Thursday, March 27, 2008

EASTER SERVICE PICTURES




Wednesday, March 26, 2008

DEM BONES

From Pastor Jerry's Easter Morning message on Ezekiel 37:1-14

Dem bones declare
Man beware
Death draws near
You'd better fear.

But Ezekiel heard
A better word
Of death devoured
By God's great power

Dem bones did rise
As God advised
Ezekiel spoke
Dead men awoke

And in that vein
Jesus came
He died for sin
Dead men to win

And as He rose
From death, its throws
In Christ we too
Will rise anew

His promise true
We can renew
Our trust alone
In God - in the God - who can raise dem bones.

Pastor Jerry Conklin

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

SPURGEON ON KEEPING CLOSE TO THE TRUTH

Next, since we depend wholly upon the Spirit, we must be most anxious to use the Word, and to keep close to the truth, in all our work for Christ among men. The Word of God is the Holy Spirit's sword; he will not wield our wooden weapon. He will only use this true Jerusalem blade of God's own fashioning. Let us, then, set high value on the inspired Word; we shall defeat our adversaries by that sword-thrust, "It is written." So spake the Christ; and so he conquered Satan. So also the Holy Spirit speaketh. Be wise, therefore, and let your reliance be not on your own wisdom, but on the word to which you can add, "Thus saith the Lord." If our preaching is of that kind, the Holy Ghost will always set his seal to it. But if you have thought it out, and it is your own production, go, good sir, to Her Majesty's offices, and get letters patent for your invention; but the Holy Ghost will have nothing to do with it. He cares nothing about your "original mind." Our Lord Jesus laid aside all originality, and spake only the words of his Father, the words which the Holy Ghost brought to him. He said to his disciples, in that memorable discourse, before he went out to Gethsemane, "The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." Let us try to imitate him, being willing not to think our own thoughts, or to speak our own words, but those which God shall give to us. I would rather speak five words out of this Book than fifty thousand words of the philosophers. I had rather be a fool with God than be a wise man with the sagest scientist, for "the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." You cannot work for Christ except by the Spirit of Christ, and you cannot teach for Christ except you teach Christ; your work will have no blessing upon it, unless it be God's Word spoken through your lips to the sons of men. If we want revivals, we must revive our reverence for the Word of God. If we want conversions, we must put more of God's Word into our sermons; even if we paraphrase it into our own words, it must still be his Word upon which we place our reliance, for the only power which will bless men lies in that. It is God's Word that saves souls, not our comment upon it, however correct that comment may be. Let us, then, be scrupulously careful to honour the Holy Spirit by taking the weapon which he has prepared for us, believing in the full inspiration of the sacred Scriptures, and expecting that God will prove their inspiration by their effect upon the minds and hearts of men.

BUILDING REPAIR UPDATE



On December 2nd, a severe storm with hurricane force winds struck the North Coast of Oregon. The storm continued through December 3rd and did extensive damage to many structures all around Clatsop County. Our church building suffered some severe damage. A portion of the roof blew off exposing much of the interior to water damage. Subsequent inspections revealed other structural problems. The estimated costs will exceed $500,000 and could reach $750,000. Fortunately we have insurance coverage to pay for the cost of the repairs and we have a local contractor who is qualified to oversee them. We have been waiting for the Insurance Company approval of the project. Two engineers have evaluated the building and needed repairs. The next step is arriving at a consensus regarding the extent of the repairs and required code upgrades between the insurance company, the engineers, and the building codes department engineer. Please pray that this process will move on in a timely manner. We would like to see the repairs finished by our planned 50th Anniversary celebration in October 2008. The repairs to the sanctuary wing of the building have required us to move our church services to the educational wing. We are currently meeting in a smaller "Play Room" which is quite limited in size. We squeezed our Easter Service into the room with about 135 people or so, but thats about the max. We are thankful that we have another room in the building to meet in, but there are a lot of limitations. And as long as the repairs remain unfinished the building is not much to look at (the steeple is removed and we have a tarp covering much of the sanctuary roof). We intend to make some improvements to our sanctuary and other parts of the building in this process. We want to improve the seating, the lighting, and the sound in the Sanctuary. We also intend to remodel the kitchen (it was one of the areas that suffered water damage. Since we are a relatively small congregation, we have limited funds to work with. These repairs and improvements will not be covered by insurance. We have established a 50th Anniversary Building Fund to help cover the costs of these repairs and improvements. Donations to the fund should be sent to: Lewis and Clark Bible Church, 35082 Seppa Ln, Astoria, OR 97103 and be designated to the: 50th Anniversary Building Fund.

