Good News Articles - June 7, 2023
From Rev. Steve Badskey
Some of our best-loved hymns were written in times of great
sadness. “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” is one such song. Despite the
pain, many hymn writers were able to find comfort in the arms of Jesus and
point others to this source of unshakable joy with their music.
One of the most helpful hymns in popular use is Joseph
Scriven’s hymn on the friendship of Jesus, the comforter and burden-bearer.
Scriven (1820-1886) was a native of Dublin, Ireland, born in 1820. He graduated
from Trinity College in his native city. At the age of twenty-five he emigrated
to Canada, and lived there until his death at Port Hope on Lake Ontario,
October 10, 1886.
When a young man, he was engaged to be married to a lady
whom he had known and loved for a long time. All preparations had been made for
the wedding ceremony and the date had been fixed. But shortly before the
wedding day arrived his promised bride was accidentally drowned, and he was
plunged into the deepest sorrow.
From this sad experience came a deep sense of his dependence
upon Christ and of the great truth so helpfully expressed in his lines:
Out of the intense sympathy wrought in his heart by this
experience, he wrote the hymn to comfort his mother in her own sorrow and sent
it to her in Ireland. How it came to be first published is not known, as he had
not intended it for general use.
Indeed, for some time after it was printed its authorship
was unknown, being sometimes incorrectly attributed to Dr. Horatius Bonar.
After Scriven’s death, however, he became recognized as the author of the hymn
that has blessed so many thousands of believers.
From Sarah Mingledorff
Our mission partner Alabama Rural Ministry (ARM) coordinates
home repair efforts and children’s day camps in rural areas of Alabama. Their
busiest season starts this week and runs through July 21st. Teams of middle-
and high-school students will be serving during this time and in so doing will
be challenged to discover, develop, and deploy into Christ-like servant
leaders. Students will be in ministry with rural and under-resourced
communities through home repair and ARM’s SonShine Kid’s Day Camp.
It’s a 4-day-5-night mission and discipleship experience in
rural Alabama. Teams extend the love of Christ with families and kids through
home repair and day camp ministries. One of the goals of ARM’s home repair
ministry is to restore homes to be safe, warm, dry, and beautiful. Repairs
include roofing, porches and ramps, doors and windows, siding, floors, walls,
weatherization, and basic plumbing or electrical repairs.
SonShine Kids Day Camp is like VBS on steroids! Teams
cultivate a love for Jesus with a group of 30-35 kids ages 6-11 from the local
community. Day camp is a 7-week experience for these kids, and each team will
be serving with ARM’s mission interns to bring a week of day camp to life with
Bible lessons, crafts, games, music and dancing, educational activities,
snacks, and more. After a full day of service, teams gather for evening worship
led by ARM’s summer ministry team. ARM provides meals and housing, coordinates
each team’s home repair ministry, and serves with the day camp kids.
ARM’s vision is transformed rural communities with
sustainable homes, strong families, and strategic community partnerships for
the glory of God. Their mission is discovering, developing, and deploying
spiritual leaders who, as disciples of Jesus Christ, minister with rural and
under-resourced communities to create sustainable homes, strengthen families,
and build strategic community partnerships for the glory of God. ARM
believes Christ’s love must be expressed in action to people in need. ARM is a
hands-on ministry; responding to people through Christian love with an emphasis
in home repair and children’s ministry-it’s all about building the family!
Sunday, June 11, 2023
Philippians 3:5-11
5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people
of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a
Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to
righteousness under the law, blameless.
7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard
as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as
loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his
sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order
that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 I
want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of
his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may
attain the resurrection from the dead.
- Wednesday, June 7 -5:30pm Wonderful Wednesdays (Children's Ministry) -7:00pm Choir Rehearsal
- Friday, June 9 -2:00pm Cooking for Reality & Truth
- Sunday, June 11 -8:15am Chapel Service -9:15am Senior Reception -10:30am Sanctuary Service -5:00pm Youth Group
- Monday, June 12 -9:00am Quilters
- Tuesday, June 13 -10:00am Food Pantry