We have some unusual and wonderful classes going on right now, and we urge everyone to come and grow and learn. Jim Harasewicz is providing some important material on dealing with emotional pain. Whether you feel that kind of stress and pain or not, this is a subject that our friends and neighbors struggle with and need to hear. The author of this material is Wayne Leeper, and with the growth of interest we have had, we may want to have him here for a community seminar sometime in the future. Come and see what this is all about--10:00 every Sunday morning. Our Sunday and Wednesday night class is a study of the book of Ephesians. These are relevant classes--join us!

Much of what happens in this congregation is addressed to what is happening in the world around us. Our lesson today deals with that subject. Here is a quote of what our young people are being taught today. It comes from River Out of Eden, ([New York: BasicBooks, 1995], page 133) by Richard Dawkins, a book that is required reading in many colleges and universities.

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. ... DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music."

 

INTRODUCTION
EVALUATIONS OF WORLD VIEWS
THE WORLD VIEW JESUS WANTS FOR US
IS IT TRUE?
DOES IT ANSWER QUESTIONS PEOPLE CARE ABOUT?
DOES IT MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON?

We have just returned from a rather strenuous two weeks of traveling. We left you after services September 12 and drove to Grand Junction, Colorado, and on to Flagstaff, Arizona. where we had a group of 44 people that we took on a lecture tour of Sunset Crater, the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion national parks, Meteor Crater, and Petrified Forest National Park. We pulled out each morning at 8:00, did several hours of lectures as we traveled from one place to another. Our purpose was to show them how they could use what they were seeing to strengthen their own faith, and how to instruct their children, grandchildren, and children in their Bible classes about how we can know there is a God and that the Bible is His Word. This was one of the strongest groups we have had, and we were blessed with great weather and a good spirit of cooperation among the participants.

After an exhausting six days, Cynthia headed for Los Angeles to visit her 91 year old father, and I headed for Comanche, Texas, where I did a three-day seminar with the Pearl Street Church of Christ. We did eight sessions with the Church plus three question/answer sessions that ran late into the night. One of the questions that was asked on Tuesday night at about 10:30 came from an older man who was visibly fatigued from the almost four hours of teaching and questioning he had been through. "How in the world do you keep going?"he asked. "I am exhausted from the volume of material we have considered and from trying to answer the skeptics and doubters who came to this program."

My response is that when you find something you can do that glorifies God and helps people, you get excited and energized by what is happening. God's Spirit helps and you rejoice and are charged to know you can be a part of something worthwhile. I think Paul felt that, and I hope all of us can feel it here at Dowagiac as we see good things happening through us as God works among us. We need everyone's input and ideas to plan what the Church will do in 2011. Stay today and work and plan with us as we enjoy fellowship and planning for the future.