September 28, 2009

Good Morning - I hope you have all had a good week!

I did!

Social Stuff!

This past Wednesday I played golf with some of our Salem Church senior men and we had a great day. The more I play golf the more I realize I'm just no good at it. Given this realization I simply go out and enjoy myself whenever I play and I stop worrying about when I am going to join the PGA Tour!

On Friday the 25th I joined my brother for a trip to Herin Illinois, and a two day retreat with the men from "No Greater Love". This is a group of Christian men whose main purpose is to spread the word of God to people who do not know Christ or do not want to hear about Christ. One of the major "outreach" programs of the "No Greater Lover" group is to go to New Orleans during Marti Gra and preach the Word of God in the streets during the height of the Marti Gra celebration. Its a very tough, but evidently very fulfilling mission experience. The "No Greater Love" group conducts this yearly "retreat" so they may come together and fellowship in a peaceful Christian setting. I went because my brother is an active member of the group and invited me to come along. It was a very good weekend and I enjoyed being with the group and listening to their messages.


Koinonia Sunday School Class:

Attendees: Cyndie Jones, Alan and Teresa Schlobohm, Josh Schlobohm, Bill Nichols, Ginny Maas, Bob Hardcastle, Denise Kelly, Pastor Suzanne, and Jane and Terry Pursley.

Administrative Promotion: Josh Schlobohm has been promoted to Vice President of the Koinonia Sunday School's IT department. Because of Josh's success in turning on and off the room lights during the DVD presentation it was determined he was best qualified to help improve the DVD's video and audio presentations; therefore, Josh will be looking into means of increasing the DVD sound system as well as a potentially larger video screen. Thanks to Josh for looking into this improvement possibility. (Note: While Josh's dad was skeptical about Josh taking on this added responsibility, Josh's mom was "proud as punch" to see her boy begin to move up the corporate ladder!)

Prayers were requested for:

1. All teenagers as they meet and interact with all the various influences in their lives.
2. Chris Jenkerson who continues to deal with severe cancer issues.
3. Ginny's grand daughter who is traveling in Australia for an extended time period.
4. Betty Caswell as she travels in South Africa.
5. Terry Pursley's mother, Opal Pursley, who continues to struggle with her nursing home situation.
6. Terry Pursley with just how best to support his mother while she struggles in the nursing home.
7. Bill Vallalie who continues to deal with his deteriorating lung health.
8. Praise was given by Cyndie whose mom is improving from her struggles with cancer, as well as Cyndie's step father who is sight is failing and is having to deal with driving issues.

Thank Yous

Each week the Koinonia Sunday School Class identifies people in the church who they determine should be thanked for their service to the church or individual people. Once these people are identified, and Thank You card is sent to these identified people simply to express appreciation for what and/or how these people support us.

This week's identified recipients of our Thank You cards are:

Robert and Rebecca Lyons. I was mentioned in class that our Pastor has been recognized by people outside our Church for helping people in need. The Koinonia Class recognizes this service provided by our pastor takes away from the time she has available to be with her children - Robert and Rebecca, and so the class thought it was appropriate to send a Thank You card to the children just to let them know how much we appreciate them sharing their mom with us.

Janet Carr: It was identified that Janet Carr is resigning from the Trustees have many years of service with this group and the Koinonia Class wanted to tell Janet Thank You for her many years of service.

Class Material:

Today we watched the DVD presentation of Chapter 2 of the Book of Acts. Chapter 2 records the coming of the Holy Spirit to those goatherd together during Pentecost as well as Peter beginning to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. The DVD is well done using professional actors and follows word-for-word the "New International Version" of the scriptures.

After watching the DVD some of our class members said they better understood what it meant when the scripture says the people of different languages all spoke and could understand each other.

Another member of the class mentioned how the DVD helped them better understand how Peter was transformed from a fisherman to a person who could speak to crowds with authority about Jesus Christ. The class then broadened this understanding of Peter's growth to understanding how each of us become different, more empowered, people after we accept Christ into our lives. Almost all of us could related to being different after we accepted Christ. It was also pointed out however that even more important than Peter having gained the ability to speak with authority to crowds of people, that he in fact did speak with authority to crowds of people. The point being that the Church did not grow only because the early Christians received the Holy Spirit, but the Church grew because these changed people did things with the Holy Spirit to help the Church grow. Therefore; while it is impressive and important that we receive Christ into our lives, this event has limited value if we do not go forth and share it with others in a meaningful way as led by the Holy Spirit. It is with this knowledge of the importance of "sharing the Good News about Christ" that we will continue to study the Book of Acts and see how the main characters actually went forth and LIVED THE LIFE in the early days of the Church.

