The Open Door - FCC Stanton · of Stanton Stephanie Herzog, Editor August 2019 The Open Door . From the desk of Pastor Jamey Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than

The Open Door is published monthly by the First Congregational Church

of Stanton

Stephanie Herzog, Editor

August 2019

The Open Door

From the desk of Pastor Jamey Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. - Acts 17:11 Something amazing and wonderful happens when

God’s people come together to study His Word and fellowship around the name of Jesus. We all need the help and encouragement of fellow Christ followers in order to live a Godly life in an ungodly world.

Which Bible is Best? Most people over 50 years of age who have spent their lives in and around the institutional church will be able to tell a personal story about the Bible translation wars. My own personal tale revolves around the King James Version (KJV) and the New Inter-national Version (NIV). Christians in the rural Michigan church in which I grew up con-versed passionately on whether or not a minister should ever preach from—let alone read from—anything other than the KJV. The KJV had served the church since 1611 and was beloved, while the new-fangled English of the NIV was treated with great suspicion. I listened to the impassioned assertions with great interest. Occasionally, my youthful ears would hear whispered arguments for why the NIV might be a good thing for the church. The decade of the 70’s was coming to a close and so much of American life was being judged outmoded, including the KJV. When I landed in Bible college in the mid 1980’s, certain domains in higher education were increasingly welcoming to the NIV. The ra-tionale was measured and thoughtful. Many in the pews cried “liberal!” at the growing change, but most of those were from single-language people who thought more with their passions than with their minds. As I matured in my own faith and intellect, I began to discover a love for all things linguistic. I came to appreciate how language and communication were related but different. I also became fascinated with how the latter was impacted by the former and how the rules for words and grammar changed across time and language and culture. To this day I chuckle how many in our current community “used to could” do something in their younger days that they can no longer do today. And that’s effective English! As I write this, my college-aged children have little to no idea of what was ubiquitously called “the KJV debate.” Instead, they have at their disposal an electronic plethora of English translations. The question I’m most often asked these days can be generalized as, “Of all the translations, which Bible is best?” That is the question I’d like to answer here. To begin with, the Bible wars are built upon shared premises. Everyone in-volved in the which-is-best debate typically agrees that: 1) The Bible is the most important book known to humanity 2) Christians everywhere need the Bible in their own languages 3) A correct understanding of the Bible is important for knowing how to please God 4) The original books of Bible did not come to us in English therefore translations are necessary .

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Ladies’ L.I.F.E. Group

This group meets during the day on

Wednesdays, but is on a temporary

break through the remainder of the

summer with plans to resume in

September. Be sure to watch the

calendar for when they “kick off”.

Women’s Prayer Life Group

This group is on a temporary break

through the remainder of the

summer. They do connect

electronically with updated requests

if you have any needs.

Ladies’ Evening Bible Study

We gather every other Wednesday

at 6:30 p.m. We are currently work-

ing through Priscilla Shirer’s

“Gideon”. New people are always

welcome, but you’ll want to get a

copy of the book off of Amazon. Fur-

ther details are elsewhere in this

newsletter or contact the office.

Teen Ministry

Pre-teens and Teens in grades 6-12

are invited to join us on Sunday

evenings from 4:00-6:00 p.m.

The group meets every other Sun-

day in the summer, watch your bul-

letin for current dates.

Meal volunteers are always

appreciated!

Future Groups?

If God has been laying a desire for a

particular group on your heart,

please let us know!

Talking to God Thank God for always keeping His promises. Ask Him for help so you can keep your promises, too.

Diving In List some of the promises God gave people in the Bible and the way He kept those promises. Examples: putting a rainbow in the sky as a promise to never again destroy the earth with a flood; giving Abraham’s descendants the land of Canaan; sending a Savior, Jesus; sending the Holy Spirit.

Going Deeper The Bible tells the story of two young men, Jonathan and David, who became good friends. Because they loved each other, they made a promise to always be friends and exchanged gifts as symbols of their friendship. This story was written in 1 Samuel 18:1-4 and 1 Samuel 20:16- 17. Twice, Jonathan saved David’s life when Jonathan’s father, King Saul, wanted to kill David. Later, after Jonathan died and David became king, David asked, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” (2 Samuel 9:1). David remembered his promise of friendship to Jonathan and was kind to Jonathan’s son.

