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Community of Joy Lutheran Church |
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You may remember the sermon from a few weeks ago in which I mentioned the “Ten Commandments.” I said that most of us immediately think of the |
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how many of them would you be willing to tell Jesus if he were to ask, “Why did you miss worship last week?” The point is that there is no good excuse (short of sickness, on vacation, or “had to work”) for missing an opportunity to worship God and praise Jesus each week. We should all want to be in church! God calls upon us to “build each other up.” We cannot do that if we aren’t together.
I’ll see ya’ll in church! In God’s Peace, |
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110 Balboa Road Hot Springs Village, AR 71909 501-915-9569 |
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words “thou shalt not” when we hear these commandments. My point in that message was that these commandments have more to do with love (love God and love our neighbors) than they do with negativism (thou shalt nots). |
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On July 7th and 8th I sang a song by Josh Tuner called “Long Black Train.” It is a “country” song and one of the parishioners said - as she left the sanctuary, “That was like being in the Cowboy Church.” With those two things in mind (the commandments and the Cowboy Church) I would like to share a very simplified version of the Ten Commandments that I first heard while I served a church in Texas. They go like this:
1) Just one God. 2) Honor yer Ma and Pa. 3) No tellin’ tales or gossipin’. 4) Git yerself to Sunday meetin’. 5) Put nothin’ before God. 6) No foolin’ ‘round with another feller’s gal. 7) No killin’. 8) Watch yer mouth. 9) Don’t take what ain’t yers. 10) Don’t be a hankerin’ fer yer buddy’s stuff.
Those say it pretty plainly - don’t they? They are certainly all important, but I want to make special mention about two of them. They are number 4 - “Git yerself to Sunday meetin’,” and number 5 - “Put nothin’ before God.” How many excuses can we think up regarding why we might not be in church on any given Saturday or Sunday (supposing you are in town and you are not sick)? Of those excuses - |
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Christian Education: Come one, come all!
Pastor Ross will present Christian Education classes two-times per month (1st and 3rd Sundays) in July and August. Starting in September they will be offered every Sunday.
Here are the titles of the upcoming classes: Aug. 5th - Mary Magdalene - Wife of Jesus? Aug. 19th -Religion: Real or Fantasy? Sept. 2nd - Mormonism: Christian or Cult? Sept. 9th - Looking at Judaism and Islam Sept. 16th -Consumerism: Where Is Your Treasure? Sept. 23rd -Liturgy, Worship, and Community Sept. 30th -ELCA Dissent: Who’s Leaving & Who’s Staying? Oct. 7th - What Seminarians Learn Today? Oct. 14th - The Dead Sea Scrolls Oct. 21st - The Crusades Oct. 28th - Rapture, Tribulation, and Eschatology! Nov. 4th -1st Century Jewish Family Values Shaped Christianity Nov. 11th - The Da Vinci Code and Jesus Nov. 18th -Can Science Find the Human Soul? Nov. 25th - Stewards of Creation vs. Global Warming
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