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F.P.C MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
 From Faith to Faith
JULY 2008
 VOL. XXIV No. VI
Pastor: Mark Scholten         Asst. Pastor: James Kobb

in this issue

  1. MESS Hall and STING

  2. WIC

  3. VBS

  4. New Adult Book Study

  5. Scheduling Changes

  6. Welcome

  7. Worship and the Word

  8. Mrs. Ruth Beckley

  9. Books

July Calendar

1. MESS Hall and STING

  • MESS Hall will meet at the Scholten home on July 10th at 7 p.m.

  • STING (Young Adults) will meet at the Scholten home on July 12 (Saturday) 4:00-6:00 p.m.
     

  • MESS HALL PARTY!

TOPSEY  TURVY MESS!

Would you like ketchup to top off your ice cream or to dip your hot dog in chocolate fudge? Topsey Turvey Night will be an “upside down” and “inside out” creative evening! So feel free to come dressed in topsey turvy fashion. Prizes will be awarded for the most creative outfits. (Please keep in mind we are here to glorify God so no undergarments on the exterior and modesty is a must.)
 

When: Friday, July 25th
Where: Blasiman’s House, 10844 Beeson Street, Alliance, OH
Time: 6:00 p.m. until?
 

2. WIC

Ladies of Faith Church: The Annual WIC Picnic will be Saturday, July 19th from 12 noon to 2:00 p.m. at the home of Fern Richards. Please bring a salad or dessert to share with the group. Beverages and tableware will be provided for you. We will be packaging the items we have collected to ship to our chaplain in Iraq so if you have any last minute items for the box please bring it along. If you have any questions please see Fern Richards. There is a sign up sheet on the vestibule table.
 

3. Vacation Bible School 2008


Once again it is time for Vacation Bible School! (August 4-8 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.)

Day One: Follow: God gives us faith to follow his plan. (Romans 1:17)
Day Two: Believe: God gives us faith to believe his promises. (Hebrews 11:6)
Day Three: Obey: God gives us faith to obey him. (Ephesians 2:8)
Day Four: Repent: God gives us faith to repent and give our lives to Jesus (Matthew 6:19-20)
Day Five: Share: God gives us faith to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:7)
Each year the children are challenged to learn and memorize the Bible verses listed above. (Kids: Get a head start…start memorizing now! KJV only please.)

Along with teaching and Bible memorization the children will be collecting money for our chosen missionary. Mrs. Rastetter will be telling all about Calvin Taylor and his work with orphans in India this year. The class that collects the most money to help Mr. Taylor will get a terrific prize for their hard efforts. (In past years to help raise money to donate to the missionaries some children have had Kool-Aid stands and some have gone door to door selling home baked cookies.)

We still need one day helpers and a nursery worker. If you would like
to donate to help our “VBS Staff Lunch” program please see Melinda Althuis. After working hard all morning the staff sit down to a meal to relax, unwind, and discuss the next day of VBS.

July 6 Planning meeting
July 12 Craft meeting for craft workers at the church 9:30 am
July 19 Prop work day – all welcome at the church 9:30 am
July 20 Planning meeting
August 3 After evening service we will set up for the big day

Please check out the web site weekly for updates and more news.

4.New Adult Book Study



A new adult study group is forming and you are invited! (This group has no name so be thinking of a name to submit for consideration.)

The Tasseff family is opening their home for this study. This study will meet the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month at 7:00 p.m.

The course of study is a book by Nelson K. Kloosterman called Walking About Zion (a study of Psalms). If you are interested in joining this study please contact Pastor Mark to get a study book. (One per couple if possible please).

 

5.Scheduling Changes:


Deacons: There will be no deacon’s meeting on July 12. Instead the deacons will meet jointly with the Session on July 19th at 9:00 a.m.
Men’s Breakfast: The Men’s Bible Study and Breakfast will not meet on July 26th. Instead they will meet on July 19th at 8:00 a.m.

 

6.Welcome

 Margaret Grace Duff who was born on June 24th to Dr. Joel and Mrs. Dawn Duff. We are so glad to welcome another covenant child to our church family!.

7.Worship and the Word
 

The churches of the Reformation (and to a significant extent also the churches before the Reformation) not only sought to have the Bible guide their worship, but also sought to fill worship with the Word of God. This is because the Word not only instructs us but is also the means through which we draw near to God. We know, serve, and worship God through his Word. It is also “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Ps. 119:105) in worship.
How is the Word to be present and fill our worship? As the Bible shows, the Word is present in several forms.
Reading God’s Word
The most obvious is the reading of the Word. This Word should be a distinct and central part of worship. Paul wrote to Timothy, “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13). Here the reading of the Bible is given an importance that is coordinate to preaching and teaching. Too many churches today seem content with reading at most only a few verses of the Bible. In times past, significant sections of several parts of the Bible were read in worship services. In Puritan times several chapters were usually read in each service.
The Bible makes no rule on how much Scripture must be read in any one worship service, but do we really love the Word of God if we are content consistently to hear only a verse or two?
Praying God’s Word
The Word should also fill our prayers. The greatest prayers of the church are rich in the language of the Bible itself, offering God’s Word back to him in prayer. The words of the Bible should inform our prayers with the truth of God, the promises of God, and the blessings of God on his people. Today much of what passes for prayer in our churches is mere repetitive and shallow talk because of wanting to sound informal and casual. And often prayer becomes only a list of requests to God. Even worse, in some churches prayer has all but disappeared because many say that pastoral prayers are too boring to have in the service.
Surely we should treasure the privilege of speaking to God together as his people and should do so in a manner that shows that his Word has filled our minds and hearts.

