Immediately following our Sunday service on 10/28/2018, we will celebrate the Reformation and Martin Luther's 95 Theses with German food and fun. Our location this year is the church office parking lot at 307 E Chapman Ave.
All guests are welcome. All church members bring a salad or contact Anne for more options.
This weekend, Old Towne Orange will be overrun with half a million people. And we love it. Live music, food, a whole street just for the kids, and tons of neighbors for us to engage.
You'll need to arrive early next Sunday because parking will be tight. Show up at 9:30am for Sunday School and you'll have no problem.
Our annual Communion Service is this Sunday. All the details are here.
This service provides a unique opportunity for us to celebrate the gospel. As a family, we gather around Jesus, the Sacrificial Lamb who laid down His life for us. Our feast this Sunday will be a faint echo of the great feast that is coming at the end of time. A feast that Jesus paid for with His own blood. An unending feast that will be unmatched in joy.
The song above pictures this reality. Listen to it as a way to prepare your heart for our time together this weekend.
COME TO THE FEAST
Verse 1
Go to the highways and hedges
Go to the furthest of fields
Go and compel the sick and the well
Our Father's house will be filled
Verse 2
Go to the streets of the city
Bring in the crippled and blind
All who would taste this banquet of grace
Must come and waste no more time
Chorus
Come to the feast
Come to the table
The great and the least
The rich and the poor
Come to the feast
Come to the table
Come and hunger no more
Verse 3
In the robe of the Lamb you'll be covered
Dressed in His pure righteousness
For all of your guilt His blood it was spilt
So come by your Father be blessed
The women of Sovereign Grace gathered last Saturday to be encouraged to draw near to God through spiritual disciplines. They did more than talk about it. As part of the retreat, they put them into practice. There were times of private prayer and reflection, small group prayer and Bible reading, and large group thanksgiving and singing. Not to mention lots of good food, making new friends, and enjoying a day away from regular life.
But he does want to bless us through time with Him. And God was eager to bless the ladies on Saturday. Read what a couple of them had to say:
Stephanie
"God is not impressed with our quiet times." I was taken aback by this truth at the women's retreat. It is so easy to get caught up in thinking that somehow quiet times and spiritual disciplines will earn God's favor, yet this is so far from the truth. At the women's retreat, I was reminded that quiet times are means of grace, not means to grace. How much more delightful it is to draw near with confidence knowing this!
Rachel
I appreciated Saturday so much. The event was well-organized and well-executed. I felt like the time spent on each aspect of communing with God was appropriate and encouraging. I was most excited about praying through Psalms. Oftentimes, I find my reading is disconnected from how I feel in my day-to-day, but that is something I feel like I can do to connect God's word with my daily life and see where my struggles match those of the psalmists. I loved everything about the day, and can't wait till we have another ladies' day!
Looking for some resources to follow-up from the retreat? Here are some recommendations:
Marriage is a complicated, and sometimes messy, journey. But it doesn't have to be. If you want to enjoy a beautiful, life-long relationship, you'll need more than romance, shared interests, and mutual attraction. You need realistic expectations, radical commitments, and most importantly...you need grace.
If you'd like an opportunity to grow, join others from our sister church, Sovereign Grace Church of Pasadena, for a 1.5 day marriage conference on February 9 & 10.
It's easy to be disappointed in marriage. It's easy for our hopes and dreams to be dashed. Our expectations of married life are not as rosy as we imagined.
We buy into the delusion that our biggest problem is outside of us. We blame our spouse. We blame our circumstances. We rarely take seriously the nature of our own sin.
If you would like to learn and grow, attend the "What Did You Expect?" Marriage Conference hosted by our sister church, Sovereign Grace Church of Pasadena. It's a Friday evening and Saturday in February to work on the very things that make marriage challenging. Take advantage of this opportunity.
A picnic in the morning and beautiful, candlelight service in the evening.
