The Gospel Part II

We want to know and understand the whole Gospel of God. The Gospel should be so much a part of us that all of life reminds us of, and demonstrates to us, the centrality and importance of the Gospel in our lives.

In our discussions of the Gospel, we're going to break it down into 4 essential parts. Remember, this is just one way to organize it so we can discuss and remember it better. The organization itself is not the Gospel! Please interact with the Gospel, and be careful not to fall in love with some way to organize it. It is as we interact with it that it will become part of us and be beneficial to us. Here is how we will look at it:

1. God is Holy
2. Man is sinful
   
3. Jesus is the answer
4. God calls us to respond with repentance and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord
   

In our previous discussion, we spoke of God's holiness and a little of the sinfulness of mankind. We will at some point go back and look at the holiness of God, but for next week we are to consider the sinfulness of man. Please remember to read through Genesis 3, and ponder the following questions:

• What was the essence of Adam and Eve's sin?
• Consider how this "essence" of sin connects the outward effects of sin that we can see. In other words, what is it about sin that makes it so bad that God hates it, and how does that show itself in our actions as sinners?
  

Please be ready for this when we meet next Sunday!

What is the Gospel

When asked what this purpose of a missionary is, many people will respond with something like, "One who shares the Gospel with people from other cultures". There is a lot to discuss in this statement, but right know I would like to focus on the "Gospel" part. Take some time to study and contemplate what this "Gospel" is that we find so important as to compel us to share it with others. What is this Gospel that has compelled others to not only make it their lives work, but to even give up their lives?
Take some time to think and write about this this week in the comments of this blog. Search the scriptures for our answers, and indicate what those are in your answers. The questions is "What is the Gospel!"

Fund raising

We pray that everyone is feeling better and recovering from your various activities this weekend!

We need to get to work on fundraisers - this is something that we can work on over the internet and less in person, so be sure to chime in!

1. Yard Sale - spread the word to starting collecting/saving items for a huge yard sale in the spring. Let's set a date - a Saturday - please list days that ARE NOT good for you and email me at mcrattin@gmail.com. We'll need help running the yard sale as well as setting up the day before and advertising. We need some people who are not on the missions team who also can help out!

2. Herbal heating pads "rice socks" - we can make these together and sell them online, in our communities, and at the yardsale. We need to set a date to get together to make them - please suggest dates that are good for you - at least half a day. Also, we need the following materials: international looking fabric, large spools of black and white thread, lots dried herbs - we have lots of rice that we'll donate to the cause and we have some African fabric which can be used. Anyone have a recipe for how much herbs need to go into one of these to make it aromatic when heated?

3. Penny jars - collect containers! We need to collect as many containers as possible ASAP - we can label them and give them back to our church family to start collecting loose change. Does someone want to design a small label that we can print off, cut up, and glue to the containers?

4. Refine your support letters and get them to Josh if you haven't already. He especially likes to proof read letters in languages that he doesn' t know... right Elizabeth? haha!! ;-)

5. More thoughts?

Keep praying!
-Abby