God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;

Read the rest of this great hymn HERE

Our Olympic games are now over!

We had a wonderful week learning and playing together in London! Thank you to all our wonderful teachers and volunteers who made the week great! And a special thanks to the Youth participating in Local Missions Week! Couldn’t have done it without you guys!

Here are some details from the children’s week at VBS. Pleae check our blog for more details and pictures and videos from the week.

VBS 2012 – Carry the Torch
Acts 20:24
“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me —the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

Monday
Acts 9:1-22
God puts Paul on the road to following Jesus.
Service Project: Bundles for the Homeless: The children made bundles to be handed out to people experiencing homelessness. These included small snacks and toiletries, a washcloth, and socks all wrapped up in a T-shirt…all ready to be delivered. Each family took a bundle to be distributed where they saw a need.
*A VERY special thanks goes to The Adair Group who donated 60 T-shirts to our project. What a great organization!

Tuesday
Acts 16:16-39
Paul invites the jailer and his family to join him on the road to following Jesus.
Service Project: Goody bags for families at Ronald McDonald House: The children packed bags of items to help families and parents pass the time spent at the hospital with their children.

Wednesday
Acts 19:23-20:1
The road to following Jesus is not always easy.
Service Project: Flower Arrangements for Emeritas Nursing Home: The children created 80 flower arrangements to be distributed by our youth group to the residents.

Thursday
Acts 23:12-35
God provides helpers to keep us safe as we follow Jesus.
Service Project: Cookies to Share: This was a more personal project for our children. They decorated small boxes and filled them with cookies. Then they were tasked with giving these cookies to another person. As you can imagine, this required quite a bit of sacrifice for the children.

Friday
Acts 27
By trusting God’s promises as Paul did, we can share God’s goodness with others.
Service Project: Canned Goods and Encouragement Cards: On our final day the children packed up canned goods and other items for Bread of the Mighty Food Bank. And then they made cards of encouragement to be sent to the missionaries our church supports.

One key to living by faith is to realize that faith laments.

Lament is ultimately hopeful.  Seems paradoxical, doesn’t it?  The person sitting before you is weeping and wailing about his pain, and it is supposed to produce hope?  There, of course, is a fine line between complaining and lamenting, but too often we dismiss the baby with the bath water.  Dan Allender says that one who laments often looks like a grumbler or complainer, but that biblical lament is nothing of the sort.  Instead, lament contains in itself the possibility of extraordinary hope, restored desire, a changed heart.  Lament is, at its core, a search for  God.  It is not a search for answers.  It is not an invitation to fix an ailment.  Rather, lament enters the agony with the recognition that it might not go away for days, months, even years.  And yet, the lament carries with it the hope that God will eventually show.  Dan Allender puts it this way:  “Lament is a search – a declaration of desire that will neither rest with a pious refusal to ache, nor an arrogant self-reliance that is a hardened refusal to search.”

Godlessness is anti-shalom. Godlessness spoils the proper relation between human beings and their Maker and Savior. Sin offends God not only because it bereaves or assaults God directly, as in impiety or blasphemy, but also because it bereaves and assaults what God has made.

Here are some questions I’ve heard frequently already:

• “What in the world is going on?”
• “How are we to think and feel about violence?”
• “Does the Bible say anything about violence?”

Very helpful thoughts HERE by the Resurgence

These last two Sundays in July we’ll look at Habakkuk.  Here’s the book at a glance.

3 chapters, 56 verses. Habakkuk is the prophet who asked two questions that God answered at length and who then responded with a great prayer testifying to his faith in God. More specifically, the prophet expresses questions and doubts regarding God’s justice and management of the world. The book of Habakkuk has affinities with the branch of philosophy known as theodicy (reconciling God’s goodness toward the human race and his omnipotence, considered within a context of evil and suffering), inasmuch as the prophet’s response of faith in the third chapter demonstrates that for him the power and goodness of God have been satisfactorily reconciled with the evil and suffering that he sees in the world. The most famous part of the book is the prophet’s great testimony that he will maintain faith in God even if his external situation becomes disastrous (3:17–19).

source is ESV Literary Study Bible