Singing God’s Word
The Word should be the basis of our singing. At the very least the songs of the church should recount the truths of God’s saving work. Primary attention should be given to the content of songs, measuring lyrics by what is scriptural. Often in the history of the church the Psalms of the Old Testament have formed either all or at least a significant part of the praise of God’s people. Surely our worship is impoverished today by the relative absence of the Psalms from most worship services in most churches. Singing the Psalms is a wonderful way of hiding the Word of God in our hearts and is a certain way of pleasing the Lord who inspired them and gave them to his people for their good. (We will look at the content of our singing in greater detail later.)
The Word and the Sacraments
The Word must be present in the sacraments of the church—baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Augustine called the sacraments “the visible word,” which is a helpful way of thinking about them. They are not strange ceremonies that distract from Christ and the Word, but they are precisely another way in which God communicates his Word. The water of baptism speaks of our need for the blood of Christ to cleanse us (Tit. 3:5). The bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper speak of our need for the body and blood of Christ to nourish us to eternal life (John 6:53-56). The sacraments bring the very core of the Word, the Gospel of Jesus, into the service.
The Preaching of the Word
Finally, the Word must be present in the preaching of the church. Preaching is the verbal communication of God’s Word, applying it to the lives of God’s people. The preacher is a minister of the Word of God. His responsibility is to study the Word and then to teach and apply the Word as a central act of worship. God comes to his people and speaks to his people in the faithful preaching of his Word. As the Second Helvetic Confession says, “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.” When we hear a faithful sermon, we are hearing Christ speak to us and call us to faith and repentance.
Romans 10:14 actually says, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” Paul is saying that faith comes by hearing the very words of Jesus in the faithful words of the preacher.
Historically the church has often called preaching (along with the sacraments) a “means of grace.” A means of grace is an institution of the Lord by which he has promised to bless his faithful people and help them grow in grace. Preaching, then, is not an opportunity for a preacher to offer opinions or to be amusing, but it is the institution God has appointed and uses for communicating his Word. Where that Word is heard and believed, the blessing of the Lord will always be present. The people of God will grow in knowing the forgiving mercy of God and in knowing God’s will for them. Worship ordered according to God’s Word features preaching as the most vital element of corporate worship, essential for the life of the people of God.
One of the tragedies of our time is that many pulpits are filled with stories or popular psychology instead of the Bible and its truth. Sometimes preaching is supplemented or even replaced by drama or dance as if they could substitute for preaching. Drama and dance were well-known media for communication in the ancient world, but the apostles and the New Testament church did not use them. Rather, the church used speaking — what Paul calls the “foolishness of what was preached” (1 Cor. 1:21-23) — to communicate Christ. The New Testament gives no hint that drama or dance would be appropriate to Christian worship.
We often hear today that we live in a visual culture where speaking has lost its power and relevance. We need drama or dance or videos to connect with people in our time, some argue. But Paul’s world was also visually oriented. Pagan temples had impressive images and rituals. Theater and drama were much more important then than now. Yet the church used preaching to communicate the Gospel, convinced that preaching communicated Christ who was himself “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). The church has always been a church of the Book, the verbal revelation of God.
The church also needs preachers who will open up the Scriptures, because Christians always need to hear what God is saying in his Word and how that Word draws them nearer to him. The world offers an abundance of entertaining stories and helpful hints on feeling good. But the church needs the voice of God. As the Cambridge Declaration says, “The Bible, therefore, must be taught and preached in the church. Sermons must be expositions of the Bible and its teachings, not expressions of the preacher’s opinions or the ideas of the age.”
Faithful preaching not only opens up the Word of God. It also finds God’s Law and Gospel in the Word. Week by week Christians need to hear the demand of God to live holy lives. They need the Word of God preached in order to be challenged to grow in love and obedience. Such preaching will not enhance our self-esteem before God, but it will convict us of our sin and our need for a Savior. The ministry of the Law is in the first place a ministry of death, convincing us of our helplessness and driving us to Christ as our only refuge. And week by week Christians need to hear of the cross of Jesus Christ where he bore their sins. We must have the Gospel repeated for us so that we see the complete provision of salvation for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We need to be crushed by the Law and called to faith in the Gospel. Word-centered preaching brings us to God.
If we really delight in the Word and seek worship that is filled with the Word, many of the tensions and problems that surround worship today will begin to sort themselves out. We cannot claim to love the Word and be content with its absence from worship. We will want to hear it in reading and preaching, see it in the sacraments, and sing it in our songs.
If we are not interested in the Word of God, can we really be interested in God?
– Dr Robert Godfrey
 

8. Mrs. Ruth Beckley passed away on June 21, 2008. The funeral was held at Bacher Funeral Home on June 27th. She was buried at Rose Hill Burial Park.

 

9.Books: There is a new batch of books on the book table in the vestibule for you to “check out”. Feel free to sign out any books of interest to you and take them home to read. Please try to return them in a timely manner so others may enjoy them as well.

Herman Bavinck, “The Essence of Christianity,” in Essays on Religion, Science, and Society, ed. John Bolt (Baker, 2008), 47:

Christianity is no less than the real, supreme work of the Triune God, in which the Father reconciles his created but fallen world through the death of his Son and re-creates it through his Spirit into the kingdom of God.

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Faith Presbyterian Church
 2540 South Main Street Akron, Ohio 44319-1137 (330) 644-9654

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