Talking to Each Other

• When do people make promises? • What promises have others made to you? Did they keep their promises? • What promises have you made to others? How hard was it to keep your promises? • Why is it important to keep your promise to a friend?

—Lettie Kirkpatrick Burress

Promises Are Important Pastor Jamey’s article continued… We are blessed with a myriad of translations. Parallel Bibles in book form or online are marvelous attestations to a reliable rendering of the text. When multiple translations are basically saying the same thing, it’s like having multiple teams of language scholars collabo-rating together toward consensus. This is a gift to English speakers. Wycliff Bible translators have taken the 66 sacred books from their original lan-guages into remote dialects. Often just one, maybe two people who are fluent in the receptor language do the arduous work, verse by verse, working to accurately translate from Greek/Hebrew, through their mother tongue of comprehension, and into the native dialect. The fi-nal product is a blessing to the people who finally enjoy reading (if they know how to read!) God’s Word in their own languages. Imagine how much stronger the translation would be if several Greek scholars worked on the NT and several Hebrew scholars worked on the OT AND they were native speakers? Then imagine them meeting together to wrestle through difficult translation decisions until they reached a consensus? Now, imagine several different teams of scholars doing that over and over across generations? That’s what we have in Eng-lish and it is a gift! “Which Bible? King James? NIV? The ESV?” My answer is: All of them! Read them all.* Compare them to each other. Variations, of course, will emerge. But, overall these variations are minute. The vast majority of verses that speak directly to salvation, elemental theology, the basics of faith, and Christian living are all in complete agreement. Some varia-tions will be difficult to reconcile, but by-and-large, by relying on the passages in which all the translations agree, a simple person employing a plain and simple hermeneutic can easily arrive at a meaningful understanding of Christian truth. The real question for Stanton, MI Christians is not, “Which translation is best,” but rather “Are you reading any translation at all?”

* I say, “Yes, even read the paraphrases like the Living Bible, The Passion NT, and The Message.” These renditions are very thoughtful and often give us insights we might otherwise miss. Just remember, they are NOT translations and should not be relied on or treated as authoritative. Think of them more like me, your pastor: A decent enough fellow who loves the Lord but might not get it right every single time. Just like Sun-day’s sermons, you should always compare information back to one of the many excellent translations.

Our Church at Work . . . Letter from the Moderator:

Notes from the Diaconate:

Regular service needs are being supplied Church picnic arrangements have been made for August 11 with a

special musical guest - a Love Offering will provide for his performance.

Notes from the Trustees:

Trustee Synopsis for the July Meeting: Arranged for new AC units for Church office to replace old units. Rejoiced over the good news of the future gift from Norma Bussell’s Estate of

+$100,000 for the FCC Endowment Fund earmarked for Youth. Found an expert to replace 2 panes of stained glass in the Sanctuary. Designated the August Noisy Change offering to the Pregnancy Crisis Center in

Greenville. Began plans to reseal the main parking lot and to remove trees from south end of far

parking lot. Took a group photo to send with card of encouragement to Trustee Chet Brush. Dealt with various and sundry maintenance and financial issues. Our Trustee Lesson for July: When Solomon prayed to dedicate the Temple for the Israelites, he emphasized that God is not confined to a building made of human hands, and yet the Temple stood as a symbol of the presence of God in their community. We do our best to keep our brick “temple” standing strong, a symbol of God in our neighborhood. Read all about it in 1 Kings 8, beginning with verse 22.

Betty Braman (Secretary), Bob Braman (Chairperson), Chet Brush, Diane Hansen, Josh Herzog, Roger Hinton, Carol Korf, Laurel Michalek, Julie Terry, Mark Terry

Church Picnic

August 11

Our annual Church Picnic will take place on Sunday, August 11 at 10:00 a.m. We’ll kick off the morning with a musical guest, time of fellowship, and worship. Stick around for the

potluck lunch to follow!

Bring a comfortable chair, your own table service, and a dish to pass. We recommend the following based on last name initial: A-G - side dish; H-

Q - main dish; R-Z - dessert.

It’s almost time….

Pretty soon our Nominating Committee will begin their yearly task of seeking church family to fill vacancies on our Boards and Committees. We ask that you spend the month of August prayerfully considering whether God is calling you to serve the body of Christ by donating time and energy to a certain ministry of our church.

