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Bulletin cover

September 8, 2013

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

HIGHWAY CLEANUP — SEPTEMBER 21: One of our services to the community is to clean up the highway in front of our building — covering roughly two miles of road from Edwards Street near the casino to Pokagon Street in Dowagiac. We do this three times a year, and the more people we have, the faster it goes. Plan to spend several hours on the 21st starting at 10:00 AM until we get done — last time it was about 1:00. Please put this on your schedule!

THANKS: Lots of folks serve the Lord and us without us even knowing about it. Our thanks to Samantha for cleaning the building after the potluck last week. Richard, Dave and Donna prepare communion each week, open the building, and get things ready for us by arriving well ahead of service times. Richard also takes communion to several of our shut ins who cannot make it to services. Patty continues to go to the food bank in Benton Harbor every week and get the commodities that we use in our food bank. We must not take these folks and all they do for granted, but their efforts frequently go unnoticed. Thanks for all you do folks, because without your efforts the Lord's work here would not get done.

TODAY'S LESSON

DARE TO BE A DANIEL*

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INTRODUCTION: Daniel 1:1 – 7
A. The lion's den shows Daniel to be special — why?
B. What did Daniel have that I do not have?
C. Four things about Daniel that I need to imitate.
1 DANIEL WAS A MAN OF RELIGIOUS PURPOSE.
A. Background — Nebuchandnezzar conquered Jerusalem.
1. Took hardware from the temple
2. Hand picked certain youth to be proselytes
a. Meant a life of ease
b. Renamed them (verse 7) — Belteshazzar — Leader
c. They got “King's meat and wine” — the best but was unclean to an Israelite
B. Daniel had a religious purpose = no defilement (verse 8)
1. “Pulse” was seeds and beans.
C. Matthew 6:33; Colossians3:2
D. What is your religious purpose? Do you have one?
2. DANIEL WAS A MAN OF PRINCIPLE.
A. His life was not consequence driven.
B. Years later Belshazzar offers rewards — Daniel 5:16.
1. Daniel refuses (Verse 17)
C. Even facing death Daniel would not compromise.
1. Dan 6:7 – 9 — Darius signs a decree.
2. Daniel had a worship tradition — was open about it.
3. Are we ashamed to be a Christian? 2 Timothy 1:6
4. Daniel 6:10 – 14 — Enemies set up Daniel.
3. DANIEL WAS A MAN OF PURITY.
A. Daniel 6:3 – 4 — Daniel's enemies have to trick the king.
B. 1 Timothy 4:12; Titus 2:6 – 8
C. The world makes fun of purity — 1 John 1:5 – 9.
4. DANIEL WAS A MAN OF PRAYER.
A. Daniel 6:10 tells us something of Daniel's prayer life.
1. It was a humble approach to God — he knelt.
2. It was regular — a dependence on God.
3. He had gratitude for what he had — 1 Thessalonians 5:17 – 18.
4. He built regular communication with God.
B. Dare to be a Daniel? Name means “God is judge.”

*There is a Bible study, which was given the following week, that deals with some background information to the book of Daniel.

THE BACK PAGE

FROM THE QUESTION BOX:
“WHY DON'T WE HAVE A PASTOR HERE?”

In the religious world we find that many denominations have a man or woman who is designated as the “Pastor” of the denomination. This usually means that they are in charge of the church being responsible to a board of directors of some kind. Such a person is paid a salary and does a variety of church related jobs — preaching, conducting weddings and funerals, coordinating and leading special events, counseling, and doing visitation. Many congregations have attached a title to this role and “Pastor” is one of them.

In the Bible the word “pastor” is used sparingly. Jeremiah used it in verses (2:8; 3:15; 10:21; 12:10; 17:16; 22:22; 23:1, 2) in reference to those who were to feed (raah in Hebrew) the Israelites, and most of the comments were negative. The Greek word poimen is used once in in reference to a shepherd or feeder in Ephesians 4:11.

The other word to be aware of in this discussion is “minister”. The Greek word for minister is diakoneo and sharath in Hebrew meaning to serve or to “act like a deacon” (Youngs). To see the usage of this term see 2 Corinthians 3:3; 2 Timothy 1:18; Philemon 13; Hebrews 6:10; 1 Peter 1:12; and 4:10 – 11.

No one here is paid to do anything. All of us minister. We choose to use the money we have to serve, as we are able, the people of this area. The names on the cover of this bulletin are there to give some names for people to contact if they need help or have questions. We are working to strengthen our service and leadership. Part of our contribution is being set aside to hire a full-time paid person to do some of the things that are not getting done because none of us have the talent, time, or training to do them. When we get that person, we do not intend to call him a pastor because of the denominational implications of that title. We will perhaps call that person an evangelist after Paul's description in 2 Timothy 4:1 – 5. We strive to do what the first century church did, and no one person should ever have special power or prestige if we are to do that.

— John Clayton