FBC E-Blast - May 13, 2019
FBC E-Blast
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May 13, 2019
The Church: God's Design - Hebrew 10
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When you hear the word "church," do you picture a little white building full of smiling people in fancy clothes? As lovely as that image may be, God's design for church is unrelated to it. He created the church to be a unified fellowship of believers who encourage each other and carry out His ministry to the world.
The Bible clearly defines the following as ministries of the church: worshiping the living God, instructing and edifying believers, making disciples of all nations, and serving the needy. Unless the leadership is careful, however, these purposes can all too easily get out of balance, with the unfortunate result that the body ends up malnourished. For example, a church with too heavy an emphasis on praise might become introverted. Congregations that overemphasize teaching could lose their joy, and those that evangelize to the neglect of the other areas could miss out on great faith.
Because of sin and human imperfection, we do not experience church as it was originally intended. Instead, there's a tendency to overstress certain ministry areas. What's more, divisive arguments - many of which concern minor issues, such as music preferences - too often destroy unity. Greed, pride, selfishness, and gossip can also tear a congregation apart.
Since they're composed of imperfect people, churches will be imperfect too. Though expecting anything else leads to disappointment, we should nonetheless strive for God's original design, continually measuring ourselves against Scripture and correcting course to realign with His purpose.
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Upcoming Sermon Series
Suffering is a part of life. Over the the weeks of this series, we will lay some foundation work on what it means to have a healthy, biblical perspective on suffering and how to respond appropriately as the Lord would have us in the midst of suffering and to do so. We invite you to join us as we look into A Theology of Suffering. This series starts May 19.
Last Week:
God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God created woman in His image. God created mothers in His image. God shows us a different aspect of Himself through mothers.
Sunday's message is usually available for streaming or for download on our
sermons page, or by visiting us on iTunes.
Next Week:
We will begin our new series A Theology of Suffering, by looking into God's Purpose in Trials.
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Upcoming Events
May 18 - Free Market at our church from 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM.
May 19 - Deacon's Meeting at 8 AM
May 26 - Lord's Supper & Deacon's Fund Offering following AM Worship service
June 2 - Carry-in Fellowship Dinner
June 8 - Trustee's Meeting at 8 AM
June 19 - Special Speaker Tom Boehm Missionary to Italy at 7 PM.
July 7 - Special Speaker Eric Shadle Missionary to Ethiopia
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