Pastor Jerry Conklin

Monday, March 24, 2008

EMAIL FROM THE BOGLES

Greetings. Today is the day after Easter for us. It is gray and cloudy, but Easter Sunday was Gorgeous.

We have had our International Director and a colleague from Bali here with us for Easter Weekend. We have had some great times of fellowship together. We will be heading to Sentani for field meetings tomorrow morning. Please pray for safe travels as well as good times of discussion and worship with our fellow CrossWorld-ers. :) We'll be gone for five days, returning on Saturday.

We have been given so many blessings recently. We were given a very large gift by a friend for the purchase of bikes. If you don't know, the kids and I walk almost everywhere we go. While it is good exercise, it takes a lot of time out of our days. Bikes will speed up the travel and help us make better use of our time. We were given a huge sack of potatoes. White potatoes here are expensive and sometimes not so easy to find. And there have been several other little things that have been such big blessings to us lately. Reminders that the Lord provides for our every need.

The friends we were praying for, evacuated and are returning today. We have heard that the breakaway church is still planning demonstrations. Please continue to pray for this situation and that this time of rest and refreshment will continue to bless them in the times ahead.

May you have a Blessed Resurrection Day!

In His Love
Jennifer and Co.

Ben and Jennifer Bogle
Kotak pos 239
Sentani 99352
Papua, Indonesia

Sunday, March 23, 2008

EASTER 2008

What a special time of year for the believer in Christ! Easter. Resurrection Sunday. The pain and suffering that the Lord endured when He bore our sins on Calvary was immense and beyond our comprehension. We do not rejoice in the physical abuse that was inflicted upon Him or at the insults that were intended to belittle and disgrace Him. We do not rejoice at the thought of Him suffering the cruel punishment of crucifixion or His agonizing separation from the Father that prompted that horrific cry, “My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me”.
But we do rejoice in an empty tomb! We do rejoice in a risen savior! We do rejoice in our High Priest, seated at the right hand of the Father! We do rejoice in His promise to prepare a place for us! We do rejoice in His fulfilled promise to send the Holy Spirit, our Helper! We do rejoice in our hope of a promised return of our Lord and our gathering together with Him! We do rejoice at the thought of seeing Him face to face and being in His presence forever! Because He is risen, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?
In a recent men’s bible study we found ourselves reading the account of Jesus restoring life to the only son of a widow from the city of Nain. The account is in Luke 7:11-15 and is as follows:
11Soon afterwards He went to a city called Nain; and His disciples were going along with Him, accompanied by a large crowd. 12Now as He approached the gate of the city, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizeable crowd from the city was with her. 13When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, "Do not weep." 14And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, "Young man, I say to you, arise!" 15The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother.
As we were reading I became focused on a particular part of the verse and what it was saying. We see in verses 12 and 14 that a dead man was being carried out of the city in a coffin. Then we see Jesus walk up to the coffin and speak to the dead man, saying “Young man, I say to you, arise!” The dead man then sat up and spoke. Yes, Jesus speaks to the dead! We may have spoken words to a loved one who has passed away but there was no ability for our words to be heard and certainly not to be responded to.
Ephesians 2:1 tells us that we were dead in our sins and trespasses. It seems that we have all been in our own coffin, not made of ornate wood but rudely constructed of our sins and trespasses. But like the widow’s son, God has made us alive by the power of the resurrection. We read in Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),”.
Following the death of Lazarus, in John 11:25-26 we see Jesus saying to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?"
The apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”
So this Easter, let us rejoice and be filled with hope as we in awe remember, He speaks to the dead! By Greg Engebretson