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Vol. 48, No
34 SOUTHSIDE
ORACLE November 11, 2005
The Bulletin Board
The Christian Workers' Meeting
will be Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. Keith Brumley of Northtown will bring a lesson
on The Prophet Habakkuk and Doug Vile of the Hawthorn Church in
Chicago will speak on Avoiding Burnout and Its Consequences The
meeting is attended by people from a number of congregations and is open to
all. If you are interested, please come.
The Senior
Thanksgiving Dinner will be Saturday, November 19th at noon. The dinner
is sponsored by our youth group, with help from some adults. It is an annual
affair and helps both the young and the older people to know each other
better.
Praise and Palate
will be Sunday at 7:00 p.m. For those unfamiliar with the program, we have
congregational singing for an hour followed by our sharing as we eat
together. The menu for the palate part is "Chili dump."
ATTENDANCE RECORD
Two years
ago Last
year Last week Goal
Bible
classes 147
132 133 170
Morning
worship 225
254 *235 250
Evening
worship 110
52 56 80
Contribution $4439.40
$4412.00 $5550.18 $4900.00
(*) first service, 140;
second service, 95
On October 29th the
tweens and teens and some of the parents raked the lawns of a number of
number of people. They were much appreciated. Thank you, young people!
Did
You Die When You Were Baptized ?
Juan Carlos Ortiz
writes, "In Argentina we sometimes use this baptismal formula, ‘I kill
you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and I
make you born into the kingdom of God to serve Him and please Him.'
(Disciple, p.31) That's a rather unorthodox way of saying it, but it's
right in line with what Paul said in Romans 6:3,4 "...don't you know that
all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
We were therefore buried with him though baptism into death in order that
just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we
too may live a new life."
Some people don't
understand what it means to be a Christian. Being a Christian doesn't mean
you decide to put on our best clothes every Sunday morning and drive to the
meeting-house far worship. Being a Christian doesn't mean you decide to
surrender a certain set of theological concepts and embrace a set of
doctrinal beliefs that line up more closely with the Bible. Being a
Christian doesn't mean you're willing to give up bad habits like drinking
and smoking. Don't misunderstand me. All of these may well take place as you
come to understand God's will for your life, but being a Christian involves
something much more basic.
The appeal of Christ is
directed to the control center of our lives. God wants us to surrender our
own wills, our lusts, our self-centered passions. Christianity is much more
than a matter of moral reform. It involves a willingness to be governed by
God. That's why the Bible speaks of the church as the kingdom. God is an
absolute monarch, but he rules only when we allow him to rule. If we allow
him to rule, he promises, "Never will I leave you, nor forsake you" (Hebrews
13:5).
Baptism is that
identifiable moment in time when we express our willingness to die to a
self-governed life. A person is not ready for baptism until he is willing to
lay aside his old pattern of doing what he pleases. Once we have done that,
we need to make a conscious effort to live every day as people who are dead
to the flesh and alive to the spirit. Norman Bales
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