Fall Quarter Adult Classes Sunday Auditorium Class : The Mission of God’s People, taught by Ethan (resumes 9/30) Wednesday Downstairs Annex Class : Letters to the Corinthians, taught by Ethan Brown Saturday, October 27th at the build- ing. See Angela Worrell for details. Sunday, September 30th, Noon Potluck, honoring Wes and Martha Davis for their years of work and service with us here in the Hendersonville area. Please plan to stay and fellowship. Bring your favorite ‘Wes & Martha story’ and we will pass the microphone. Winterfest: Feb. 15th—17th, Gatlinburg, TN What is Wintefest? It is a weekend retreat going on for 31 years. While geared toward middle and high school teens, our congregation also encourages families to attend. The teachers and guests at Winterfest use real life stories, drama, music, and scripture to make the Christian life come alive to the teens involved. There are sessions of acappella praise and worship and supplemental events presented by Christian entertainers. Theme this year? “Just One” , More details about the theme TBA. Where do we stay? We have a block of rooms reserved at the Reagan Inn next to the convention center where the Winterfest sessions are held. This means that we can walk to all the sessions and area attractions. How can I go? Sign up now through September 30th in the lobby for your teen or family. The cost is $50/1 person, $80/2 people, or $100/family. Registration, hotel, and all meals Saturday and breakfast Sunday are provided. The church offsets the additional cost. Ladies, sign up in the Foyer to bring either salad or des- sert for the luncheon. Also, please bring a small thank you gift to go in a basket for the speaker. Million Dollar Sunday Special Contribution, October 7th Middle School Family Fellowship Sept. 30th @4:30PM at Duncan & Linda Blake’s home Food, devo., and planning for families with current & upcoming middle school- ers. RSVP to Blakes or office by 9/26. The Audia/Bullard/Clem Connection Group invites you to an Early Fall 2018 Ice Cream Social TONIGHT at 5:30pm in the fellowship hall . There will be a devo. and communion, followed by ice cream. Enjoy our ice cream or bring your own flavor. 1975 Haywood Rd Hendersonville, NC 28791 / 828 692-0306 / www.hvlcoc.org hvlcoc, hvlcocyouth hvlcocyouth [email protected] http://www.youtube.com/user/HVLCOC September 23, 2018 Have you ever wondered how the apostle Paul was able to plant so many churches so rapidly in the Mediterranean basin? In just a matter of months, or even weeks, to establish leaderships in those churches, appointing elders and moving on to the next place? How could he bring people from no faith to leadership in just a couple weeks? It was as if the whole area was ready for the Christian message. Why did things seem so much more simple then? There were several contributing factors to the ease of the spread of the gospel, but one of them was something called the diaspora: Jewish communities all over the Roman empire. There were religious communities who believed in the God that Paul was talking about when he taught the gospel - the Father of Jesus was already the God of the Jews. They already knew the Scriptures. The synagogue system across the empire gave Paul a deep foundation to build upon. He wasn’t working with a blank slate, but with people who already knew their Scriptures and could explore them. Remember the noble Jews of Berea, who dug into the Scriptures? They could do that because they already had a very good working knowledge of them. If everyone Paul trie to reach knew nothing about Bible, his work would have been much more difficult and time consuming. He couldn’t have breezed into a town, spent a few weeks and moved on. The same work would have taken years to accomplish because he would have to bring people up to speed with basic knowledge of the Bible story. As it was, the Bible was being taught across the empire by faithful communities of Jews, and Paul had people prepared for his teaching. This is one of the reasons that we support Eastern European Mission. The slogan you’ll see on the website when you visit is The Bible: We Want Everyone to Get It. In places in the same Mediterra- nean basin where Paul worked, a profound absence of the Scriptures had once settled, and EEM works to overcome it. Among other great works, they distribute Bibles into places where it is missing, helping to reestablish something like the kind of availability of and accessi- bility to Scripture that was present in the first century. There are two big things to pray about as we think about EEM this morning: Pray that the Scriptures can be widely received and widely known. Knowledge alone is not enough, but it does provide a foundation upon which missionaries can build. We need to pray that the fields of Eastern Europe can whiten again. Then pray also that the Lord of harvest will send out workers. Once again, may there be people like Paul to teach and help people move into faith. -Ethan