This Sunday, Pastor Manuela will continue in our sermon series – GOD IS… She will preach on God is… compassionate. It may be common to say God is love… but what does it mean?
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis explains it this way.
“All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that ‘God is love’. But they seem not to notice that the words ‘God is love’ have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love. Of course, what these people mean when they say that God is love is often something quite different: they really mean ‘Love is God’. They really mean that our feelings of love, however and wherever they arise, and whatever results they produce, are to be treated with great respect. Perhaps they are; but that is something quite different from what Christians mean by the statement ‘God is love’. They believe that the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else.”
As I said the first week of the series, we can never fully understand God because of our human limitations, but it is so important to keep pursuing the question… What is God like? And by our pursuit, to pursue God Himself.
MUSIKFEST
A week from Sunday, August 4, we will get out of our seats and head to the streets of Bethlehem. Our classic worship will remain at 9 am at BECA but modern worship will be at 10 am (note time change) at Festplatz Tent at Musikfest. Don’t miss this opportunity to invite a friend to come to see GRACE at Musikfest. Invitation Business cards will be available at BECA this Sunday morning.
ON MISSION
Also, continue to be in prayer for our Middle School students on the Mission Trip in Tennessee. In total, we sent out 59 students on mission trips this summer. Speaking of mission, I am very happy to report that we collected 320 bags of food for New Bethany on Sunday. One of our members told me the story that they took one of the grocery bags we gave out two weekends ago to GIANT, and the cashier said, I’ve seen a lot of those bags today… You’re from GRACE Church too? What a great thing to be known as a church that loves the Lehigh Valley in Jesus’ Name!
HECKTOWN PROPERTY UPDATE
And finally, I want to give an update on our Hecktown Road Property. Our teams continue to do their work in our master planning process. The engineers have spent the last weeks doing “due diligence” testing at the new property. With good news to date, we are moving forward and taking the next steps in our process. You will be hearing more in the next weeks about our upcoming capital campaign. It will take all of us to live into the vision and mission opportunity God is giving us.
The best is yet to come!
Dr. Marnie Crumpler, Senior Pastor