Wild and Wonderful.....General Council Meeting

 The SDB General Council meets this weekend at the Salem SDB Church. We begin year two of our adventure implementing the reorganization of our General Conference that was voted upon during the 2012 sessions. 

As we delve into the work of our second year, we are seeking God's guidance as we begin the work of planning and preparing for what He has in store for us now and in the coming years. We CHOOSE to be READY to FOLLOW IN HIS FOOTSTEPS.

 This weekend we will be:

• Reviewing the 2013 General Conference sessions
• Implementing plans to ensure the completion of action items from the 2013 General Conference sessions.
• Gauging the next steps in church development to plant new churches and revitalize existing churches
• Starting a NEW budget process for the 2015 Denominational Budget
• Setting goals to help us take the next step in God's more preferable future for SDBs
• Praying for our churches, boards/allied societies, executives, and staff
• Discussing many other topics

We covet your prayers for our travel and for our decisions as we seek God the Holy Spirit's guidance on how SDB's can best glorify God and advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

If you have anything that you would like the General Council to discuss, pray about, or hear about or if your church would be interested in hosting one of our meetings, please feel free to contact me at john.j.pethtel AT gmail DOT com.

Ways that YOU can Pray for Colorado

Ways that YOU can Pray for Colorado:

-Pray for safety for people and property of those who own or rent homes in the affected areas. Most flood insurance is offered by the government and is inadeqate. In addition, a lot of homes in the mountains are not in “flood plains” and not able to get insurance.

-Pray for the homeless. There are a lot of homeless people in the Boulder and Colorado Springs areas. They primarily rest in parks located near creeks and rivers or in highway underpasses. With flooding happening, these places are not safe to be.

-Pray for first responders. No matter how many preparedness drills you run there are still elements that cannot be predicted. Also in situations like these, first responders often have to work multiple shifts because the other workers are stranded or they can't go home.

-Pray for teachers and students. As they miss school days for this flood situation, it takes away days that are normally used for “snow days”. This places an increase of stress on administrators, teachers, and students to get in the mandated number of instructional days.

-Pray for our civil officials who are having to deal with the crisis of the moment and the recovery that happens in the aftermath (along with the criticism that accompanies these disasters)

-Pray for our National Guard men and women who are being activated to help deal with this crisis. They leave jobs that pay them much more than their public service and families who worry about them as they serve.

-Pray for the clergy who will proclaim the promises of God to people who are questioning: the promise that a “groaning creation” will be reunited with its Creator and the promise that this world will not be destroyed by floods. God's desire and Jesus' work assure us that it is possible for even His highest form of creation, humanity, to be reconciled to Him.

Pray to God for relief, for help, for strength, and for restoration for the people of Colorado through Christ Jesus. I believe in a God who can and will make ALL THINGS NEW!

The Vanity of Your Heart

A letter from John Brown, a 19th century pastor, to one of his apprentices:

"I know the vanity of your heart, and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small, in comparison with those of your brethren around you; but assure yourself on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ, at His judgment-seat, you will think you have had enough."

...all of the hopes of our fallen race are centered in the truth of the Trinity.

From Jared Wilson today:

“If there were no Trinity, there could be no incarnation, no objective redemption, and therefore no salvation; for there would then be no one capable of acting as Mediator between God and man. In his fallen condition man has neither the inclination nor the ability to redeem himself. All merely human works are defective and incapable of redeeming a single soul. Between the Holy God and sinful man there is an infinite gulf; and only through One who is Deity, who takes man’s nature upon Himself and suffers and dies in his stead, thus giving infinite value and dignity to that suffering and death, can man’s debt be paid. Nor could a Holy Spirit who comes short of Deity apply that redemption to human souls. Hence if salvation is to be had at all it must be of divine origin. If God were only unity, but not plurality, He might be our judge, but, so far as we can see, could not be our Saviour and sanctifier. The fact of the matter is that God is the way back to Himself, and that all of the hopes of our fallen race are centered in the truth of the Trinity.”
– Loraine Boettner, “The Trinity”