Cards, visits and phone calls are usually really appreciated by our shut-ins! It’s good to phone first before a visit. This is another way for us to be a family of faith in practical ways!

•Levi and Myna Akker, Alverno Health Care Facility, 849 13th Avenue North, Clinton, IA 52732.

•John Hamstra, Good Neighbor Care of Sterling – Room 202, 2705 Avenue E, Sterling, IL 61081.

•Ken & Vivian Tenboer, Prairie Hills Assisted Living, 1701 13th Avenue North #527, Clinton, IA 52732.

•Loretta Hook, Prophets Riverview Center, 310 Mosher Drive, Apt. 102, Prophetstown, IL 61277.

•At Four Seasons/Skilled Care: Bev Akker, Clausina Huizenga, and Jennie VanZuiden.

•At Pleasant View: Jessie Dykema, Esther Hamstra, Ella Mae Pruis, and Dorothy Vos.

•At Resthave: Gene Bush, Lorraine Dykema, Marvin & Ann Dykema, Wayne Farrell, Don Hamstra, John & Sena Huizenga, Hubert & Gertrude Londo, Eunice Rick, Ida May Stuart, Jessie VanderEide, Jeannette Vanderlaan, Gladys Vandermyde, and Lorraine Workman.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

10:00 a.m. – Worship

11:30 a.m. – Picnic, Games, Fun & Fellowship

Bounce House – Games

See You There!

THE ROLE OF MUSIC IN WORSHIP

1. To worship God through music (Psalm 27:6) At His tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord.

2. To praise God through music (Psalm 150:3-4) Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet; praise Him with harp and lyre. Praise Him with tambourine and dancing; praise Him with the strings and flute.

3. To lift the emotions of the heart (James 5:13) Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.

4. To learn scripture and spiritual truths by singing (Psalm 32:7-8) You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.

5. To encourage one another with Biblical truth through music (Ephesians 5:18-19) Be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.

6. To instruct and convict by the scriptural texts of the songs (Isaiah 55:11) So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

7. To introduce others to Jesus Christ through special concerts, which can be an outreach to the unsaved (Psalm 40:3) He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God, many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.

Please consider sharing your gift of music during worship. This can be achieved in many ways—through enthusiastic congregational singing, by playing an instrument or singing a solo, through liturgical dance, or by singing with the worship team or choir.

newsletter. The end comes! It seems impossible that ten months have

passed so quickly. I thank you for the opportunity to have served you. I will

remember this time fondly.

So what words should be said besides thank you? I go to Psalm 87. It is a

Psalm of rejoicing for God knows His people, and those people know Him.

They gather in His presence from the whole world, even from tribes afar

off. The Psalm closes with these words, “Singers and dancers alike say, all

my springs are in you.” They mean that with songs and dance the gathered

people rejoice in the life-giving springs the come forth from God.

Eugene Peterson, a spiritual writer, writes of this verse in his book Where

Your Treasure Is: Psalms that Summon You from Self to Community:

When we are normal we talk, when we are dying we

whisper, but when there is more in us than we can contain,

we sing. When we are healthy we walk, when we are

decrepit, we shuffle, but when we are beyond ourselves

with vitality we dance. Where do we get the energy…

prayer…we skip a grace rope to a Christ tune

ERC had its grief, its sad song, its wonderings. We might have whispered

and shuffled. Some didn’t wait to hear if there would be a song.

Now folks, it is time to sing, time to dance. The new senior pastor will need

the crowd to sing and dance. Testimony and witness. Joy and sharing.

Hope and rejoicing. ERC experienced God’s faithfulness. The Holy Spirit

inspired the propositions. The time for grief and lament passed. Now it is

time to sing and dance.

I pray I hear a great choir and see a joyful troupe. Blessings on you and

your ministry.

With much love,

Jim

recently for a family funeral, I noticed a sign in the restaurant where we

were eating breakfast. It said, “Jesus knows me, this I love.” That

memorable turn of a familiar phrase struck me. Yes, this is exactly how

it is.

There’s a striking and disturbing scenario described by Jesus at the end

of his “sermon on the mount.” Matthew 7:21-23. The scene is the final

judgment. Many people are coming up to Jesus, who is now the Judge,

confident that they will enter eternity with Him. They have done lots of

things “for Jesus” and “in Jesus’ name.” But Jesus turns them away. He

says, “I never knew you.” Of course, Jesus knows who they are. The

point He is making is that these people do not have a personal

relationship with Him. He doesn’t “know” them as those who have come

to Him as their personal Savior and Friend. He doesn’t know them as

His brothers and sisters and disciples who have spent time with Him and

gotten to know Him.

Does Jesus know you? The danger can be that we confuse going to

church, believing in God and doing good or religious things, with

knowing Jesus and being known by Him. Prayer is a grocery list or a

religious exercise instead of talking with Jesus. When all is said and

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done, Jesus is like the local sales clerk at a store who we go to for stuff

we need, rather than the friend and brother and Savior Jesus wants to

be. The things the people were doing “for Jesus” were not bad or out of

line. The point was, they were not in a saving, personal relationship

with Jesus.

How do we do that? We ask Jesus to be our Savior and we commit

ourselves to living for Him. And then as we learn and do the things He

desires from us, we also spend time in Bible reading and prayer,

listening to God and talking with Him as a friend. There’s no other way

to building a relationship with someone, including Jesus and our

heavenly Father, than spending time with that person.

