Pictures

We’ve posted a couple pictures from the wildfires at www.lahope.org/updates.htm

Fires

We’ve had amazing winds, heat, and dust over the past 24 hours, but there are no fires near us right now.

Used Laptop Needed

Does anyone have a used laptop that they could part with to help us with the audio and recording for our services? It doesn’t need to be anything fancy: something like a 1.5Ghz Celeron with 256 MB of RAM would be plenty. It doesn’t need to have a big hard drive, video card, or anything flashy. Our sermons are downloaded from the internet 500-1,000 times a month, and a used laptop would greatly ease the job of getting them posted online. If you’ve recently upgraded and are looking for a place to recycle your old laptop, we’ll take it!

Fuel for Revival

We are two weeks into our expositional study of John’s first letter. The Lord is allowing this book that has often baffled me in the past to unfold with beauty and power for my heart. It is such a simple book, yet I often feel like I’m standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon: the depths are staggering. I know that’s true of all of Scripture, but it is especially true for my heart with this book right now. Would you pray that God would graciously use I John to bring revival in our church family? John’s plea for diligent attention to our relationship with God seems like especially good fuel for genuine revival. As with any church, we need it: a fresh sense of the offense of sin; the purifying allure of true fellowship with God; awe at the patience, perseverance, and faithfulness of God to endlessly forgive us for endlessly tearing apart our fellowship with him; horror at the adultery of loving the world while claiming to love God; wonder at the love that would make us children of God. What if those things were truly fresh in our hearts by the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the Word?
David & Heather Wilkinson are preparing to move into a larger home, as they prepare for baby #3 (due in March). Adam & Kristi Lee are in the Northeast visiting family and are eager for the arrival of baby #1 (due in February). Scott & Gina Franklin are settling into the new routines of life with baby #4, who was born a month ago.

Back to Normal

Oh, it was nice to have a couple normal Sundays in a row! It’s such a joy to teach the Word to our church family. Yesterday we spent a session on Roman Catholicism, and then I wrapped up the World Religions series with a message on “The Christian and His Bible.” Christianity is unique in the priesthood of the believer with the indwelling Holy Spirit so that “we may know the things freely given to us by God.” I wanted to emphasize the privilege and responsibility of individually understanding God’s Word.
We had one visiting family in the service, and it looks like the Lord has added two new families to our church family over the summer. The congregational singing was also very good.
Then we had about 30 people help us distribute several hundred more evangelistic newsletters at GOnight.
This morning I’ve been eagerly diving into the preparation for the first sermon in the new I John series. I also have several meetings this week with men or couples in the church.