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Bulletin for Sunday, November 28, 2021

Advent – Week One – The Days are Surely Coming

Walk With Me - Lyrics

Walk With Me

Walk with me, Lord
Walk with me
Walk with me, Lord
Walk with me

While I’m on this tedious journey
I want Jesus
to walk with me

Hold my hand, Lord
Hold my hand
Hold my hand, Lord
Hold my hand

While I’m on this tedious journey
I want Jesus
to hold my hand

Walk with me, Lord
Walk with me
Walk with me, Lord
Walk with me

While I’m on this tedious journey
I want Jesus
to walk with me

God Will Heal Our Wounds - Lyrics

God Will Heal Our Wounds

We want to seek you in our own ways
We’ll fast and we’ll sing
we’ll give for our gain
You’re telling us that it’s not ok
You don’t need another song
You don’t want our empty praise

If we stop loving on our own terms
God will heal our wounds
God will heal our wounds
(repeat)

We want the blessing of the God we made
To live in the privilege
he’ll do what we say
You’re telling us there’s a different way
To seek less for ourselves
to pour out every day

If we stop loving on our own terms
God will heal our wounds
God will heal our wounds
(repeat)

Home, home, home
home where the fasting that you seek
Is breaking chains, breaking free
Home, home, home
home where the songs that we sing
Move the ground underneath

Home, home, home
home where the worship that you seek
Feeds the hungry, the ones in need
Home, home, home
home where love that we seek
Is growing gardens, fixing streets

Is growing bridges, planting trees
Is digging wells for all to drink
Is finding light for us to see
Is building trust between you and me
Is building strength and family

If we stop loving on our own terms
God will heal our wounds
God will heal our wounds
(repeat)

Sails - Lyrics

Sails

Falling is easy
Staying in love is hard
Hard to be honest
And keep your heart open
To be who we truly are

Without the excuses
Without the facade
There’s no pretending
Here in Your love

Oh Lord, set me free
Oh Lord, set me free

I’m finally seeing
You were here all along
Your love wasn’t absent
No, it doesn’t come or go

The image I’ve had
Is starting to fail
You’re patient with me
Lifting the veil

Oh Lord, set me free
Oh Lord, set me free
Oh Lord, set me free
Oh Lord, set me free

I let out the sails of my heart
Here I am, here You are
(repeat)

Oh Lord, set me free
Oh Lord, set me free

Your Hands - Lyrics

Your Hands

I have unanswered prayers
I have trouble I wish wasn’t there
And I have asked a thousand ways
That You would take my pain away
You would take my pain away

I am trying to understand
How to walk this weary land
Make straight the paths that crooked lie
Oh Lord before these feet of mine
Oh Lord before these feet of mine

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave Your hands

When You walked upon the Earth
You healed the broken lost and hurt
I know You hate to see me cry
One day You will set all things right
Yea one day You will set all things right

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave Your hands
Your hands

Your hands that shape the world
Are holding me – they hold me still
Your hands that shape the world
Are holding me – they hold me still

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave You

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave – I never leave Your hands

Advent - Week One - The Days are Surely Coming

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.” The days are coming when “I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line. He will do what is just and right in the land.” – Jeremiah 33:14-15


“Do not let me be disgraced, or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat.” – Psalm 25:2


“The nations will be in turmoil, perplexed by the roaring seas and strange tides. People will be terrified at what they see coming upon the earth, for the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” – Luke 21:25-26


“Christmas is God lighting a candle; and you don’t light a candle in a room that’s already full of sunlight. You light a candle in a room that’s so murky that the candle, when lit, reveals just how bad things really are.” – NT Wright – For All God’s Worth

“In what is called the fear of God, what I fear is not God but the suffering my sin can inflict on myself and those around me. What God calls me to fear is the destructive results of sin—and I take God seriously. The shorthand term for this is the fear of God. The malevolent consequences of sin are all too real. But I’m not afraid of God. I used to be, but I am no longer. I am no longer afraid of God because I have come to know God as he is revealed in Christ. … If we move against the grain of love, we will suffer the shards of self-inflicted suffering—and we can call this the wrath of God if we like—but the deeper truth remains: God is love.” – Brian Zahnd – Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God

“In Jeremiah two verses six and eight, we are told what Israel did wrong. “They did not say …” The recital of Yahweh’s story was no longer on their lips. They disregarded their shaping memory. Where the story of Yahweh is forgotten, Israel disregards its peculiar covenantal way in the world, and soon loses its reason for being. … Where there is such amnesia, one is not surprised that derivative requirements of humanness erode. … To “know Yahweh” is to practice justice. Where Yahweh is not known, justice is not embraced. … The community is unfaithful. It has lost its foundational point of reference.” – Walter Brueggemann – A Commentary on Jeremiah


“Never underestimate the power of the environment you work in to gradually transform who you are.” – David Brooks (quoted by Scot McKnight in A Church Called TOV)


“Enlightenment epistemology is committed to a kind of technological positivism which believes that what is possible is contained in what is humanly available. Enlightenment epistemology programmatically excludes promise as a viable intellectual category, because cause promise rests upon and refers to power and resolve beyond human control.” – Walter Brueggemann – A Commentary on Jeremiah
Note written in the margins: “Yes! This is where I live. What is possible is limited to and contained only in what is humanly available. Lord Jesus, help me out of this rut!!!”

“The slave caught the mood of this spiritual dilemma and with it did an amazing thing. He straightened the question mark in Jeremiah’s sentence into an exclamation point: “There is a balm in Gilead!” Here is a note of creative triumph. … The basic insight here is one of optimism—an optimism that grows out of the pessimism of life and transcends it. It is an optimism that uses the pessimism of life as raw material out of which it creates its own strength.” – Howard Thurman – Deep River

There is a balm in Gilead
to make the spirit whole
There is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul

 

O Come O Come Emmanuel - Lyrics

O Come O Come Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

O come, Thou Dayspring
come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
And drive away the shades of night
And pierce the clouds
and bring us light

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heavenly home
Make safe the way that leads on high
And close the path to misery

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

    2021 Board Elections

    Our elected board of elders meets on a monthly basis to work in partnership with our pastors to help lead and guide our church.

    This month (November 2021), Patrick Torres and Caitie Anderson are at the end of their term and will be replaced by two newly elected board members.

    The list of names below represents the most-nominated persons in our church community. In alphabetical order by first name, here are the 5 nominees. Please select TWO. For our board to maintain gender parity (never more than a 3:2 ratio either way) one of your choices MUST be male.

    Alex Kiener
    Cory Kraftchick
    Erin Witcher
    Scott Anderson
    Tammy Smith

    2021 Board Nominees

    Yes. I am a regular participant at Ekklesia and call it my church home.

    Additional comments / questions

      Prayer Form

      “Carry each others burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” — Galatians 6:2

      Burdens and joys are meant to be shared and carried together with others. Our prayer team would love to hear from you.

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