Jesus knows me, this I love! It means that when I shall someday meet

him face to face, He will not turn me away, but will welcome me into His

new creation where our friendship can grow forever!

Here are some “truths to ponder” from one of the email forwards I

received and happened to open:

1. As a child of God, prayer is kind of like calling home every day.

2. Do the math. Count your blessings.

3. Dear God: I have a problem. It’s me.

4. We do not remember days, but moments. Enjoy your precious

moments.

5. Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your

character is what you really are; your reputation is what others think

you are.

6. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.

and churches embraced this concept as the newest and latest thing.

Some might question this however. Weren’t we always to be missional?

Didn’t Jesus send us out forth to be missional from the time He

commissioned the church?

Some contend that missional used to mean that churches sent forth

missionaries to other lands while not seeing the mission before their own

eyes in the their own locales. That might have been true. Yet, local

churches and mainline denominations led this country in founding and

supporting public schools, social security, hospitals, food pantries, and

social services. The churches of Grand Rapids, Michigan founded and

supported numerous missions to the homeless and hungry during the

Great Depression. The city had a reputation for attracting the poor. I

once asked why, and a local leader responded that the church in Grand

Rapids took their call to “do unto the least of these” seriously. That

challenge remains – to be missional.

The church’s sense of mission is challenged in this day in ways we might

not have expected. The percentage of people professing any faith has

seriously declined in the last decade and religious participation has

become a casual choice. The beliefs and actions of Christians

demonstrate little difference than those of moral agnostics.

Reggie McNeill leads the church in rethinking their mission. His book,

The Present Future, outlines six seismic shifts in North American culture

that challenge the church today. The six can be summarized this way:

people are open to the kingdom of God. That kingdom is a future that is

already present. Our mission is to introduce the kingdom into this

world, with its preferred future for humanity.

His book challenges Christians to rethink strategies. For instance, the

old strategy for youth ministry was to hire the best youth director

possible with the charisma to attract kids through high powered youth

gatherings. The result – 90% of the kids highly involved in their high

school youth group drop out of the church by age 23. The new strategy

– a youth director spends 2-3 hours a week with kids. Continue that

work, but the kingdom director mentors parents who spend hours with

children each day. How do I disciple my children in Jesus? How do I

build my marriage? How does our family build the Kingdom of God?

What is our family’s mission? Who does our family serve mission

together in this community? We move from churchianity to kingdom

Christianity.

Yes, it’s important to gather with the saints, to worship God, to learn His

word, and to pray corporately. That happens once or twice a week for

most Christians. As important is the question, “How have I blessed

someone in Jesus name today, this week, or since we last met? How

have I been the body of Christ the other six days of the week?

A big challenge, but we have a big God and the power of his Spirit.

In Christ’s love,

Jim

You may get a copy  at the church office. Each book is $10.00. Remember the proceeds from the sale of these books will be given to ERC Sunday school to help build the new program started this past season.

He began with a story of a student who had come to the Christian college where he was teaching.  Lars had come on a football scholarship and he had only two interests – football and chasing girls.  But after a couple of weeks at the college, he had come bursting into Dr. Meyer’s office, totally frustrated.  None of the girls he had wanted to date had accepted his invitation.  And the reason was that he didn’t believe the same way they believed.  When he asked them what it was, all they could say was, “We just believe it.”  He wanted Dr. Meyer to explain the things of faith to him so he could get some dates!  Dr. Meyer realized that apparently none of the students at the college were able to explain their faith, what they believed and why.  He told Lars, “Do you think it would be helpful if I were to teach a class to help students explain the reasons for their faith?”  Lars reacted, “You mean there are reasons?”

Dr. Meyer began to develop a course that would help students understand that their Christian faith can be and needs to be grounded in reality.  60-80% of students from Christian homes who attend public universities lose their faith.  Why?  Many are confronted by secular teachers who challenge and may belittle their faith, and they had not been taught how to respond from a biblically grounded world view which can give answers for each of the challenges. 

Interestingly, atheists and materialists (people who believe that the physical stuff of the universe is all there is), need to have faith that this is the way it is.  They cannot prove the non-existence of God, and they have an impossible time explaining the existence of “stuff.”  Where did it all come from?  And life, including complex life.  How could that ever have happened against all odds?

Dr. Meyer will go on in his presentations to make the case that theism is the best explanation of reality, compared to the other major worldviews.  He compares theism (God is personal and continues to be involved with creation) with deism (God is personal but he leaves his creation to run by the laws he has created), materialism (matter is all that is) and pantheism (the whole universe is a non-personal god; you and I and all the stuff of the universe is “god”).  Meyer is one of the proponents of Intelligent Design, a viewpoint and argument that the best explanation for our universe is that it is not the result of random chance and evolution, but rather the obvious product of an incredible intelligence.

Why not join us?  Or, if you are interested, I could borrow the DVDs and we could set up a time and place to view and discuss them at ERC! 

It is important for us to be able to defend our faith and give a reason for the hope that is in us.  An 11^th century Christian philosopher by the name of Anselm spoke of “faith seeking understanding.”  It is especially important in our society that has strong faith in science, that Christians, young and old, understand and are able to explain to our youth and to each other that the Bible speaks the truth, also when it comes to creation and science.  An old Confession of the Reformed churches, the Belgic Confession, says that God has revealed himself in two books, and we need to study both – the book of Creation and the book of Scripture.  In Romans 1:19, 20, God says that he has revealed himself to all humankind in his creation.  When we study the creation, we need to see God!