Garage Sale!

Don't forget, we're having a fund raiser Garage Sale this Saturday, Aug 9, 8:00am-2:00pm, at the church to help sponsor our youth who are serving at the New Hope Kids' Camp later this month.

If you have stuff to donate for the sale, we'd really appreciate getting it early in the week, because the sorting and set-up has already begun. The church office is open Mon-Thur, 10am-2pm, or you can call/email me if you need to bring your things at a different time.

And of course, come buy some of these treasures yourself on Saturday!

Back Blogging

Hello! I've been away camping with my family and in-laws at Beverly Beach, so it's been several days since anything's been posted here. Other than the fact that my cursed tent seems to bring out the summer rain, we had a great time on our trip!

I haven't missed any Sundays, so here's a quick recap if you've been away yourself. There are, of course, lots of folks vacationing right now, so we've had around 130 the last couple Sunday mornings. Toby Carver preached last week on the Armor of God, and brought some of his police gear for show-and-tell as illustrations. Yesterday Dewey was back from his youth camp speaking engagements, and he spoke about Jesus' temptation in the wilderness and how the devil similarly tempts us.

Summer is always interesting for the worship team, since we rarely have everyone here. We definitely had some switching around these last two weeks, but as I said yesterday, even if we have lots of changes in our worship band, the God we worship never changes. And we pray that each person who came to worship Him had a real chance to express their love and awe!

Our softball team has had a rough couple weeks. We're 3-5 now, after losing 12-1 last week and 12-0 yesterday--yikes! We still have fun. Yesterday we only had 3 of our women team members, so Cori Stansfield and Susie Lucas stepped in and played at the last second--their first time to ever play softball! They did great, and it was fun cheering the rookies on!

We have a big week coming up, so keep checking in on the New Hope Connection!

The Leviticus Challenge!

I read an interesting article today about a Boston church that decided to study Leviticus in a unique way. Here's the first paragraph:

Mention Leviticus to most people and what comes to mind is that arcane tome of Torah devoted primarily to the proper (and gruesome) management of sin through animal sacrifice. Others may recall mind-numbing instructions on how to rightly handle infectious skin disease and mildew, and a mishmash of other commandments about not mixing fibers and seeds and not sleeping with your stepmother or sister or nephew—commandments deemed either irrelevant or plain common sense. Rarely studied and even more rarely preached, Leviticus often becomes that graveyard where read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plans go to die. Skeptics know it as ammunition for homosexual haters or as a target for animal-rights activists. Many Jews regard it as awkward and outmoded. To slog through it can be unbelievably tedious. Which is why most of us don't.
But what would it look like to take Leviticus as seriously as we take the rest of the Bible?

Pastor Daniel Harrell decided to get a group of people together for a 30-day challenge: to live "Levitically." To see how this interesting experiment went, click here for the rest of the article: The 30-Day Leviticus Challenge

New Hope Kids Camp

This morning from my office I could hear the youth drama team practicing for the upcoming Kids Camp at Camp Tapawingo. It sounds like it's going to be very fun!

The camp is coming up soon, so it's time to get signed up! The dates are August 18-22 and it's for kids entering 3rd-6th grades. Cost is only $175 for 5 days and 4 nights of Cosmic City fun! Contact Ashley DeForrest for more information.

Women of Faith Conference

Women of Faith is bringing its Infinite Grace conference to Portland on October 10-11, and we're hoping to get a group of New Hopers together to go. Talk to Keri Laeger if you're interested, or just contact us on the website and we'll put you in touch with her.

I've known a number of ladies who have gone in the past and it's a great time! Here is one of their promotional videos if you want a little preview:

Sunday the 20th

It's good to be a part of God's family. All over the world millions of believers gathered to worship in settings and traditions of every kind. But I'm especially glad to be a part of my local church at New Hope, and we had another nice service of worship this morning. Here's a report for those who are away on this summer Sunday.

Our singing was sweet as usual. I appreciate Steve's friend Colby coming to fill in on the drums while the Blumensteins are on vacation--it's tough coming in to play songs that are unfamiliar with band members who are all complete strangers! (Dustin and Beth, we're looking forward to seeing you again next week!) Christie and Cassie did a nice job playing/singing "I Belong" by Kathryn Scott after the message, and it was fun getting my oboe out for the song and playing along with Kim on clarinet (who is a very fine musician).

We prayed for and said good-bye to some of our college students today. Krysta Baglien graduated from Linfield and is heading home to Caldwell, Idaho to fight fires for the summer and then find more permanent work. And Josh and Cassie Kanable, who just graduated from Western Oregon and Linfield, respectively, are soon heading out to Fort Collins, Colorado, where Cassie will be working on her masters at Colorado State. All three of these quality folks have been with New Hope from the beginning and we'll miss them very much! Pray for their job needs as they go.

Dewey is away speaking at a camp, and Gerry Clark filled in as our teacher today. Gerry spoke about Mary and Martha, and encouraged us to "sit at the feet of Jesus" as Mary did. It was a good reminder to me to make sure even in the midst of serving Him that I take that quiet time with Jesus. The sermon was good, and it was only 27 minutes long, so I hope you'll give it a listen on our Sermons, Etc. page on the website this week!

Our softball venture wasn't quite successful as we lost 10-7 to Carlton Trenching. Our team had to put up with some iffy calls and a pitcher who kept on walking people (me), but I was so pleased to again see good attitudes all around. As representatives of Christ and His church, how we react and interact during wins and losses is what pleases Him and what really matters, and I think our team represents well! I had one of the girls from the other team tell me we were a fun team to play, and that's a good testimony to the world.

So that was the Sunday that was, and we look forward to another one in seven days! Hope you all have a terrific week!

New Recordings Online

Just wanted to let you know we have last Sunday's message on the Trinity uploaded to the website. Click on the Sermons, Etc. menu button to find all our recordings. We also recorded the song I sang after the sermon, Praise to the Trinity, in case you'd like to hear it again!