Dear Friends,
• It’s Election Day – go and vote! My day began with a downer. Talked to two SRPC members and asked if they voted yet – both told me they weren’t even registered. If you’re not even registered to vote, will you take care of that this week? Politics and elections are not the most important thing – the kingdom of God is. Voting does matter though. It matters to unborn children who our judges are, it matters to our armed services who leads them, it matters to tax payers how their taxes are spent, and our indebtedness will matter to our children and grandchildren when they have to compete with a global economy to get jobs. If it’s not too late when you read this – please go vote!
• Trunk or Treat was amazing. Estimates of crowd size ran from 1200-1500! Those of you who decorated trunks and loved on kids were fantastic!
• Pray for Assistant Pastor Brandon Lauranzon and his bride Robyn – she is in labor today delivering their daughter Karis!
• We have some amazing people who attend SRPC. Steve and Ginny Saint are missionaries, authors and entrepreneurs who attend with their children, Shaun and Anne Saint. Last week Steve was featured on CNN for inventing a flying car, the Maverick, which has been certified by the FAA! Another talented guy at SRPC is Tom Sawyer. Tom is a fascinatingly creative artist and delightful guy. His art will be on display this weekend at The Pink House Art Show.
• Read two great books while in Mexico. Son of Hamas is the biography of Mosab Hassan Yousef, who is the son of the founder of the Islamic terror group Hamas and for years worked with Shin Bet the Israeli Counterintelligence Agency and has become a Christian. I also read The Big Short by Michael Lewis (author of The Blind Side) on the subprime mortgage fiasco. Currently on the bedside is Lewis’ book Moneyball and Paradise Lost by Giles Milton on the destruction of Smyrna in 1922. If you like foreign films – we watched a Swedish drama, As It Is In Heaven, last night. I thought it was a great flick on the power of community and the vacuousness of legalistic religion.
• Great quote by Jacques Ellul, “The really unbearable thing for us is grace…. It is exactly the opposite of everything our religious sentiments are looking for…. We do not want grace…. It does not satisfy religious needs…. We are possessed by an obsessional desire to justify ourselves, to declare that we are righteous, to be righteous in our own eyes, to seem to be righteous in the eyes of others…. Saying that God loves us grants us no reassurance. We would prefer it if he gave us fifty things to do, so that when we had done them, we could be at peace. We do not want an ongoing relationship with God. We prefer a rule.”
• Choir practice begins this Thursday night at 6:30 pm for the Advent season. If you’re normally too busy to fit choir into your schedule but love to sing – now would be a great time to be a part of the choir.
• I’ll be preaching this weekend on Acts 6:1-15!
• Be sure to turn your clocks back Saturday night or many of you will arrive at worship at 9:15!
Love,
Ray
