From the Pastors

Want to get a handle on your finances? One Master Ministries is holding a six-week course beginning in just a few short weeks. For more information or to register, please go to www.onemaster.org. Please forward this to 5 people you know.

Perhaps you don't think much about a new year because life just goes on as it always has. Perhaps the extra eating, lack of routine, and money spent over the holidays has you longing for order. Perhaps you look at the new year as a chance to improve. Perhaps you look at a new year with an attitude of defeat as you consider all that is going wrong in your life or in the world. Perhaps this new year brings about some regret for all the ways you didn't change last year or the failures that you see. Perhaps this new year brings about a anxiousness and fear of the unknown. Or perhaps you are an optimist and have high hopes and expectations for this year and have joy and confidence as you think about it. I relate with pretty much all of these thoughts. I expect that life will march on much the same as it has yet I do long for more order and improvement and, I am tempted to worry about what this year may hold. I am not much of an optimist but I know that I can face this new year with joy and confidence no matter what my own thoughts and fears may be.

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." (2 Timothy 4:1��"4, ESV)

Advent is a season where we look back, consider how it must have been for the people of God as they waited for the promised salvation of God, not knowing what to expect. And at the same time, we celebrate by looking back to the child who was born, the one who came as the Light in a world of darkness and brought redemption and freedom and victory to his people. And at the same time, Advent is also a season of looking ahead with great expectation, and preparing ourselves to meet Jesus at his Second Coming.

Over the last number of months I have had the opportunity to read the biblical and helpful blogposts of our sister, Holly Sands, through the ministry of United in Christ Jesus. Joy brought my attention to the content, particularly, of an email that Holly had sent out to a few of the ladies involved in the UCJ ministry this past Monday. Both Joy and I were encouraged and exhorted to believe in the goodness of our sufficient Savior and God in the midst of trials and thought it may be helpful to share with the other ladies in the church. May our feet be firmly planted on the goodness and kindess of our Savior as we cast all our cares on Him. - Pastor Steve

I want to encourage married couples to join Joy and I in attending The Art of Marriage event being held at Bellbrook Community Church on November 14 and 15. It's a great opportunity to grow in our respective marriages and get to know others in the community as well.

An Open Letter to Members of Sovereign Grace Churches from SGM Executive Director, Mark Prater

This Sunday we'll be singing a few songs that may be new for some or many. Thankfully, we have some resources available online to help us familiarize ourselves with them.

Growing up in a Christian home, the Bible has always been an important book in my life. I was in 6th grade when I first felt personal conviction that I should read it on a daily basis. I was also in 6th grade when a struggle began in my heart. The struggle to read my Bible became a legalistic issue almost as soon as it became a conviction. Reading and studying God's word became something that I knew I should do and when I didn't I stood ready to be condemned. And yet, in the midst of what would be a 27-year struggle God used his word in my life in powerful ways. I had many seasons of growing from what I learned in God's word and many times that it spoke to me directly.

George Mueller, famous for his faith in God to provide for the many orphans he cared for, is said to have stayed in his time with the Lord each morning until his soul was happy in Jesus. And the scriptures remind us that God's mercies are new every morning because of His faithfulness so we have been given a recurring gift from God to start each day with joy in the morning. Not the kind of joy that is based on how we feel about the circumstances of the day but an inner joy that comes from being accepted by the Father through Christ's sacrifice for our sins and a trust in God's faithfulness!