Orchards Community…
Jesus’ invitation to follow Him included a purpose – when we choose to follow Him we join Him in His pursuit of people. When we were together on Sunday we continued in our “Follow Me” series, and we looked at the calling of Christ for us to participate with him and “fish for people” in Luke 5. Later in Luke’s gospel Jesus sends out the 72 with some important thoughts to remember in sharing the message: The Kingdom of God is near you…We looked at this and worked toward adapting these principles for the “272″ of the Orchards Community and the challenge of reaching our community. Ultimately Jesus is calling us to go and share this incredible news – “the kingdom of God is near you.” He calls us to do this as lambs amongst wolves, no bells and whistles required, start with a conversation: listen and serve, demonstrate love in a multitude of ways, move on if necessary, but never give up… The Good News is really that Good.
When we’re together again on Sunday we’ll be together for our Labor Day Weekend gatherings. It will be great to be together as we bring our “Follow Me” series to a close. We hope you can be with us then. If you missed any of the “Follow Me” series you can catch up with the cds available at the Church or you can listen to any previous message online here: http://orchardsonline.org. We hope you can be with us Sunday at 9 & 10:30.
Well, Labor Day Weekend is almost here bringing with it the Peach Festival, and much to the dismay of many of the teens I was with on Sunday night…the impending return of school days. The arrival of fall also means the arrival of a variety of ways to celebrate, connect, and contribute at the Orchards…
* Adopt A Room 2 – Wednesday, September 1. We are full and ready to go- We’ll be sure to have a full report ready for Sunday.
* House Churches – Returning in September…an awesome way to Connect at the Orchards
* Baptism Celebration – Sunday, September 12 – this is going to be a great day!
* Kids Moving up Sunday – September 19
* Youth @ 6:01 Re-Launch… September 12 @ 6:01
We’re pretty excited for what this fall holds for us at the Orchards. We also have great hope that Orchards will be a place where followers of Christ passionately join Him in His pursuit of people. This is the quote from Robert Coleman I shared at the conclusion of our gathering Sunday…
“This is the new evangelism we need. It is not better methods, but better men – men who know their Redeemer from something more than hearsay—men who see His vision and feel His passion for the world—men who are willing to be nothing in order that He might be everything—men who want only for Christ to produce His life in and through them according to His own good pleasure. This finally is the way the Master planned for His objective to be realized on earth, and where it is carried through by His strategy, the gates of Hell cannot prevail against the evangelization of the world.”
May we see His vision and feel His passion for the communities that surround as at the Orchards…
Looking forward to being together on this Holiday weekend – See you then.
Jeff Aupperle
Orchards Community Church jtaupp@hotmail.com
