Linfield Christmas Choral Concert

The choirs at Linfield are performing a Christmas Concert this Sunday, December 2nd, at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free! The concert is in Melrose Hall, which is in the front of the campus (click here for a map of the college).

I've gone to two choral concerts at the college and enjoyed them both very much! Come hear some of our talented New Hope students sing!

...By the way, there are two more concerts on campus this week, a Chamber Music Recital on Tuesday afternoon, and a Jazz Night on Friday. Click here to see the Linfield calendar for more information.

New Hope's New Look!

A lot of people have been working very hard to get our new building ready for this Sunday! They've been building walls, painting, fixing lights, setting up chairs, etc. every day. Below are some pictures I took a couple days ago. Bob Schuetz (who isn't pictured but has been working a lot!) also took some pictures this week, and they are included on our web site's photo gallery titled New Hope's New Look.

We sure appreciate all the hours spent on this big project. It's looking GREAT, and I can't wait to have everybody meet there this weekend!

Work Day!

Our first worship service in the new building is this Sunday--but you can begin your "worship service" a day earlier! Join other New Hopers on Saturday morning, 9:30 a.m. at 3rd and Kirby in cleaning up the property to get ready for church!

We'll be doing work on the landscaping outside and some cleaning up inside, so there's plenty of tasks to go around. Bring some tools and supplies if you want, and we'll see you Saturday morning!

The Golden Compass

As a movie fan I've been interested to read some articles about The Golden Compass which opens in theaters December 7th. My family saw an impressive trailer for the film last week when we went to see Enchanted together (which we enjoyed very much, by the way).

The Golden Compass is adapted from a novel by proudly-self-proclaimed-atheist British author Philip Pullman, and it has generated quite a bit of controversy. It certainly isn't my place to tell you what movies to see and what to avoid, but I thought it might be helpful for you to go in with your eyes open if you're considering buying some tickets. So, here are a couple links for your information:

The Chronicles of Atheism - from Christianity Today Magazine, December 2007

The Golden Compass - from Snopes.com, a site that verifies/debunks all the valuable information and urban legends that get forwarded in emails.

Thanks for lunch!

Last month as we celebrated our fellowship's one-year anniversary, the church gave us a gift card for Golden Valley Brewery & Restaurant as a "Pastor Appreciation" gift. Kelly and I finally had a chance to go enjoy lunch together today as the kids were in school, and I wanted to take a moment to say "Thanks" for your kind gift!

I feel lots of support and encouragement here all year long, and this special gift was just icing on the cake! Thanks for all your love--we love you very much!

Back online!

Our website is back up and running, so you can once again...

- Listen to sermons & music online

- Join our online Fellowship Directory (or update your photo and other info)

- Check out upcoming events on the home page

- Contact any of the leaders

- Submit praises and prayer requests

- Look at photo galleries

- Give online (maybe you could pay for a couple chairs with PayPal!)

- Find information about going to Israel with Dewey

- Consult the church calendar

- And more!

Thanks to our set-up crew!

We spent most of our first year as a church meeting at the Senior Center, and since we were renting we had to set up and tear down our worship space every week! Since I was always there to witness the event, I wanted to publicly thank some really faithful servants for their work every Sunday.

Our main chair setter uppers were Thomas Christian, Jeff Keikkala and Steve Rotarius (and of course others helped along the way). They were as consistent as sunrises. I can even remember a couple times when Thomas was too sick to come to church, but still came bright and early to make sure the set-up got done and then went back home to bed. Wow! Thanks, guys. I also saw Josh Kanable helping a lot with tear-down after church, and there were a few ladies who did lots of lunch time vacuuming, including Jennifer Keikkala, Linda Anderson, Joann Dorn and Rebecca Bertolini.

Thomas and Trisha Christian were kind enough to set up our nursery every week, and Rebecca and Ashley trucked their Children's Ministry stuff from home and set it up every Sunday.

The whole Rotarius family was faithful to not only bring the equipment trailer every week, but also to unload it in the morning and load it up again in the afternoon (and most of them wore high heels as they did it)!

