Children families, and students to our worship: We have available some helpful resources in the foyer to help your family participate well in our assembly. For example: -Re-useable Activity Packets-use and return to the basket at the end of services.-"My Worship Notes" - Especially for our students 3-12th grade,write notes, comments, and draw pictures of the sermon and show to Bryan at the end of service for a prize.

“Come and get me” is a common cry of the start of many childhood games. Kids love being sought after and caught up in arms of love and affection. The game of tag beckons the one who is “it,” to transfer  acknowledgement and the receiving of another. My favorite is hide-andgo-seek, which involves a desperate seeker to find the one who is hidden. I love to hide. I have become very good at hiding away so well that many a seeker has given up and stopped seeking after me.

When I was a teenager some friends and I played a game in the evening when it was dark. I hid so well under a bush that no one ever found me. I was so quiet and restful that I remember falling asleep, only to wake up to find that everyone had given up on me and stopped searching. Everything was quiet, everyone had gone to bed, and it was a sad reality to have been forgotten. When I play with my children and begin to hear their frustration from their failure in finding me, I let out a whistle that says, “come and get me.” I do not like to remain hidden nor forgotten. I want to be found. After several whistles, and the luring in of their attention, they find me.

God works to draw all people to himself through his son. When seekers look to him and believe by eating of the bread of life, Jesus grabs a hold and will never let them go. Jesus never drives believers away and will never lose them. (Jn. 6:37-39) As the bread of life Jesus is saying, “Come and get me.”
Do you have Jesus? If not, then come and get Him. When you get Him, He gets you. When you seek you will find Him. And when you look to the Son and believe you will have eternal life. (Jn. 6:40)
 

Bryan Johnston

Every clean up your house and find an unopened present from the past? We did! A sermon by Norm Russell from 10 years ago with a wonderful message about the costs and rewards of discipleship, and insights into the life of Jesus as well.  I encourage you to go listen to it - it is very good. Never before published here, it had been recorded on a tape and was found while tidying up, and its message is spot-on for what is happening in today's world as well. Look for it in the downloads section as "2007-06-10 - Norm Russell - "Called to be Disciples." It's near the top of the list.

We were created for community. God lives in community as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In the beginning when God created man the Genesis account says, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Ge. 1:26). God created from a place of unified ourness, for man to live in community with others. In the Genesis 2, the Lord says, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Then the Lord God made a woman” (Ge. 2:18, 22). God’s story continues through the context of a family and a community of people until coming of Jesus the Christ. “The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn. 1:14). The gospel is displayed through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord and the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside and in community with all believers, the church.

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     Praise the Lord for woman of faith! The church is edified and the kingdom of God is advanced because of the ministry of our beloved saintly sisters in their service to the Lord. Jesus did the work of his father in heaven by sharing his life with the woman at the well. He showed up at a common place to share life and conversation with her. She was surprised that this Jewish man was fellowshipping with her, but after learning that he was a prophet she accepted his teaching. Upon hearing him reveal the truth of her life and offer her an invitation to a restored relationship of worship, she rushes home to her people to tell the good news. She becomes an instant evangelist saying, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (John 4:29).

     There are many in our lives and in our community who are ripe for the harvest. Like this woman they are desperate for truth and restoration. People are ready to hear the answers to the following questions: Who am I? What am I here for? Is God real? And does God care? As the body of Christ, we are the workers who know the truth of Jesus Christ. We are the workers who are called to go into the fields and to harvest a crop of believers. People today are ready for community, love, and support. Jesus said to his disciples, “Open you eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for the harvest” (John 4:35).

     What would happen if we took to action, and witnessed to the good news of Jesus in our lives like the Samaritan woman did? What if we gave a testimony of how the Lord has revealed himself to us and restored our lives into a life of worship? What if in our service to Jesus our Lord we rejoiced? What if we proclaimed salvation and the forgiveness of sins that is found in our Savior Jesus Christ? What if we shared common life with the other like Jesus did with the woman at the well?

     The woman testified to the Christ and many believed that Jesus is the Savior of the World. What would people say today through our testimony? Who is ripe and ready to hear from you today?

Bryan Johnston