Next week we will view Chapter 3 of the Book of Acts and see more of Peter's preaching and healing ministry.

That is it for today's Blog and I hope you enjoy it. I again encourage feedback regarding this Blog so I may improvement it. It is difficult to improve if people do not give me feedback so please feel free to let me know how I can improve.

Thanks and as always -

Have a Great Week and Enjoy Life!

Terry Pursley

September 21, 2009

Good Morning to Everyone!

I hope you had a wonderful week this past week.

This past Saturday Jane and I helped with her family's celebration of her dad's 80th birthday and it was a very good time. Jane's dad is in excellent health and we believe we had nearly 90 people came to the party who came and joined in with the celebration. Great Time!

Another milestone for me this past week was I joined "facebook". Not sure why I joined but I joined nonetheless and I am now learning how to use this social networking tool.

Koinonia Sunday School Class:

This week we had 8 people attend our class - Cindy Jones, Bill Nichols, Alan and Theresa Schlobohm, Josh Schlobohm, Ginny Maas, Betty Caswell, and Terry Pursley.

This past Sunday we began the study of the Book of Acts and this time we are using a DVD to help with the study. Cindy Jones had suggested a DVD that narrates the book of Acts on a word per word basis while professional actors play out the various scenes. It is a very well done DVD and your class members seemed to enjoy the DVD very much. We listened to the First Chapter of ACTS and then spent the remaining portion of the class discussing the Chapter. We invite anyone to join our class and participate in the study on Acts. This week we viewed and then discussed the Chapter 1 of the Acts and we reflected upon how the viewing of the DVD helped in our visualization of what it may have been like during these first days of the Christian Church. It was also interested to see how Judas' replacement as an apostle was selected and we wondered if Mathis was happy or not to have been chosen to join the "team". We also reflected on how Judas died and wondered about his relationship with God after having given up Jesus to the Romans. Per Acts it is clear that Judas died a very horrible death but we were not so sure about Judas' spirit. We speculated it may very well have been the case that God used Judas to accomplish the betrayal and eventual death of Jesus and that Judas had little or no choice in the matter. In this case it could well be that God welcomed Judas back into God's presence once Judas paid his own death price. Of course the scriptures are silent on this point and thus our class could not come to any scripturally based resolution on this issue.

At the beginning of our class the following prayers were requested for the noted people.

- Betty Caswell as she will be starting her 3 week trip to South Africa this week.
- Bill Vallelie who continues to deal with his lung health issues
- Michelle & Eric Clabaugh (Daughter and Son-in-law of Bill and Dianne Vallelie) with the birth of their twin girls.
- Chris Jenkers with post-cancer treatment issues.
- Corey Mack and his wife Jessica who is stationed in Irag and whose wife back in the states is expecting a baby.
- Niswonger family who are experiencing some very difficult times related to health issues. The daughter Karen has very serious cancer issues and the son David has experienced multiple problems with aneurysm's.

This completes my blog for this week and I again extent invitations to all to provide comments as to how I can improve this site. My goal is to help stay in touch with people who are unable to attend our class and I hope you find it helpful. It remains vitally important however for people to join our class and participate in the discussion for it is by our participation together that we truly reap the benefits of the unique gifts and experiences that God gives to each and everyone of us.

Until next Monday, I wish all of you good fortune and as always -

Have a Great Day and Enjoy Life!

Terry

September 19, 2009

Good Morning and I'm back!

I have spend the time since my last posting just being out and recharging the "old batteries". I has been a great summer and I am looking foward to the Autumn Season. The Koinonia Sunday School Class will begin studying the book of Acts, using a DVD to aument the class, on September 20, 2009 and I will be posting my weekly message once again on Monday's. Eveyone is invited to look in and see what we are doing.

I hope you have all had a good summer and I look foward to restarting by blog once again, and as always -

Have a Great Day and Enjoy Life!

Terry