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January 14, 2018

WELCOME!
WE'RE GLAD YOU'RE HERE

We are a group of believers who simply try to follow the Bible as a guide for all we do. Everything done in our worship service is something for which we have a Bible basis. You are welcome to participate as much or as little as you wish. We will sing hymns together and we will observe the Lord's Supper or Communion together. We will also have an opportunity to give to the work of God in this area. This collection is for the members here, and if you are visiting you should not feel and pressure to give. Our lesson time will be divided into two groups. The young children will go to our classroom area in the basement where they will be taught the Bible at a level they can understand. The adults will stay in the auditorium for a lesson at an adult level. We do try to serve the community, and if you have some needs that we can help you with, mention it to one of the members. Thank you for worshipping with us.

FAMILY NEWS

LADIES' CLASS: Saturday, 10:00 A.M., here at the building. This ia a great time of unique Bible study for women and their friends and great fellowship. Do not pass this up!

BUSINESS MEETING: Last Sunday was an important day for this congregation. Reports were given on the various works we are involved in: Coats for Kids, Food Bank, Shults-Lewis, teen and preschool work, prison ministry, blind ministry, ladies' class. A financial report was given which shows we have no financial shortages. There is a written year end report of the Does God Exist? work in the lobby. Please help yourself. Plans for 2018 were discussed and it was unanimously decided to continue all of these works. In addition a planned program for a “Fun Fare” in June was presented and discussed. See The Back Page below for more on this.

SNOW/COLD EMERGENCIES: We try to let everyone know if it becomes necessary to cancel services, but TV notices are unreliable and phone calls depend on fallible human beings and equipment. If you have doubts about whether services are being held, call 269-782-4564, 269-687-9426, or 574-333-1177.


TODAY'S LESSON

SIN

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John Clayton
INTRODUCTION: You should not have to put your finger into a fire to know it is hot.
I. A DESCRIPTION OF OUR WORLD TODAY:
A. Charles Swinford — Vodou pit in Haiti
B. Romans 6:19 – 23
C. Romans 1:21 – 32 — Sound familiar?
II. WE ARE NOT ABLE TO DEFINE THE WORDS:
A. IMPURITY — WICKEDNESS — SIN
B. Huxley, Dawkins, Nietzsche
C. Remove God: What is your standard of morality?
1. Ayn Rand
2. Situation ethics
3. Survival of fittest
4. Communism
5. Determinism
6. Positivism, etc.
D. Genesis 6:5 — we are naive about the issues.
1. Why do we have: pornography, legalization of marijuana and prostitution, euthanasia,
....and sexual abuse?
2. Singer — Princeton “balance the budget”
III. HOW DO WE AVOID A REPEAT OF GENESIS 6:5?
A. “The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every
....inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all of the time.”
B. Pray like Daniel — Daniel 9:17 and 10:13, 1 Timothy 2:1 – 2
C. We need to clean up our own act — Matthew 5:13 – 16.
D. We must stand for what is right.
E. We must teach morality: why porn, abortion, drugs, sex outside of marriage, etc., is sin
....and must be opposed.
F. Teach that Christianity is a-political — Matthew 22:21; Romans 13.
G. Criteria for eternal life is set by God, not us.
IV. WHERE DO WE GET THE STRENGTH TO LIVE WITHOUT SIN?
A. We cannot do it perfectly — 1 John 1:4 – 10.
B. Romans 6:19 – 23 — A description
C. Romans 6:14 – 18 — God's remedy
D. When you have the courage to obey God and become a Christian, he sends his Spirit
....to help you deal with life — Acts 2:38.


THE BACK PAGE

PLANS FOR 2018

I really appreciate those who made a special effort to stay for our business meeting last Sunday. I realize that the weather was bad and that there were family issues for many of you, but we had a good cross section of our congregation present and a lot was accomplished. Here is a brief summary of some of the things we talked about.

FINANCES: Bill Gibson is our financial manager and he reported that our funds are in good shape. We have a savings account which will be used to hire a full-time preacher when John Clayton is no longer available, and we have over $20,000 in that savings account so far but we must keep adding to it. We have enough money in checking and general savings accounts to cover our expenses.

MISSIONS: We have several ministries we support financially and several that do not need financial help, but which we support in other ways. We send $100 a month to Shults-Lewis, $100.00 to the Hope Prison Ministry, and $100.00 to the blind ministry of Glynn Langston. We have regular expenses needed for the Food Bank, maintenance of our building and for the Coats for Kids program. Does God Exist? is also a ministry of this congregation, but we do not financially support that ministry. We do a significant amount of “on the spot” benevolent work, but that is not a budgeted expenditure.

PROJECTS: Bill and Patty have paid a deposit for us to have a booth at the Cass County Fair again this year. We need to talk about whether we want to use the same booth as last year, maybe with some modifications or maybe just repeat it. Shane and Mandy Wallace and John Clayton presented an idea called “Fun Fare” which would be a program to bring people especially those with children from the area and from the cities of Niles and Dowagiac to our building for entertainment and an opportunity to learn about the congregation here. There was good support for the idea and people made numerous suggestions. We are working on those suggestions and will have a report to make to the congregation on this project when we check out some of the things that were suggested.

— John Clayton


Our sign by the street!

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