Albany Grove

Some days it's enough just to get through the day. Some days parenting well just means getting our kids through the day. We all dream, however, of living for something more than just day to day. We dream of our families existing for more than just itself.That step seems very small, from focusing on self to focusing on God's mission in the world, but I think there are a lot of factors pushing back against that desire. The pressures of work and school, the business of life, the general tiredness that creeps into life can all derail your dreams...or perhaps already have. For the final week of our "It Starts at Home" series we'll be learning to get over some of those hurdles and how to lead our children into lives that are God's best, rather than lives that are merely survived!

The Bible describes the church as a body. In the way that a body has many different parts, so does a church. The people who make up the church have all sorts of different gifts and abilities, just like the parts of the body are designed for different functions. Problems arise for a person when a part of the body is hurt or injured or even neglected. The rest of the body suffers.As we continue this series 'It Starts at Home', this Sunday morning we will be asking God to guide us as leaders of our own families - our own little 'bodies of Christ' in our homes.

When my kids were little and one offended the other I used to tell them, "Say you're sorry." I bet you've used this same line, or your parents used it on you. And then my kids - just like I did when I was their age would say, "sorry." Usually this was without feeling, without contrition, without even turning towards the other or any eye contact.If this was success for me as a parent then my goal, it would seem, was to train my children in behaving a certain way without needing to put any heart into it. In reality, I was teaching my kids a behavior when I wish they had a heart transformation.For many of us our Christianity operates at this level. And while that may be alright when you are a child (or a child in the faith), it's not an acceptable way of looking at life as a mature person, or a mature follower of Jesus. So this week we'll be opening our Bibles and talking real heart transformation - how that is possible in our lives and how we create an environment in our homes that leads this way.

In the third week of our series on raising kids with a faith in Jesus we are going to talk about the things we need to be most intentional about. How can we best create an atmosphere in our homes where God is truly known and experienced?

All of us have families. Some families are great, some... a little more challenged. Some families are blood, sometimes family is something you have had to build around you.As family structures continue to change, more and more people have no past experience to lean back on when it comes to parenting.Thankfully, as much as you think your family is a big deal - so does God. And so, His message (The Bible) has a lot to say about how we can best pass our faith on to our children and set them up for a lifelong relationship with Jesus. This will be our focus in worship and growth over the next 6 weeks on Sunday mornings.

The book of Jude in the Bible is a letter to a very early church that paints a dire picture. Their church has been invaded by evil people that are actually leading people away from Jesus instead of helping them live and grow in the love of God. It would be understandable for the people in that church to become depressed and start forgetting about any future or hope - but Jude actually ends his letter with an amazing amount of hope. The hope, though, is based on the power and glory of God, not based on the situation the church finds itself in.

In Jude's letter to one of the very early churches he reminds them to remember the things they have been taught. Jude encourages the church through a difficult time by bringing back to their memory the things that they already know, because sometimes life gets in the way of our memories. Today be reminded of the truth you might already have known.

Sometimes when the Bible talks about when Jesus is coming, it uses a lot of happy and exciting language. With Jesus' birth in Bethlehem it was all excitement. When Jesus returns again, there's going to be a huge party. Huge.But there are some Scriptures that paint a much more dangerous picture of the return of Christ. When Jude speaks of Jesus coming, he talks about judgment and bringing condemnation on people who took advantage of others and failed to serve and follow Jesus. Apparently, there will be some mixed reviews of this great day....

Most people spend a lot of time working on the things that we see. We take care of our appearance, the way we behave and speak, or even the kind of life we lead. The problem is that most of us are tripped up by the things we don't see. When we spend our time focused on the surface, we can easily miss the dangers that lurk just below. The very early church had to deal with these same issues as teachers were coming into their gatherings who seemed alright at a glance, but had dangerous intentions and purposes.This week we'll learn from the very early church on how to spot and avoid hidden dangers in our lives and ensure that we are on the right path in following Jesus!

For the next month we will be studying the letterof Jude. It was written by Jesus' brother and it's the second to last book in the Bible. He wrote it to very early followers of Jesus who were living in a time when there was a lot of change in their culture and the way that people practiced and taught what it was to be a Christian was increasingly diverse and finding your way in the multiple teachings that were out there was increasingly difficult. This might be a relevant message for us today?

How does the Bible show us how to live? How do we find strength and guidance in the pages of Scripture? Are we supposed to take everything literally and do exactly what it says? These are really big questions and I hope you will find yourself encouraged as we go to the Words of God together!

The Bible is by far the most popular book worldwide, but many of us don't know much about it. We probably know a couple quotes here or there, but when we are questioned by friends about something in the Bible, we often stumble with our words and give a meandering response, all the while wondering why we have no idea what the Bible actually says.How the people of God came to have the Bible is an important piece of history because the way we view the Scriptures will inform the way we see God. There is a big difference between seeing the Bible as God-inspired or seeing it as a collection of good writings that the church thought would be good to gather together.Over the next two weeks we are going to gather together on Sunday mornings to worship and read our Bibles and grow in our understanding of what it means to be "a people of the book"

For the past month on Sunday mornings we've been singing and learning and praying all about heaven and the afterlife and eternity. So, we've learned a bunch of new things and the question now has to be what do we actually DO about this?The Bible itself says that everything we learn in it is useful for real, everyday living. So, this week we'll spend some time thinking about how our understanding of eternity actually changes the way we live right now.

Some people have wildly boring ideas about what we do while we are in heaven. Lots of white robes and sitting around on clouds while we play harps and watch angels fly by. Could you imagine this for eternity? Thankfully, that is not the picture the Bible gives of our activities in heaven. We will hear what the Bible says about heaven, and what we will do there for all eternity. Spoiler alert, you probably won't be sitting on a cloud.... but you could play a harp if you wanted to!

n the moments right after our lives on this earth are complete we will have experiences like we have never imagined! The Bible teaches us what to expect, but it's so radically different than life here (while being so similar at the same time!), that it can often be confusing. We're going to open our Bibles up and talk about our first moments in eternity and what God teaches us to expect - which will gives us plenty of motivation to worship Him!

The return of Jesus is a fun part of the Bible to study and to know what you believe about it - but it's should not be an attempt to just predict exactly what will happen and when. Instead, we open our Bibles and see what it says and learn why the return of Christ gives us reason to respond to God in obedience and in worship!

If we really do believe in things like heaven and eternal life, then we are anticipating spending a LONG! time there. Eternity in heaven makes this life seem like just a moment, yet we seem to focus much more of our thinking and actions toward this life. We often will neglect to think of eternity because the immediate is so overwhelming.Some people just ignore the afterlife, having decided that we will, "Figure it out when we get there." I think your views on what happens at the end of all this really affect the way you live today. By knowing more about God's plan for heaven, hell and everything that goes with that, we can live in a more biblical way every day; not just with joy about going somewhere awesome some day, but with the peace of God, knowing that his ways are best and will always be best for us!

Habakkuk 1:2-4, 2:2-4, 3:17-18

We contiue our series on learning how to go thruogh the doors God opens to us. This week we study the story of Jonah. The beginning of the service also includes a preview of our drama for Kids Kamp.