The "New Hope Band" was good enough to come early to set up their equipment every week, and I especially appreciate Dustin and Beth driving from Salem every Sunday to set up the drums and help with other preparations.

I appreciate Steve Myers for lots of reasons, but I want to thank him, too, for being there every week to get the sound system set up every Sunday. He and I were always the first ones on the scene at 7:30, unloading our matching white minivans full of sound/band equipment when Ruth opened the doors. In a way I'll miss that--there was something inwardly encouraging about meeting him there every week (though we're both quite happy we don't have to get up so early now)!

The fact is, all these folks and many more are a constant encouragement in the way they have pitched in to make our worship gatherings work. Naturally, there will still be cleaning, chair-moving, etc. to do in our new building every week, and I am confident that these folks and others will continue to be faithful. But as we close this first chapter of our Sunday meetings, I just want to say Thanks, everybody, for helping to make our nomadic first year work so smoothly. We all appreciate your service to the Lord and His church!

(This list of servants is certainly not exhaustive, and it's likely I've forgotten to include some people. If you can think of someone who deserves some recognition for their Senior-Center-set-up-and-tear-down work, help me out by posting a comment to thank them for us!)

Web Woes

Our wonderful New Hope website (www.newhopeconnection.com) is currently out of commission due to technical administrative complications (i.e. I probably goofed up somewhere)! Alas! We're working on getting it fixed, and I'm sure we'll be back up and running later this week. I'll post something here to let you know when that happens.

In the meantime, this is a lousy week to not have our site running, because we are changing our Sunday morning worship time and location this Sunday! Fortunately, you're checking the New Hope Connection Blog (yeay!), so here's a reminder:

Starting this Sunday, we will be meeting at 330 NE Kirby Street (a block east from Golden Valley Brewery & Restaurant, across the street from St. James Catholic Church). We'll have one worship service at 10:30 a.m., with coffee and goodies starting at 10:00. Tell your friends!

Ah, communication...

A disappointed soft drink salesman returned from his Middle East assignment. His boss asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Arabs?"

The salesman explained, "When I got posted in the Middle East, I was very sure to make a good sales pitch as our product was virtually unknown there. I didn't know to speak Arabic, so I planned to convey the message through 3 posters. My first poster was a man crawling through the hot desert sand, totally exhausted and panting. Second, the man is drinking our soft drink and third, our man is now totally refreshed. Then these posters were pasted all over the place"

"That should have worked," said the boss.

The salesman replied, "Well, not only did I not speak Arabic, but I didn't realize that Arabs read from right to left."

Great Quote

I just read a terrific article by Ray Comfort that talks about an exchange he had with some Jehovah's Witnesses at his door. The whole article is definitely worth taking in, but in the middle there's a good, clear quote that I wanted to share:

Does that mean I can believe in Jesus and then run around lying and stealing?
No. That's hypocrisy, and no hypocrite will enter the Kingdom. You have to repent and trust Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, and not try and bribe Jehovah. I do good works and preach the gospel not to be forgiven. I do it because I am forgiven, and the difference is life and death, Heaven and Hell.

Now Thank We All Our God

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers' arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God, who reigns in highest heaven,
To Father and to Son and Spirit now be given.
The one eternal God, Whom heaven and earth adore,
The God who was, and is, and shall be evermore.

This is one of the most familiar Thanksgiving hymns, written almost 400 years ago by Lutheran pastor Martin Rinkart. When Rinkart asked God to "guide us when perplexed and free us from all ills" it was from penned from harsh, real world experience. Cyberhymnal.org tells a little about his experience:

