Home from France

It is so great being back with all of you, I really have enjoyed the last two Sundays, especially worshiping and preaching in English. Sometime soon we will have an evening and share many of the events of this summer's mission trip. The trip was a success. Romuald is a young man with a great heart and a great desire to learn. We enjoyed our time in class together and I will continue to work with him via the internet. I also taught the book of Acts to the church this summer, however, we didn't finish the book. I will continue teaching the class on Sunday afternoon via Skype. This morning I connected with the Poitiers church, so we will have live video and audio. The class will be entirely in French, if anyone would like to attend please contact me.

Being in France for the summer also helped me realize how easy it is to forget the simple things in life. Maybe it was because of limited resources, or limited speech (even a fluent speaker is still recognizable as a foreigner). Whatever the case, I really didn't miss much except my family, friends and worshiping with the church here. That is the reason I've been sharing about simplicity. Much of my life is filled with things at the time seem so important, but in reality don't effect the my life that much. God's Word confirms this outlook on life as we saw two weeks ago. This last Sunday I address the simplicity of God's will for His church. I would like to challenge each of you to review the following scriptures and commit yourself to discovering God's role for you in this body of believers. Whether you are a long-time member, new member or just began attending, if you are willing to serve in a ministry to help us fulfill God's commission you are welcome to contact anyone in the leadership. If you don't know where to start email me at bethalto.pastor@gmail.com. Here is a summary of yesterday's sermon's notes.

May God bless and a hope to see you soon,

John

Z thinking is God's ultimate desire for mankind.

I Timothy 2:1-4

2 Peter 3:1-9

Church is the vehicle through which God wants to fulfill His will

Eph. 3:10

Each of us needs to commit ourselves to:

Prayer

Love and Unity

Unity does not come from consensus or compromise but uniquely from connection.

Connection to God and thus connection to one another

John 17:21,23

Vision-Seeing people and the world the way God does.

Evangelism Show and Tell show them transformed lives and tell the who did it.

Luke 6:46 LOOK it up!