West Abbotsford Mennonite Church

Verse of the Day

The Great Feast

Luke 14:15-24.  Message by Ron Daku.

Jesus, the host, invites us to party with Him. Do we accept His invitation and encourage others to accept also? Why would anyone not want to party with Jesus at a banquet? Why would anyone make lame excuses and miss out on the greatest feast of all time?  Download November23

Announcement

From West Abbotsford Mennonite Church to

West Abbotsford Mennonite Church and Wellspring Christian Fellowship to

New Church to

Level Ground Mennonite Church (aka LG Mennonite Church) 

LIFE's GOOD!

Cost of Discipleship

 

    9:00 - 10:00am.  (The First) Classic Service.

   9:30 - 10:15am.   Pray the text of the day with Abe & Marion:  Luke 14:25-33

10:30 - 11:30am.   Contemporary Service.  Message by Pastor Karen.

Download November16.pdf

Grace is free, but discipleship costs.  Following Jesus comes with a price that we pay by praying daily, worshipping regularly, studying scripture diligently, serving for the sake of others, giving generously, inviting others often, and passing on our faith before everything else in our lives. Making the commitment to pick up a cross and carry it is to choose a different kind of life, but it is choosing a life lived with Christ… the one who chose us and continues to choose us over and over again.  Amen.

The power and mercy of God's hold gives us courage to let go of that which holds us captive.

Keep God First by Joyce Meyer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnYu7L6QE10.  "God wants you to get out of your Sunday box.  He wants your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. "   

Remembrance Day

 

Bernard Patrick Harty (Marion Tansey's father) 1916-1976.
To Remember is to work for peace

 

Peace Sunday

Praying the text with Abe and Marion:  Download november_9.pdf

Other readings (from the New Believers Bible, New Testament):

• Matthew 5:23-26 - Make peace with others quickly.
• John 14:27 - The peace Jesus gives is different from the world's peace.
• Romans 5:1 - Jesus gives us peace.
• 1 Corinithians 1:3 - We can pray for God's peace for others.
• Galatians 5:22 - Peace is evidence of the Holy Spirit's working in our lives
• Philippians 4:4-7 - We can have peace through prayer.

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an channel of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy; O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Gratitude

Praying the test of the day  - Download October12.pdf

Luke 17:11-19.  Message by Karen H.T. 

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."   Author: Melody Beattie

God has provided us with so much, that we want to extend God’s love by giving to others. We ask that everyone bring a bag of non-perishable food items to the church on Thanksgiving morning, Sunday, October 12. During the service, an opportunity will be given for you to bring that item to the front of the sanctuary as one way of saying "Thanks to God" for His provision.  Later, the food items will be distributed to those who are in need of food as well as some brought to the Food Bank by Henry & Katie Krause.

Beautiful to Me

EagleGrace puts the story of Luke 7:36-50 to music. 

Message by Karen H.T.  Download October5.pdf

Through the Roof

Luke 5:17-26.  Message by Jerry Binnema

It wasn’t the paralyzed man’s faith that impressed Jesus but the faith of his friends.  Jesus responded to their faith and healed the man. For better or worse, our faith affects others.  We cannot make another person a Christian, but we can do much through our words,  actions, and love to give him or her a chance to respond.  Look for opportunities to bring your friends to the living Christ. 

Forgiveness of sins was a sign that the messianic age had come.

God offers, the same forgiveness given to the paralytic, to all who believe. Forgiveness means that a relationship has been renewed despite a wrong that has been done.  But the act cannot be erased or changed.

Do you carry a heavy burden for sins you have committed? Confess all to Christ and receive ulti-mate forgiveness.   Life Study Application Bible

Come, follow me

Pre-service worship:  Download september_21.pdf

New Church: Chosen to be a Blessing

Pre-service worship:  Download september_14.pdf

Worship service of remembering and anticipation

 

Text of the day: Hebrews 13:8.  "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever." 

Who am I

Romans 12:6 (New International Reader's Version);
Message by Marion Tansey.

God gives us gifts so we can build up his church. To use them effectively, we must (1) realize that all gifts and abilities come from God; (2) understand that not everyone has the same gifts; (3) know who we are and what we do best; (4) dedicate our gifts to God's service and not to our personal success; (5) be willing to utilize our gifts wholeheartedly, not holding back anything from God's service.  God's gifts differ in nature, power, and effectiveness according to His wisdom and graciousness, not according to our faith.  Our role is to be faithful and to seek ways to serve others with what Christ has given us.  (Life Application Study Bible) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmWafMJOTVM

Challenges of discipleship

Hebrews 10:19-21 - Message by Hans Federau

In Verse 19, the subject of Hebrews changes from the all-sufficiency of Jesus’ priesthood and sacrifice to the proper response believers would make to it. As believers we are exhorted to five spiritual practices. First, we may freely and confidently approach God in faith. Second, we are urged to be steadfast and not waver from the faithful promises of God. Third, we should constantly encourage one another in love and good works. Fourth, we are warned not to reject the work of Christ, but recall how God has faithfully preserved us in the past. Rejecting these exhortations leads to spiritual timidity and perdition, whereas following them results in spiritual endurance and the safekeeping of our souls.

The Samaritan woman at the well

 

The Gospel of John, Chapter 4, Verses 1 - 24,
Download july_27.pdf
Message by Dave Rodda

1) "We have a Lord who, when the situation requires it, breaks the rules, disregards the conventions, lets us down in our expectation of how God should behave.  And he does this because those who are lost, those who are on the periphery, those who would never come near the church, are infinitely precious in his sight.  Sometimes therefore we shall have to forgo our prissiness in order fully to represent our Saviour.

2) I cannot understand how people who are opposed to the ordination of women deal with this text.  For here, as in many other stories in the Scriptures, it is a woman or women who are explicitly the bearers, the bringers, the tellers of Good News.

3) Jesus Christ never asked those who met him to become a rabbi, like himself.  He always asked them to do what they could for him, even when it was a simple request like, 'Give me a drink.'  For it is when we use the potentials God has given us to advance the purposes of his kingdom that we become partners with, rather than strangers to, our Lord. 

When you give to God and do for God whatever you can, you move from the fringe to the centre, from isolation to belonging, from doubt to understanding, from conversation to conversion." 

John Bell, States of Bliss & Yearning, The marks and means of authentic Christian spirituality. 

 

 

Called Out

Text of the day:  1 Peter 2:9-10

The day starts at night

 "Now let's get very concrete.  If we want to spend a regular, ordinary day of our life with Jesus, what would we actually do?  How do we go about trying to receive each moment as a sacrament, a God-charged sliver of grace? 

This is what we need to remember at the outset:  Spending the day with God does not usually involve doing different things from what we already do.  Mostly it involves learning to do what we already do in a new way---with God. 

Actually, the first task of the day is to go to sleep.  In Western culture we think of a day beginning when the sun comes up or when the alarm clock goes off or when Starbucks opens.  But the ancient rhythm of days is different.  In the creation account, the order is always the same: "And there was evenig and there was morning---the first day."  Each day in creation begins with evening.  In Jewish life, the Sabbath begins not at sunup but at sundown.  Eugene Peterson notes that in this way the bilbical writers help us to remember:  Everything doesn't depend on me.  I go to sleep.  God goes to work.  It's his day.  The world keeps spinning, tides ebb and flow, lives begin and end even though I am not there to superintend any of it.  God is present when I sleep:

In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat---
for he grants sleep to those he loves."

An excerpt from John Ortberg's God is Closer Than You Think

Introducing ... New Church

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When our hearts condemn us

I John 3:16-24