Thanksgiving through Easter

Few things bring me greater excitement than prayerfully thinking through the upcoming message series that we will be having here at Grace. A few days ago Pastor Tim and I spent some time strategizing the upcoming message series that will take us from the Thanksgiving holiday through Christmas through Easter. Here is the tentative line-up:

Nov 22-Nov 29: This will be a 2-week series in Philippians 4:4-13 that we are simply calling 4:13. This series will allow us to take a look at 5 words that we must understand and apply to our lives if we are going to experience real, Biblical contentment.

Dec 6-Dec 27: This will be a 4-week Holiday series that we are calling “Avoiding the Christmas Crash.” We will be looking at four passages of Scripture that typically are not used at Christmas time in order to see how we can avoid a Christmas Crash this year when it comes to areas of gift-giving, preparations, family, and the dreaded post-Holiday blues.

Jan 3-Jan 31: This will be a 5-week series that will kick off our Year of Prayer emphasis here at Grace Church. During this month we will see the pattern of Jesus prayer life (Mark 1:35-39). We will see how to pray by imagining prayer as a huge mansion. We will see how to pray for our students. We will see what it means to be devoted to prayer (Colossians 4:2-4). And we will see the need for persistence in prayer (Luke 18:1-8)

Feb 7-Feb 28: This will be a 4-week series that will also coincide with our Year of Prayer by taking us through the details of the Great Commandment as given by Jesus in Matthew 22:33-40 including loving God and loving others. We will take a closer look at loving our neighbor through the story of the Good Samaritan told by Jesus in Luke 10:25-37 and the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5:43-48 regarding loving even our enemies.

Mar 7-Mar 28: This will be our Vision Month here at Grace Church as we look to make the theme of the month “Foundations.” It will be our purpose through this series to see everyone who attends Grace Church take the same four foundational steps needed to help our church continue to effectively fulfill its purpose to meet as many people as possible right where they are and help move them to where God wants them to be.

Apr 4: On Palm Sunday we will have a “stand alone” message in which we answer the question, “Why and How should I Fast?” This message will be in preparation for a ministry wide day of Prayer and Fasting that we will have that coming week as we anticipate God doing great things in our Easter services here at Grace.

Apr 11-May 9: Easter Sunday through Mother’s Day we will have a 6-week series on the theme of “No Fear”. We will start on Easter Sunday dealing with the topic of fearing death. The other five areas of fear that we will deal with will be picked by you. On Sunday, November 22nd we will take a survey as part of all three of our morning services here at Grace to find out what areas of your life is creating the most fear for you when you think about the future.