As of tomorrow, Lent officially begins. The sermon series during Lent will be called, “The Disciples’ Journey.” As you can imagine, when you encounter the Son of God in the flesh, He changes you. There are not many people in the Gospels who are actually named and even fewer who are named more than once. We’ll take a look at some of those whom we can follow “over time” and see how God changed them. Our prayer will be that by knowing how God has worked in the past, we can see Him work in our lives in the same way.

I didn’t make it as clear on Sunday as I could have, but this new series follows nicely on the heels of the previous one. When we travel through the valleys well, they lead us to worship God more and to accept His will for our lives. Worshiping God and following Him are the keys to joy. What we’ll see in the lives of the followers of Jesus is that they were transformed by God when they came to know Him better and accepted His plan for their lives.

This transformation from “our way” to “His Way” can be pictured very nicely by the image of the cross. That instrument which Jesus willingly picked up that lead to His death and resurrection is the same instrument that He teaches us to (figuratively) take up. Jesus said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) That cross will be the image that is held before us during Lent as we make our way toward Good Friday, then Easter.

The people that we’ll be looking at are:

Forty Days of Water – Blood Water Mission.

You can read more about Blood:Water Mission at Christianity Today. I’m not saying that we would necessarily give to them, but the money would be given to providing clean water in some part of the world. It could even be Haiti. Let me know if you’re interested. It might even be fun to see what Bethel Church looks like when we’re not caffeinated!

Classical Ministry Shares are used to support regional ministries (new churches, Hmong and Laotian ministries), Hope Centre in Thunder Bay,  Starfish Ministries, the Thunder Bay Christian Community Center and students who are preparing for the ministry.

Denominational Ministry Shares are used around the world to spread the Gospel and transform lives. Here’s a link to the denomination’s website and specifically the list of the ministries that we have.

The Christian Reformed Church of North America put together this delightful video to help explain Ministry Shares as well.

The amount Bethel should give is around $18,300.  That figures out to approximately $175 per active member per year.  We gave nothing in 2009.  Your donation will help meet our required giving to these important ministries.

By the way – A classis is a group of churches within a geographical area that have the authority to deal with matters that concern its churches in common and its decisions are binding on the churches in its region. A minister and an elder (and in some cases  a deacon) from each congregation are delegated to attend each classis meeting. There are 47 classes in the CRC, 11 in Canada and 35 in the United States, and one (ours) with congregations on both sides of the border. The classes are grouped into 12 regions.

The Early Church from Granger Community on Vimeo.

By the way, did you know that on Sunday at 9:30, you can attend a class on 1 Peter by El La Grew? It could be…fun…insightful…challenging…helpful.

In the past several years, we’ve used the parade as a way of advertising our Vacation Bible Schools and the Art Camp. That has been a great idea for us in the past. Now, however, the Art Camp registration is almost full by the time the parade happens. While advertising the Art Camp does still give the community a good picture of who we are, it only gives them a picture of one activity and the way that we go about that activity. With Art Camp floats, for example, we’ve given them a glimpse into one of our activities and the fun way that we pursue it. But there is so much more that makes up Bethel Church that people really need to know about.

So, we’re looking for help. What we would like to hear from you is, “How can our presence in the parade communicate that we are a congregation that strives to “connect people to God and to each other”? We (the staff) is thinking that if we do a really bang-up job on a float this year, we could simply re-use it every year. So, what do you think? What visual image communicates both “connecting people to God and to each other”? How could it be incorporated into a float? Who we could we have travel along with the float that would also communicate our vision? And what would those people be doing?

We’d love any input that you can give us and would receive it by whatever means you’d like to use to communicate with us. I personally would ask that you give a comment on my blog. That would also give you a chance to poke around on my portion of the website and offer suggestions on that as well. (By the way, I don’t know how it will show up in the email, but if you click on the word blog, it will take you to my blog.)

“I hope it will run as smoothly as the one in September! Wayne Tobak…informed us that that was the cheapest – as in “easiest on the budget” – Classis for quite some time. Important in times like these. The excellent hotel at very reasonalbe cost and the small food expense due to so much being donated by Bethel made it economical for Classis. We enjoyed it!”

Kudos!

Through the Valley to Joy

Here’s how it works. There are two ways to get all of the information that used to be contained in the bulletin:

You could pick up a bulletin at the door of the Worship Center AND receive the Bulletin Board emails.

You could pick up a bulletin at the door of the Worship Center AND pick up the Bulletin Board printout in The Gathering Place.

The eNewsletter is all added information. It can either be received via email (as you are right now) or it can be taken as a printout from the table in The Gathering Place.

So, here’s the survey part. How’s it going FOR YOU. You currently receive the eNewsletter and the Bulletin Board via email. Has that been helpful? Confusing? Had little effect? Send me an email (friendcal@gmail.com) and let me know! Better yet, go to the blog itself (pastor.bethelprinceton.com) and leave a comment.

I have also switched my information over to a separate subdomain. Huh? That simply means that instead of “www”, the address begins with “pastor”. So, if you want to find my sermons or the archive of the eNewsletter, you can go to pastor.bethelprinceton.com. How easy is this? Well, I put this post on my blog at 11:12 Friday morning. You’re receiving it because at 4 am Saturday morning, MailChimp found all the new posts and sent it to you. It’s the same process we use with sending out the bulletin announcements.

And, of course, Jason is maintaining a website and blog and www.ignite-bethel.com. Check it out if you haven’t been there yet. He’s the master! When Bonnie and I have questions, we go to him.

We’ll begin the evening together with the children’s pageant. We’ve grown accustomed to the blessing they share with us as they help us remember the birth of Jesus.

Following the pageant, we’ll enjoy a turkey dinner together. You are invited to bring along a dish from your family tradition that will help us know and understand the wonderful diversity of our family of believers. Please also bring food item(s) as a gift for the Princeton Pantry. There will be a sign-up sheet on Sunday in The Gathering Place for specific items that we’re still looking for.

As much as the pageant and the food, however, this evening is about friends and family. God has brought us together through His Son Jesus and we want to share in both the gift of Jesus and the gift of this family of God. Bring as many friends and family as you can and let’s have a great celebration!