Greetings Church Family!
Grateful today for God’s care for us and his desire that we live peaceful and quiet lives, godly and dignified in every way! May we continue to pray for government to that end. In this update we’ll recap our recent political equipping, highlight one of our ministry goals, as well as provide a giving update.
Before we dive in, I wanted to give a public service announcement: We have been told by a few members that they have received what appear to be emails sent by Tab or myself asking you to buy gift cards. Please know that these emails are a scam, we will never email you asking you to
buy gift cards or send us money. We believe that their emails were taken from our website, so we have scrubbed our website of all personal emails in addition to changing the password for our member portal to make sure that information is safe. If you receive any emails or have any questions, please let us know.
As a reminder, the Zoom info for the prayer meeting tonight at 7pm is at the bottom of our update.
IMAGO DEI AND THE CHURCH CONNECTING
One of the theological concepts I’ve been thinking about lately is the “imago dei,” the fact that every person has been created in the image of God. While there is a lot that can be said about the imago dei, what I want to highlight is how the image of God uniquely speaks to our second ministry priority this year: The Church Connecting.
To affirm that every human being is created in the image of God is to affirm that every human being is created for relationships (Gen. 1.26-28). This becomes very clear when we consider that the God whose image we’re created in is Triune. God, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, does not live in isolation but has always been in relationship. Being created in our Triune God’s image, we have been created to live in relationship with others.
While Genesis 2 shows us how we were created to live, as we see Adam and Eve living in perfect relationship with each other, we know that the story doesn’t end there. Genesis 3 shows us introduction of sin into the world and with it countless attacks on the image of God in each of us. In my opinion, one of the biggest attacks on the image of God in our culture is the growing
phenomenon of isolation, especially technological isolation where we can be “alone together.”
Today, we are tempted to embrace isolation, both physical and relational, when we settle for curated online relationships where we only show the beautiful moments of lives and hide the messy parts. But in the face of this attack, God is inviting us to live fully into the imago dei as we enter into real relationships with others. Relationships that require us to press into one
another’s mess, where we experience the fallenness and the suffering of others.
Our need for real relationship is one reason why “the church connecting” is one of our ministry priorities and why we desire to see every member experience more of our shared life in Christ by being an active part of a Home Group. It’s not because we want to see your name on a roster but because we want you to flourish as a person created in the image of God designed to experience real relationships with others. Because as we’ve been seeing in Ephesians, it’s through these relationships that we will be built up in love (Eph. 4).
If you’re not connecting relationally with others right now, either in our Home Groups or another context, let me encourage you to check out our Home Groups and commit to pursuing biblical fellowship in this way this year – that you might live into the image of God in you. If you would like more information about any of the groups, please email the church office
(info@gracechurcheast.org).
POLITICAL EQUIPPING
In our last two Sunday services we’ve taken a break from our series in Ephesians to provide biblically grounded, gospel-centered equipping on how to prepare and respond to an election. While our focus was primarily on the election, as elders our desire was to use this unique opportunity to equip all of our hearts for how to think about politics in general.
In our culture where politics have become a religion – something that we look to for belonging, meaning, righteousness, and deliverance – it’s a very real temptation for us to look to politics for things that we already have or are promised in Christ. I’m aware of this temptation in my own heart.
This is why I am so grateful for the sermons that Tab preached these last two weeks, as he has helped orient us to the realities of God’s kingdom of which we are all citizens. As we saw in Psalm 2, we are members of God’s unshaken kingdom with Christ sitting on the throne reigning as king! In 1 Timothy 2 we saw God’s command to all Christians to pray for government that we may know peace and the world know Christ.
If you missed these sermons or desire to be reminded of these important realities you can listen to the audio of the sermons online, additionally below you can view Tab’s cleaned up manuscript.
– How To Prepare for an Election (Psalm 2) – Listen HERE; Manuscript HERE
– How To Respond to an Election (1 Tim 2) – Listen HERE; Manuscript HERE
GIVING UPDATE
To keep you informed financially, we are bringing you more regular contributions updates. In October we received $23,294.00 in contributions, compared with our budgeted income of $20.584.00 (for a difference of $2,710).
Thank you for your sacrificial and generous giving to the ministry of the gospel in and through our church! Please keep praying that God would provide our daily bread!
PRAYER MEETING
The prayer team will gather via Zoom from 7-8pm for a time of prayer. If you’re interested in joining the Wednesday evening prayer meeting, please visit our prayer page HERE for the Zoom link and password.
grace and peace on behalf of Steve, Marshall, and Tab,
Joshua
