effort by Matt Hoppe and the worship team (Bethany Hoang and Ian Hassell), and a lightning-fast trip to Kinko’s by Samantha Burg, kept us going. So thanks, everyone, for your flexibility!

And frankly, I think sometimes these kinds of snags are good for us.  They’re reminders that God doesn’t need any of our stuff to be glorified — just our broken spirits and contrite hearts (Psalm 51).

We dove in to our 4-week study of Jonah yesterday (bad pun intended).  I talked about the ways that all of us sometimes share in Jonah’s tendency to run away from Ninevah — the hard or offensive-seeming thing that God is calling us to — and to run for Tarshish — that thing that we’re sure will be much better for us than whatever God has called us to. I encouraged all of us to ponder two questions this week: Where’s your Ninevah?  And what’s your Tarshish?

A hard Ninevah for many of us can be sharing — vocally, with words! — about our faith in Jesus, who he is and why we choose to follow him.  If you’ve sensed God calling you to more boldness in sharing about your faith, then you’ll definitely want to come this Wednesday to “Stories That Matter:  Articulating Our Hope in a Culture of ‘Whatever.’” Connally Gilliam will lead us in an exploratory conversation about how we can find honest words, in the course of regular life, for what we’ve encountered & know about the reality, goodness, and divinity of Jesus.  We’ll trade our stories & past experiences with the “talking” part of outreach as we discover together how we might individually and collectively grow in our ability to give reasons for the hope that is within us.

You won’t want to miss it! RSVP below, and join us from 7:30 – 9:00 on Wednesday, August 4 at 2915 N. Dinwiddie St. in Arlington.