Home Church Meeting - June 12, 2012

Last night Abbie and Paul brought an amazing dinner - some kind of pulled chicken and beans, rice, mini cornbread muffins, and a spinach salad tossed with fresh fruit.  This isn't a food blog, but I was pretty excited by this meal.

Nate taught on 1 Corinthians 12 and the "Body of Christ" - Paul's metaphor for the church.  We talked about participation and interdependence.

1 Corinthians 12:12

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:14-19

14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be?

Home Church Meeting - June 5, 2012

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Back to the blog - sorry, its been a while.  We've been meeting all these months, just not blogging about it.

Last night Christy taught on 1 Corinthians 12 and spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 12:4 - There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them

1 Corinthians 12:7 - Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

We had a good discussion about the importance of practicing what you have been made by God to do and about using our gifts "for the common good," not selfishly.

Throwing the football afterwards

Two of our own get married

Martin Boden and Diane Sirkoski got married on Saturday at the Welsh Hills Inn in nearby Granville.  Marty has been with us in Vinewood from the start, and Diane almost as long, so this was really special for all us.

Also, this wedding was awesome.  Everything was outdoors on a perfect October day.  Ceremony, food, reception - it was all done right.  The live band in the party tent kept us all going till pretty late.

Picture of the year I'm pretty sure.  Nice work Jen Frederick.

Marty waiting in the wings.

Yep.  A horse-drawn carriage.

Ryan and Leslie getting excited.

Joe and Michele getting even more excited.

The happy couple.

Amand, Pat, Ben - testing the waters.

Diving in.

Congratulations Marty and Diane!

Men's Retreat

Last weekend, the larger church that we are a part of held a Men's Retreat at Salt Fork State Park.  We stayed in the cabins there and met at the lodge for talks Ryan Lowery and Ben Foust.  Good times and nice weather during one of the nicest times of the year in Ohio.

Those of us from our home church rushed back on Saturday for Martin and Diane's wedding (next post!).

Home Church Meeting - Tuesday, October 19, 2011

Dinner night.  The Fredericks brought black bean wraps and chicken tortilla soup.  Quite tasty.

Joe, describing the flavors of the soup.

Nathan Frederick, aka Funnel.

Pat insisted that he have a picture on the blog.

We started a new book of the Bible last night - Galatians.  Ben taught on Galatians 1:1-10 and gave an introduction to this letter from the Apostle Paul.  The main theme of the letter is Paul's insistence that the Christian message of grace - the free gift of forgiveness and salvation through Christ - never be tarnished by adding to it requirements of religious rule-following.  Some representative verses:

Galatians 1:6-7 -- I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel -- which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

Galatians 2:11 -- Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."

Galatians 4:9 -- But now that you know God -- or rather are known by God -- how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

Galatians 5:1 -- It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

We also discussed this verse:

Ephesians 2:8-9 -- For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast.

Specifically, we discussed boasting - how pride is the motivating factor for insisting on earning good standing before God through works, not simply requesting forgiveness.  Also see Jesus' parable in Luke 18:9-14.

Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday morning, the group met up at Lynd Fruit Farm out east of Columbus.  Lynd goes all out in the Fall and has huge pumpkin patches and all kinds of other Fall stuff.  The kids loved it.

The patch.  Also probably the windiest day in recent memory.  We all got some good ones.

H.G. making his selection.

D.M. displaying his strength.

H.S. trying to stay warm.

The bucket train was a huge hit with the older kids.

Home Church Meeting - Tuesday, October 11, 2011

This week, Katie taught on Philippians 4:8:

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things."

 She talked about how naturally we focus on negative things and the challenge of doing what this passage instructs - dwelling on the positive.  As Christians, we always have good things to dwell on: our security with God, his acceptance and forgiveness of us, the relationships he gives us... the list goes on.

We had a good discussion about negativity, something we all know too much about!

Katie telling us how it is

Abbie adds her two cents.