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Hello friends! As Pastor Kevin shared in our worship services yesterday, this past week was a busy week for our church building! Much ministry was done last week, be encouraged by the outreach we made into our community! It certainly is a joy to partner with Bible Adventure, Solid Rock, Solanco Neighborhood Ministries and Safe Families, among others.

A huge thank you to the MANY church family members and the Witness Commission who helped make “The Big Drop” event possible last week! What a fun evening we had! We were able to serve around 50 Solid Rock participants with food, games and a “smashing” good time! I enjoyed visiting with some of the Solid Rock families, they were so excited to join in our Roots Night Fun! 

We also did things a little different at the start of the 10:30am Worship Service yesterday. The Praise Team is implementing some different worship experiences to help us prepare for our time together that morning. Yesterday, we sang along to “God Did” by Sons of Sunday to start our morning out.

I hate to be the one to remind us all of this, but we are a week (and a few days) away from Thanksgiving - how crazy! I hope your calendars are marked for this year's Thanksgiving Eve Service on Wednesday, November 26th at 7pm. We’ll hear stories of thankfulness from every generation!

I hope to see many of you here on Wednesday night for our biannual Congregational Business Meeting. Be prayerful this week as we prepare to do the business work of the church that evening! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to hear reports of the various ministries of the church as well as share your voice on church business items.

I, in some odd form of insanity, put up a Christmas tree yesterday. I think I’m refusing to let the darkness outside be dark inside for any longer than it might try to. So twinkle lights it is! Ask me how much I like my fake tree, that I for whatever reason, decided to put up before Thanksgiving, come Christmas! I guess this year I’m team “let’s celebrate anything because we can!” Who’s with me?!

 

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

Our Family Theme: God Wants Me to Share About Jesus

Our Root Text: Matthew 28:19-20 NIV

How Every Generation Lives This Out: Who in your life needs to know about Jesus? Make a list as a household of people you will invite to an upcoming worship service or church event.

Check Out This Week’s PODCAST EPISODE

 

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

I LOVE the story of Jacob wrestling with God from Genesis 32. I was excited to hear Pastor Kevin preach on this text yesterday. I have a lot of notes in my Bible from different teachings on this text. I wanted to share this one note with you. Pastor Kevin very briefly talked about what happens to Jacob after this wrestling match. Chapter 33 starts with a meeting of Jacob and Esau, verse four says “But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him…” Another Bible teacher shared about the difference in the original language in the words wrestle (verse 32:24) and embrace (verse 33:4). In Hebrew, there is only one letter different between these two words. 

Wrestle = אָבַק (âbaq, aw-bak') and Embrace = חָבַ(ק (châbaq, khaw-bak')

Pastor Kevin talked about how Jacob was a wrestler all his life, even from the womb. And now, in God’s redemptive, life-changing powers, he can move to respond to his brother's embrace, instead of wrestling. 

The Bible teacher I spoke of earlier says this about wrestling… both wrestling and embracing are intimate, close actions. The tension of wrestling with God will always move us to the intimacy of His embrace. It doesn’t take much to move from tension to intimacy - only one letter actually! But it always changes us, the limp is proof.

What a gift it is to never leave our wrestling with Him unmarked. 

 

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

**Advent is quickly approaching! Over the next several weeks I’ll be sharing a variety of Advent resources that you may want to check out to guide you through the season.

Something to Read: Advent RESOURCE - Write the Word Advent: Wonders of His Love is a great, simple, scripture-saturated Advent devotional. 

Something to Listen to: We got to sing this song with FreshLife Worship while the Youth Roots were in Montana for the MVMNT Conference. I’ve been singing it all week. Give “He Cares (Power in the Blood)” a listen!

Something to Follow: Advent RESOURCE - Kingdom Come is a 4-week, email-based, Advent study on God’s Kingdom as it appears in Scripture and our daily lives. No book needed, it comes right to your inbox!

 

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

PRAY for our Congregational Business Meeting this week.

PRAISE for our church family and their heart for outreach this week!