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Hello! I am trusting your week is getting off to a great start! Last week's email included lots of ways for you to catch up on what’s been going on around here the last few weeks. Today, I’ll remind you of some things that are coming in the life of the church over the next few weeks!

A quick reminder for our Roots Kids and Youth volunteers, tonight is the last opportunity to participate in the mandatory Roots Volunteer Training. Doors open with refreshments at 5:45, we’ll start our training at 6pm. Please make every effort to attend this training, attending in person saves you and me time, so we don’t have to schedule time for you to participate virtually. 

Friday morning is Rufus Kreider's funeral, with visitation on Thursday evening as well. Friday evening is the August Grace Marriage date night! All married couples are welcome to attend! 

Sunday is our infamous Southern End Sunday! Bring your tractors (or other work vehicles), your camp chairs and something to contribute to our potluck lunch! Remember that our outdoor worship service will begin at 10:30am in the Grove, with our family lunch to follow. Last names A-K are to bring a dessert, L-Z to bring a main dish. 

It’s hard to believe but school starts a week from today for our Solanco friends! We’ll “bless the backpacks” and celebrate all of our students on Sunday during our worship service. Be prayerful for our Roots Kids and families as they readjust to school routines, enter a new year and be a light in our schools!

Yesterday we announced all the opportunities for you to grow and serve during the 2025-2026 Wednesday Roots Nights. Be sure to see the service opportunities for many different roles and spaces in the Gathering Area. Another way you can help this school year, is to help us finish renovating the Youth Roots wing! A faithful team has been working on patching and painting and helping redesign the Youth Wing to serve the needs of our teens. If you’d like to help “stock” the spaces, you can check out the Amazon Wishlist here.

In a week or so you’ll see the sign-up sheet for the Solanco Fair Milkshake stand! Hard to believe we’re a month away from the fair! I hope you’ll make a point to help us in the milkshake stand for a few hours on Wednesday! Many hands make light (and more fun!) work!

It was another weekend in the flower patch for me, as well as being here for our Saturday morning volunteer training. I’m taking as much time in the garden and in the sunshine while I can! The sun is sneaking away from us, and as much as shorter days mean we’re coming into fall and fair season, I’m sad to see these warm, sunny days sneak away from us! 

 

What WE’RE Learning This Week: A nugget of what our Lil’, Youth and Adults Roots heard this week

Our Family Theme: Faith Guides Our Words

Our Root Text: James 3:1–12

Verse of the Month: James 1:22

How Every Generation Lives This Out: Discuss how we can use words in a way that is helpful and builds up others.

 

What I’M Learning This Week: Sharing what I’m reading and listening to lately

We’re memorizing the whole chapter of Romans 8 in D-Group, the Bible study that I lead, this year. It’s a big challenge, but what an incredibly powerful passage to have hidden in our hearts. The verse that starts the section we’re memorizing right now is Romans 8:25, “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Every time I practice this verse I think to myself, “okay, well obviously..” The next verse; however, says, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness…” Which tells me, who am I to think that “hoping for what we do not yet have” is really that easy. 

Actually I know that it’s not that easy. Hope is hard. One Bible teacher says it this way… “Cyncisim is easy. It doesn’t take effort to see what’s wrong with everything and everyone and let it jade us. Hope, however, is difficult. Maybe because it’s heavenly. The earth has worn on us some. Suggested to us, through things like abandonment and failed expectations that hope is no different from wishful thinking. But hope is more than that. As one helpful book explains, “Hope allows us to go on with living. It gives us some sense that things are going to get better. Life will improve, and the problems besieging us will reach some stage of resolution.”

Maybe even now, after reading that sentence, you smirked wide and willful, just like the skeptic the earth has made you. I’m confident this is why the apostle Paul not only recommended hope but prayed for the church to be filled with it. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). See its source? The God of hope. Through what power? The Holy Spirit, who helps us abound in it.”

Hope is hard. But we also know that “hope does not put us to shame.” So we wait for what we do not yet have patiently, with the Spirit living inside of us, helping us in our weakness - our natural tendency towards cynicism rather than hope.

 

Make Every Week Count: Parenting, Grandparenting & Spiritual Mentoring Resources

Something to Read: This would make a great Bible study tool, the ESV Scripture Journal, Spiral-Bound Edition: Psalms

Something to Listen to: Love this version of a favorite hymn, Trust and Obey!

Something to Follow: A Saturday Morning favorite in my house growing up was the audio drama series “Down Gilead Lane” that played on WDAC. Each episode focuses on faith-filled themes through the life of the Morrison Family. You can buy the CD’s or audio files through Keys for Kids, or if you use Audible, you can snag the albums there too!

 

How Can You Pray? Prayer Requests and Praises from Roots Ministries

PRAY for the teachers who are busily preparing their classrooms and materials in expectation for their new students

PRAISE for the way God is moving across the globe as Chris Elliot shared with us yesterday!