Something Bobby Welch Taught Me

At Living Hope yesterday we enjoyed a time of Spiritual Renewal. Dr. Bobby Welch was our guest speaker for the day. Bobby is a man I have admired for many years. It was an honor to have him come and share the Gospel at Living Hope. You can listen to his message to us by clicking here. We put up the 8:00 and 9:30 service because what he said at the 8:00 service was somewhat different than what he said at the 9:30 and 11:00 services, especially at the end.

He talked to us about authentic faith. One of the things he shared that I had never heard and absolutely loved was how the people in his small Northern Alabama town would describe someone that had become a Christian.

When a person in their town would come to that place in their life where they surrendered their life to the risen Christ, they were said to have changed. For instance someone might ask, "Jimmy, what year was it, when you changed?" Or asking about someone they might say, "Has Joey had a change yet?"

What I love is that this language speaks to what happens to a person's life. When a person comes to faith in Christ, they are changed. Jesus saves by grace through faith and not by works, but anyone who has been saved by grace through faith always has works. A person of faith always lives out their faith and their life is changed and other people can see the change in the way they treat others, speak, and approach their life.

I think I am going to start using that because it is Biblical.

James 2:17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

John 15:8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Galatians 5:22-25 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Pastor Jason

Being a Deacon at Living Hope

Greetings Living Hope family! I am John Paul Blair, 2009 Deacon Chair.
My wife Leslie and I began attending Living Hope in the late 80's when dating as WKU students. We now have two children, John Robert ("Jack", age 10) and Margaret Grace ("Maggie", age 5) growing their faith as a part of the Living Hope family as well. What a blessing our church has been and continues to be!

What a pleasure it is to serve the Lord as a Living Hope deacon! As
deacon, our primary role is to serve the membership by extending the
reach of the pastoral and ministry staff. On Sundays, you see us
prepare and serve Communion, and you may notice us congregate in the
front of the worship center to assist in decision counseling. We enjoy
these parts of our ministry.

During the week, every member of our team (38 strong) makes visits to
hospitals and long term care and rehabilitation facilities, including
Nashville. We visit funeral homes and follow up at least once with all
we've touched. We visit not only those from our membership, but also
regular attenders, family members and friends of our congregation. This
also is a joy.

We help care for the widows and widowers in our fold through service
projects and special events. We are joyfully exploring ways to serve
our shut-ins (members who cannot make it to church on Sunday) and to
help welcome new members to our church family.

What a joy it is to serve alongside our staff and to serve as a vessel
for the Lord to work through! If we have visited you, our hope is you
were blessed as much as we are to serve His Kingdom.

Thank you church family for your recent nominations to add to our
ranks. Thank you for allowing us to serve you. We are blessed.

John Paul Blair
2009 Deacon Chair

Grace Community and Grattitude

I would never want to imagine life without a being part of a group of fellow believers. This morning, Rick gave his testimony about how much the choir means to him. He shared that his life is richer, and his family's life is richer because of his decision to be part of the Worship Choir. He talked about the opportunity in that group to share concerns, hurts, and victories with each other. We were created to live in community. I am thankful for my choir family and my church family.

Today, as Living Hope gathered to worship, I was struck by the strength that I gained through the unity of the congregation singing together great truths about God, Jesus, and Spirit and the Word of God. There is something very powerful about the gathering of God's people to declare praise, thanksgiving, and truths in unity. Again, in community, we not only live life together, we also gather to worship in Spirit and in Truth. What a great priviledge!

As Jason preached today, there was a strong movement of the Spirit of God among us. I consider myself gratdful person. However, I realized that a life completely given to gratitude would be a life refusing to sin against Jesus who paid the ultimate price for my sin. I also realized that my life has much room to grow in gratitude. As the Holy Spirit faithfully does, He challenged me through Jason's sermon to press on to become a person totally given to a life reflecting my thanksgiving to a loving God, Savior, and Spirit.

Benny Stofer
Worship Pastor

Church Picnic

We had a fantastic time last night at our church picnic. There were a lot of people there from all different ages. We had lots of babies, students, seniors, singles, and families that were laughing and enjoying time together. The picnic was geared around getting small groups together to launch our fall focus "Church on Mission." It was a lot of fun to walk around and talk to hundreds of people and see old friends catching up and seeing new friendships formed.

I met two small groups last night that were all meeting each other for the first time. It was quite a logistical feat for them to figure out where to meet, but they got connected. It was clear in both of those instances that these groups of people were going to become great friends and grow together in Christ and in their love for one another.

Whenever I see a small group form I get excited because I know that if the group does what it is supposed to that these people are going to be blessed. Over the next few years as each person in the group experiences sorrow, success, and everything in between, there will be friends that will be there with them. I am on call this week so I will be visiting those that are in the hospital. I know that those that are connected in a small group or an ABF are going to have already been cared for and prayed for. I will be there just to bless God's people doing what God's people do: loving Jesus and loving each other.

Pastor Jason Pettus