Martin Rinkart, a Lu­ther­an min­is­ter, was in Eil­en­burg, Sax­o­ny, dur­ing the Thir­ty Years’ War. The walled ci­ty of Eil­en­burg saw a stea­dy stream of re­fu­gees pour through its gates. The Swed­ish ar­my sur­round­ed the ci­ty, and fa­mine and plague were ramp­ant. Eight hund­red homes were de­stroyed, and the peo­ple be­gan to per­ish. There was a tre­men­dous strain on the pas­tors who had to con­duct do­zens of fun­er­als dai­ly. Fi­nal­ly, the pas­tors, too, suc­cumbed, and Rink­art was the on­ly one left—doing 50 fun­er­als a day. When the Swedes de­mand­ed a huge ran­som, Rink­art left the safe­ty of the walls to plead for mer­cy. The Swed­ish com­mand­er, im­pressed by his faith and cour­age, low­ered his de­mands. Soon af­ter­ward, the Thir­ty Years’ War end­ed, and Rinkart wrote this hymn for a grand cel­e­bra­tion ser­vice. It is a test­a­ment to his faith that, af­ter such mis­e­ry, he was able to write a hymn of abid­ing trust and gra­ti­tude to­ward God.

The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for You."

Sometimes that just plain hard to do. No doubt it must have been overwhelming for Martin Rinkart to conduct his 19th funeral of the day for grieving, hopeless people, knowing there were still 20 or 30 to do. And I'm sure as he buried fellow pastors and other people he loved it must have taxed his faith to the limit to be thankful or faithful. But you can see in the third stanza of the hymn where his source of strength lay: the eternal God, worthy of all glory and honor and praise.

God knows it is sometimes hard for us to focus on Him when life assaults us. But it's that focus that gives us the strength to endure and to be thankful even in the midst of trouble.

So be thankful with your heart and hand and voice. Focus on the "countless gifts of love" you've received and, more importantly, on the loving God who gives them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I love it when my young kids say "thank you" when I give them something, whether it's a special gift or just a glass of juice at lunch time. And I imagine God loves it, too, when His children thank Him. So tell Him "thank you" today, and be specific!

When we thank God for something, we acknowledge that He is the Giver, Supplier and Source. That's why being thankful is an act of worship*! We should be thankful every day of the year, of course, but it's nice to have a day that specifically celebrates our thankfulness.

Enjoy the holiday, and I hope to see you Sunday!

*The Bible connects worship and thankfulness a lot! Take a look at these scriptures about worship: Psalm 100; Ephesians 5:19-20; Colossians 3:16; 2 Chronicles 7:3; Romans 1:21; Hebrews 12:28; Revelation 4:9-11.

Does that come with free refills?

New Chairs for New Hope

One thing about moving from the Senior Center to our own space is that we no longer have chairs provided for us. And since we sit every time we meet at church, we've decided to get some good quality chairs that will look good, feel comfortable and last a long time.

Wouldn't you know it? The best company for providing such chairs is called (ta-da!) Bertolini Sanctuary Seating. No, there's no relation. You can visit their web site to see what they're about--the most entertaining part of the site is watching a video of a guy futilely pounding a chair with a sledgehammer!

Good chairs don't come cheap, of course. With the shipping, each chair costs $45.00 and we plan to purchase 250 of them. That totals to $11,250 which would wipe out our reserves. So we've ordered 100 of the chairs which we expect to deliver around December 5th, and as the finances come in we will order the remaining 150 seats.

And speak- ing of finances coming in...

We are asking the members of our New Hope family to "sponsor a chair" in order to afford it all. So if you can give a gift (above your normal offering), why not buy a chair for our church? Maybe you could buy one chair for each person in your family? Or even one for every family member plus one for somebody else?

In order to see how we're doing with the "chair drive," we've created a poster that you'll find out in the lobby on Sunday mornings. On this board you'll see pictures of chairs, and for each chair you purchase, you can take a "chair" off the board! As of Monday, we've had about 50 chairs sponsored, so we're already 20% of the way to our goal of 250!

If you have any questions, contact a New Hope shepherd.

Game Night for the Young at Heart

I got a report that our seniors had a fun time at the Clarks' last night playing games and hanging out (do seniors "hang out" or is there another more formal term?)

Below are a couple pictures that were smuggled out. No, our seniors aren't blurry in real life--that's just the photos! :)

We can say, "We knew him when..."

