Sunday Night Rejoicings

Today was another great day of worship, fellowship, and teaching at Cobblestone Community Church. The lovely Robin and I had been away for the last two weekends, and I was so happy to be back among this precious faith family God has given us.

• I concluded the "Livin' Venti" series from Galatians with the message, "Free to Bear Fruit," from Galatians 5:13-6:18. Here's a few quotes:

"It's not called 'the fruit of my efforts;' it's called 'the fruit of the Spirit.'"

"You and I don't have 613 commands to obey, as the Jews did. We don't even have Ten Commandments to keep. We have ONE THING NEEDFUL....'Live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature' (Galatians 5:16, NIV)."

"If you and I would take one-tenth of the effort we put forth trying to justify ourselves, trying to produce fruit, trying to do this and NOT do that, and focus on the ONE THING NEEDFUL, the ONE THING Mary of Bethany focused on, the ONE THING that will bear fruit in our lives, it would transform our lives, our homes, our church, our community."

• Aaron and Kevin (and cameraman Andrew) did a great job on the video that introduced today's message. Hope Kevin didn't hurt himself.
• Kevin also did the editing on the video. Supremo Jobo, Kevin.
• Con Brio--what is there to say? You guys rock!
• Got to welcome a bunch of new folks today, and was thrilled to spend extended time in prayer with people after worship. Hallelujah!
• Days like today prove the Biblical adage, "How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters live together in harmony!" It is a real joy to worship and fellowship as one body.
• Every seat this morning had a half-sheet "Show Some Loft Love" flyer on it, encouraging people to help us keep down expenses while keeping The Loft clean week to week by volunteering to join the cleaning crew rotation. I pray we get a good response from the people of God.
• Our Vacation Bible School is coming up fast--June 21 it starts! Wow, hard to believe. People can sign up as volunteers or register kids (pre-school through fifth grade) here.
• Also announced today was the "soft launch" of our third Sunday celebration, called--appropriately enough--"The Third" (a "hard launch" is planned for September 12; the summer months will be spent honing and refining the experience and the volunteer forces). It will be a much younger, energetic worship experience, designed specifically for college age adults. Many of our twenty-somethings have been praying and planning and working hard to make this thing happen. It starts next Sunday evening at 7 p.m., and you can learn more by going here.
• This week The Loft will be undergoing some changes. Can't wait for people to see them next Sunday!
• I'm already looking forward to next Saturday's outreach, a grocery cart return outreach in Brookville, Indiana. Ohio peeps will meet at The Loft at 9:30 a.m. and then proceed to Brookville where we'll all meet at the Aroma Cafe on Main Street before starting the outreach at IGA. It'll be a blast. Hope to see you there.

(Painting by Karen Yee)