Dear Friends,
We are coming to the end of our Sermon Series on the book of Exodus. This week we will take a look at Aaron, Moses' older brother, who is left in charge when God tells Moses to come up the mountain so God can put those first ten commandments in writing on two tablets. Moses takes his young assistant, Joshua, with him and leaves Aaron and Hur in charge of the people. Finally Aaron has the chance to be the leader and he he fails miserably. The Sunday School lesson on June 12th had some of the traps that make good people turn into bad leaders. God probably knew this about Aaron which is why God chose Moses over his older brother. But even though Aaron fails and the people pay a high price for his failure, God gives Aaron another chance.
In the last Church Council meeting, we talked about rebuilding relationships. COVID kept so many of us from gathering together. Yes, COVID cases are rising but this congregation has chosen to get vaccinated and boosted which protects us all. I still see many of you wearing a mask in stores. Thank you. What you do to protect yourself actually helps protect our entire congregation. On July 10th, we will have a Ice Cream Social in the Great Hall at 4:00p.m. So pull out your ice cream freezers, pick your favorite recipes, and join the fun! Please sign up with Erin or Patsy so we can make sure we have enough.
We plan to have an event every month so we can fellowship together. Even if you cannot make to Sunday morning activities, we hope you can try to come to one of these events. They will be after church or at 4pm so you can get home before dark.
Remember we will be singing Patriotic Hymns before the worship service on July 3rd. This was a big hit last year so we hope you will join us in person or online.
We also want to announce that we are declaring July 19th as Cooper Day in honor of Cooper Daugherty who drowned in the Ouachita River on March 27th of this year. Cooper adopted his parents habit of telling the people they cared about, "I love you." Cooper's friends were a little surprised when Cooper first started telling them this when they would go home. Consequently, it was the last thing his mom and dad said to him that day before he went to hang out with friends. So we hope on July 19th, Cooper's birthday, you will honor his memory by telling those around you, "I love you."
Finally, the Leadership Committee (Nominations) will begin studying Simplified Structure even though the church may not wish to adopt it at this point. There are other adjustments we can make such as combining committees. We do want to become familiar with it because you may wish to adopt the Simplified Structure at another time and you will already be familiar with it. Yes, we have challenges but we also have excellent and wise leaders willing to look at a situation candidly and find solutions. Please keep us all in your prayers.
Grace and peace,
Beth