Jon Hildebrandt, one of our New Hope members, is an expert handler of basketballs, and apparently someone from Channel 12 took notice. Here's a message from Jon that was forwarded to me:

Hi! Tomorrow (Sunday) night at 11 pm, watch channel 12 on TV. They came out and did a story on me for my basketball stuff... So I had to put on a show for them. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. Spread the word! See you at church.
Jon

My TV schedule says there's an Oregon sports show on at 11:00 p.m. and I assume that's the show Jon would be on. So, if you're free to watch Sunday night, check him out!

Close knit

Greg Smalley writes about families and marriages that seem the most connected, and I think there is good food for thought here:

Several years ago I used to speak to groups of four hundred to two thousand people in fifty cities annually. I began to notice that certain families in the audiences experienced unusually happy interaction among themselves. I was intrigued by this and began to do a study. I would interview the wife, husband, and children separately. Each person was asked the same question: What do you believe is the main reason you are all so close and happy as a family?

For the rest of the article, click here.

Dog Joke

Two women, who are dog owners, are arguing which dog is smarter.

First woman: My dog is so smart. Every morning he waits for the paperboy to come around and then he takes a newspaper and brings it to me.

Second woman: I know.

First one: How?

Second one: My dog told me.

Recordings online

I uploaded Dewey's November 11 sermon today on the website, and I also put some music from Sunday on there, including Heidi's violin music from our communion time.

All of our recordings can be found by going to www.newhopeconnection.com, then clicking on the Sermons, Etc. menu button. Enjoy!

Answering the Atheists

As Dewey has mentioned in his sermons over the last year, there are a number of popular books that have recently been written espousing atheism. Writer/editor Stan Guthrie has written a terrific "Reader's Digest version of why I am a Christian" in response to these books, and I think it's a great read:
Answering the Atheists

It's official!

On Saturday morning the shepherds signed a lease for our new meeting place on 3rd and Kirby! Our first service there will be on Sunday morning, December 2nd.

It will be great to be able to meet all together in one service again, and it will also be wonderful to have access to our place all week long. It's a new time of opportunity for New Hope Christian Fellowship!

Washington's Working Women

I recently read an article called "Washington's Working Women" by Janice Shaw Crouse of the Beverly LaHaye Institute, and I was touched by its portrayal of loneliness.

While it directly addresses the relational searching that single women engage in today, I think on a broader level it affirms a powerful truth: If we seek true fulfillment, we must live our lives according to our loving Creator's design.

Women's Bible Study

Our Women's Bible Studies met for the second time this week. The reports are that both the morning and evening attendance grew a bit, which is great, and all ladies are encouraged to come for the final four weeks. But even more exciting is that two women prayed to invite Christ into their lives on Tuesday night! Hallelujah!

Join the Tuesday study at Dee Bryson's at 9:30 a.m. or Debbi Johnson's at 7:00 p.m. It's a great time of learning and fellowship!

Choral Concert on Sunday

According to my Linfield College Music Department calendar, there is a Fall Choral Concert scheduled for this Sunday, November 4th at 4:00 p.m. It is advertised as "Music of Patriotism and Prayers with Psalms of Praise and Peace" so if you like choral music and/or alliteration, this concert's for you!

A number of our New Hope college students participate in the choir program--Meagan Rosson, Anne Muehlek, Lindsey Jorgensen, Heidi VandenBos--and I'm sure they'd love to see you at the concert. The venue is Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall (click here for a campus map).

p.s. And it looks like there's a band concert on Tuesday...stay tuned...

Time Change This Weekend!

Don't forget to set your clocks back one hour on Saturday night! (Uh, unless you live in parts of Arizona or Hawaii). Hey, what a perfect week to try out our 9:15 service! Enjoy your extra hour of sleep, and we'll see you Sunday morning!

Harvest Party at Awana!

I saw a lot of kids have a lot of fun wearing a lot of great costumes at our Harvest Party last night! Here are some pictures...

You can see lots more pictures in our web site's Photo Gallery! Check them out!