Dear Springs of Grace Church Family,

Grace to you and peace. I trust you have been helped this week by the reminder that the world is set against Jesus and all who are His – the world hated Him, and we shouldn’t be surprised when it hates us. Love is the ministry of those who follow Jesus. Those who don’t know Him are marked by hate. It shouldn’t surprise us or shake us when our world responds to one another with hatred and ugliness and seeks to establishment superiority and power over one another. It’s sad to watch, but it should not be, and by the grace of God, it will not be true of those of us who follow Jesus.

It is one of my great prayers for Springs of Grace that we might learn the beauty of walking in unity without having to call and urge one another to conformity. God is honored by the love we share with one another. It is beautiful when I see you preferring one another over yourself and seeking others good instead of just your own. May our testimony as a church help us point our neighbors and city to the hope that is in us, Jesus!

Praise the Lord for the sweet time of fellowship last Sunday at the fellowship meal. It was wonderful seeing so many of you catching up with one another and hearing of many gospel encouraging conversations. Thank you Lord, for answering our prayers.

This Sunday night we will have a Q & A time with our elder candidates. It will begin at 6:00 pm on the west lawn of the church where we have our morning service. PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS using this form.  as soon as possible but at least by noon on Sunday. It would be great if you could identify a particular elder candidate that you would like to answer the question. You will also have the opportunity to submit questions on Sunday morning through a box on the table. We would continue to encourage you to ask questions of the elder candidates one on one in person or by email. While we will try and get to as many questions as possible and give opportunity for the candidates to answer, we recognize that there may be a desire for some of you to follow up with them on a particular question and we encourage you to do so.

If you have any particular concerns about an elder candidate that you would like to share, you may pass those on to one of our current elders (Joe Blankenship at b2himglory@gmail.com or Jared McCoy at JMcCoy@metroca.com ). The elder candidates are available for questions individually at our community groups and before or after services over the next few weeks. You will also be hearing from each of our elder candidates through a 10-minute life testimony and some written comments that we will be posting to our website soon.

Continue to pray for these men and their families: Nate Boone, Tim Condie, Gabe Graham, Ryan McNeill, and Fred Sabatini – as we work through this process.

Thank you for being a part of a church family that in all of our flaws is committed to the pursuit of the main things of loving God and loving our neighbors. We were reminded Sunday in John 15 that we are loved by Jesus and are His followers instead of haters because He chose us. He gets all the glory! Let’s keep pursuing taking our love to a higher level. We don’t make up what love is but remain committed to allowing the Bible to shape those pursuits.

One of the things I am most grateful for at Springs is our church family’s commitment to study and teach and preach and read the Bible correctly. Many years ago, God used a class of bible study methods and hermeneutics (the steps of observation, interpretation, evaluation, and application) of God’s Word to help me learn how to rightly study and teach the Bible. Several in our church family have gone through a similar study by the Charles Simeon Trust organization. It is one of the best, if not the best, simple, practical and helpful courses we have ever offered. It will help you be able to better read, study, listen, and teach the Bible.

Simeon Trust offers a women’s only course and a men’s only course and we are offering those again. We are spreading out the time commitment so that more of our men and women can participate. Simeon Trust is a very conservative and well-respected tool for learning how to study and interpret the bible correctly. It will help you better be able to teach within your own family or teach some other ladies or teach a group of men or teach a lesson in our Sunday School or Spring Kids. We don’t want to just study the Bible and pull out our own ideas and thoughts but want to help each of you to learn to correctly interpret the Bible and be able to pass it on well to others. It is something we have asked all of our elder candidates to participate in.

I understand that you may be at a time of life that doesn’t allow you to participate, but if you have not already been through the study or something similar, I would strongly encourage you to consider being a part. It will make our church stronger and more effective in loving God and loving our neighbors as we are better able to understand God’s Word and pass it on to others.

You can read about Simeon Trust here: women (https://simeontrust.org/courses/first-principles-women/) men (https://simeontrust.org/courses/first-principles/) Be looking for information about our classes coming out soon.

Join us for our outdoor service this Sunday morning at 9:15. The livestream service will begin at 10:45. You can find the link to this week’s livestream service at our website – www.springsofgrace.church

Pray that God would meet with us this week and pray that we would give ourselves to the great joy of loving one another well and so demonstrating that we are the disciples of Jesus.

If you have questions or needs, please let us know. Striving to be His church, by His grace, for His glory.

Love you very much,

Pastor Joe