Operation Christmas Child

We are excited to an-nounce that we will have

slightly larger and sturdier boxes this year at no addi-tional shipping cost! This will allow

for more items to get to each child...

The requested donation items for August are: pencil sharpeners, big

erasers, crayons, glue sticks, pencils, and scissors.

The back-to-school sales that are be-ginning soon are a great time to

stock up on these supplies.

Looking Ahead: VBS 2019

Our weekend VBS is slated for August 17-19. Just like last

year, we’ll have VBS on Friday and Saturday night for about 2 1/2 hours each evening, with a wrap-up party and presen-

tation on Sunday morning during Worship Service.

If you’re willing and able to volun-

teer, please let Stephanie know.

Summer Connections With family vacations and busy days of mowing and weeding, it’s easy to

get out of your normal rhythm of Sun-day attendance.

To counteract this, be sure to take a few extra minutes to connect each week with your Church family - a

phone call or dinner and campfire in-vitation perhaps.

A great way to meet-up is with our Breakfast Bunch!

They gather every third Monday of the month at 9 a.m. Watch the bulletin for location information!

Cleanse thou me from secret faults - Psalm xix 12

The world wants men who are saved from secret faults. The world can put on an

outside goodness and go very far in uprightness and morality, and it expects

that a Christian shall go beyond it, and be free from secret faults. A little crack will spoil the ring of the coin. . . . The world

expects, and rightly, that the Christian should be more gentle, and patient, and

generous, than he who does not profess to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus. For the sake of those who take their notion of

religion from our lives, we need to put up this prayer earnestly, "Cleanse thou me

from secret faults."

—Mark Guy Pearse Thoughts for the Quiet Hour,

D. L. Moody, ed. (1900)

Love Talk Starters

What would your partner say you appreciate most about your father?

What would your partner say you appreciate

the most about your mother? On a scale of 1 to 10, how polite are the two of you to one another? If you are not

as polite as you’d like to be, what could you do differently? Chances are, you don’t compliment each other as much as you’d like to. Why is

that? What makes being affirming and encouraging so difficult at times?

From Love Talk Starters by Les & Leslie Parrott

PASSION FOR CHRIST * PERSEVERANCE * HUMILITY * SACRIFICE

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1

2 3

Psalm 113:3 - From the rising of the sun to its setting,

the name of the Lord is to be praised.

4 10 am - Worship Service 4 pm - Teen Ministry

5

6

7

8

9

10

11 10 am - Annual Church Picnic No Teen Ministry

12

13

14

6:30 pm Diaconate Meeting

6:30 pm

Women’s Bible Study

15

16

6-8:30 pm Vacation Bible

School

17

6-8:30 pm Vacation Bible

School

18

10 am - Worship Service (VBS Presentation) 11:30 am - Trustee Meeting 4 pm - Teen Ministry (Special: Greenhoe Baptisms)

19

9 am Breakfast Bunch

20

21

22 23

24

25 10 am - Morning Worship No Teen Ministry

26

27

28

6:30 pm Women’s Bible Study

29 30 31

First Congregational Church of Stanton Worship Service: 10 a.m. Phone: 989.831.5240 Email address: [email protected] Website: www.fccstanton.org

Noisy Change Offering

02 Brett Hallihan 04 Cindy West 05 Charles Miel 05 Randy Reese 07 Dale Brown 09 Gordon Cannon 10 Andrea Packer 10 Isaiah Van Kleeck 12 Ken Bunting 12 Dwight Johnston 14 Diane Bannister 19 Ryah Buck 20 Jax Hallihan 23 James Blum 23 Warren Wells 25 Elton Baldwin 25 Dale Miller 25 James Probyn 26 Cody Hansen 27 Sharon Borton 27 Braelyn Bunting 27 Joan Williams 28 Gale Parr 29 Norm Brummeler

Anniversaries

01 David/Linda Swanson 02 Tom/Deb Koepke 05 Dave/Jennifer VanderSchuur 06 Dooder/Sharon Ritter 15 Bob/Betty Braman 16 Rob/Janet Baldwin 16 Ed/Carol Drobish 19 Rick/Christa Baldwin 19 Don/Dawn Wilson 24 Mark/Julie Terry 28 Erv/Julie Hopkins 28 Don/Heather Guelzo

August 2019