Summer Bible Class (SBC)

Home from vacation?  Enjoying a stay-cation this year?  Inspired to study the Word of God more regularly this Summer?  Then join us on Wednesday evening, August 5, for our third Summer Bible Class.  Experience a relaxed, summer atmosphere with time for fellowship, the study of God's Holy Word, and a hymn sing.  A light dinner will be served at 6:30pm, or thereabouts.  We hope to see you there!

Adult Instruction Class (AIC)

The Adult Instruction Class has ended for now.  It will start again in the Fall.  Stay tuned to this Web site for more information.

Benefits of Routine

There are things that you do in your everyday life that you don’t think much about.  You can easily go through the motions without giving much thought to them, and you can achieve whatever it is you are doing (brushing your teeth; doing your hair; eating a meal; putting on makeup).  If you stop to think about what it is you are doing, you will gain a greater appreciation for your abilities and actions.  And you will recognize the importance of the talents and gifts God has given to you.

A similar thing happens in our lives at church.  Each and every week we receive the Lord’s Supper for the forgiveness of our sins.  In that meal, the Lord Jesus Christ comes to us in his body and blood under the bread and the wine.  We are actually blessed to receive the Lord Jesus himself into our own sinful bodies.  A potential risk in receiving this Sacrament every week is familiarity.  Once again, when we get used to certain things, we tend not to think about them.  The temptation, then, is to not take the Lord’s Supper each week, or to not offer it every Sunday.  Such thought and action is understandable, but not beneficial.

Regardless of how much or how little we think about the Lord’s Supper, the truth is we are still receiving Christ’s body and blood.  The bread and the wine in the Supper are Christ’s body and blood whether we are thinking about it or not, and even whether we believe it or not.  We do not affect the value of Christ’s body and blood.  However, we should not fall into the temptation, then, that we don’t have to think at all about what is going on in the Supper.  It is very important for us to prepare ourselves for this Sacrament, each and every week.  St. Paul was quite aware of what a lack of preparation for the Supper can lead to: “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.  That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Corinthians 11:28–30). 

Paul could have very easily had the congregation in Corinth suspend the distribution of the Sacrament until more thought about what was happening.  But that would mean depriving the faithful of one of the blessed means of grace.  No such suspension occurred.  Rather, Paul put the responsibility on each Christian, that he or she must examine themselves and prepare to receive Christ’s body and blood. 

Likewise, we have a responsibility to prepare to partake of the Lord’s Supper.  We are to examine ourselves before we take of the Sacrament.  We ought to think about what it is we are about to receive.  And we should not fall into the temptation of neglecting the Sacrament because of familiarity.  Rather, we are to meditate upon Christ and all that he is working through his blessed meal.  For he has given himself up for all sinners, giving the forgiveness of sins in his Supper.  It is a sure blessing to know the Savior as he has revealed himself, to be familiar with the meal he has prepared for us, and to ponder all that he is and does for us, his baptized and redeemed children.