Monthly Archives: July 2023
Back to School Bash
Get ready to kick off the new school year with a fantastic celebration, as we gather together as a community to support and uplift our students, teachers, and families.
What to Expect
- Engaging Games & Activities
- Delicious Food & Refreshments
- Special Prayers for a Successful School Year
- Back-to-School Blessing for Students
- Movie Screening: Title: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
This event is open to everyone, so feel free to invite your friends, neighbors, and classmates. Let’s come together at Saint Matthew United Methodist Church to strengthen our community bonds and encourage one another as we embark on this new academic journey.
Don’t forget to bring your back-to-school enthusiasm and positive energy!
Mark your calendars and spread the word! We can’t wait to see you at the “Back to School Bash” on August 4th at 6:00 PM. It’s going to be a fantastic evening of fun and friendship!
#BackToSchoolBash #CommunityLove #EducationMatters #TogetherWeThrive
2332 – “God Wants Us Here”
Watch the full service on our YouTube channel by clicking here.
Acts 17:26-28 New International Version
26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Friday’s Word
An e-mail:
Rev. Max—We may at times get direction from God, but I am leery of the kind of ‘encounters with God’ you speak of. They may come from other sources, our imaginations, psychosis, even from the adversary himself.
Tom
Tom, Paul’s Road-to-Damascus experience was not a psychotic event, nor did it come from the Devil.
His NDE described in II Cor. 12 was not imagined.
Peter’s vision in Acts 10:9-16 did not reflect a deranged mind.
Conservative Christians are scared of religious experiences. They know people of all faiths can have them.
And the God we meet in experience is one who loves all people equally and unconditionally.
In other words, we meet in experience the God we know in Jesus Christ. We do not meet the angry and vengeful God of right-wing Christianity.
Why?
Because that God does not exist.
But let’s not let liberal Christianity off the hook. Liberal Christians often propose a useless God who does absolutely nothing.
That God does not exist either.
The God I know through both Jesus Christ and experience is one who is invested personally in our lives.
“In Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28.) And this God is available to us and accessible to us through experience.
So, as a Christian, I am not liberal nor am I conservative. What am I?
I am a person committed to the evidence.
I don’t just believe.
I know.
And you can, too.+++
The July concert was a triumph. Don’t miss the one in August.
Max’s Corner
IT WAS A TRIUMPH
The Blake and Shannon concert of Broadway numbers was shockingly good. You seldom hear music done more beautifully or more professionally. There are no stars on TV or silver screen who could have done it better. (I am serious about that.)
We need to set a predictable time for our concerts. Let’s call them our “Second Saturday Concerts.” This would put the August concert on August 12. (That date may or may not work). The September concert would be on the 9th. We are not yet certain about the August concert, but on Sept 9th I will do a one-man show: “God, Grace and Gooseberry—The Musical.” I may offer this concert to other churches as a fundraiser for St. Matthew. I will be singing some of my favorite songs and telling some favorite stories.
ONE MORE ME AND THEN MARY
I have a few more sermons in this series—which is really about who we are and why we are here in the world. I’ll preach the third sermon this Sunday then Mary will be up for a couple of weeks. After that I will take up where I left off.
I feel that things are getting exciting around St. Matthew. I do. I feel it.
Get in on it. See you Sunday.
GOD BLESS—-MB
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