May 9, 2024
If you were at church last week, you noticed that we're using a new bulletin style now. Not every church uses a paper bulletin these days, but we have found it helpful for the purpose of our liturgy and to communicate important information about our church and our ministries. This new style will allow us to do some things we haven't been able to do heretofore:
We can now include the music to songs that are not in the Trinity Hymnal. This is a help to visitors (and members!) for whom the songs are unfamiliar. Even those who cannot read music are able to see if the notes are going up or down, and can engage more fully in praising the Lord with us.
We can include all our information/announcements every week, and no longer have to rotate between missionaries, church staff, officers, Sunday School class locations, and other occasional items we want to convey. Visitors each week will be able to gain a better knowledge of who we are.
We can provide a page for sermon notes. From what I see as I preach, it doesn't appear that many in our congregation take notes, but perhaps this is partly a factor of not having a convenient location on which to do so? Not everyone learns by writing down what they hear, but I do encourage you to at least write down the main points of the sermon - this will help you engage more actively with what the preacher is saying.
We can offer some comments on the elements of worship in our "Guide to the Morning Worship Service." I've done this at each of my two previous churches, and I'm glad to get to do it again at POPC. It's a great way to learn about why we worship as we do, what each element is, and details about the songs we sing, the confessions of faith we use, etc.
We hope this makes our bulletin more useful to you, and an even handier reference for you to take home and use in private worship, in family worship, and in staying more closely connected to the life and ministry of POPC!
----------
This Sunday we will be presenting new members at both morning services. God has been kind to continue to bring new families into our midst, and I hope that you will have a chance to get to know the new members as you have opportunity. (Their names and pictures will be in an upcoming email!)
I like to present new members to the congregation, not only to encourage us that God is continuing to bring fellow disciples of Jesus to minister alongside us, and so that we can connect names to faces, but also so that existing members are reminded of what they vowed when they joined POPC. Use the opportunity each occasion to be humbled for ways you have fallen short of what it means to be a member of Christ's body, to be grounded again in the grace of God in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit that are our only hope, and to renew your vows to the Lord and to your church family.
How vital it is to know and serve one another in the church! I am so thankful that Jesus has saved us into fellowship and community with other saints, and pray that we will welcome our new members with open hearts and open calendars, and that they will be blessed by and a blessing to our congregation as they use their gifts for God's glory.