Candlelight Christmas Eve Service
As we gather as a community on the evening of Dec. 24, please join us at 7:00 p.m. for candlelight, communion, music, and worship. Take time to breathe a few moments of peace, and focus on the miracle of Christmas. Come alone or bring your family and friends.
This first Soul Cafe Family Reunion is going to be such fun. I’m hearing all the buzz from Lorri about who is going to show up. A huge dollop of the excitement is getting to see some of our family who don’t live close enough to come every Sunday. So, to all of us still living on the family farm in Ledbetter go ahead and set your alarms and come early. There will always be some last-minute setting up to do but most of all just being around good friends and family is the payoff for showing up. Plan on staying after church for the family meal. Even if you can’t bring a covered dish my confidence is that there will be more than enough. Just come on.
Tomorrow’s talk is about eternal life as it relates to “right now” life. For a trailer load of reasons, the life that is yet to come is a powerful capacity to live life NOW as though it has eternal impact and meaning. The moment we turn in response to the voice of Jesus calling us to follow him, eternal life begins. The transformation that can only come by God’s uninhibited acceptance and grace initiates a reality that will change your life. What God will do he can begin to do today. The Kingdom has begun.
Traditionally referred to as the “Wedding Feast at Cana”, this early story of Jesus has been consistently misunderstood. It has been the reference for funny jokes about wine, and surface observation that Jesus loved parties and wanted everyone to have a good time. Neither is it a story about how Jesus can entertain the guests with magic tricks.
If, however, that is all we come away with in reading this story we miss the depth of what John is saying about Jesus. This is a story about how Jesus is the magnificent picture of who God is and what he desperately desires for us.
Through the first paragraphs of John’s treatise on Jesus, he has laid down the foundation that Jesus was God’s total disclosure of himself. In a portrait of divine health, God has become completely transparent with us. God became flesh in Jesus and pitched his tent with us. We begin to see God’s face and God’s heart in The One who was filled with grace and truth.
This story of water into wine is a continuation and fleshing out of that theme. Whatever we say about this passage must be rooted in God’s willful and complete revelation of himself so that we could understand Him; so that we could know the truth about him.
As well, however, he came to open the curtains on what God’s heart longs for us. This is the story that could easily picture God coming in the front door at Stuermer’s with a huge smile across his face and with hefty resonance loudly exclaim, “Let the party begin”.
Everyone who has ever attended Soul Cafe Church is invited to come for a great worship service at 11am, followed by covered dish dinner-on-the-grounds. This will be a “homecoming” time to visit with friends and family, so save the date and make plans to enjoy the day at Soul Cafe.
INVITE FOLKS WHO HAVE ATTENDED SOUL CAFE TO JOIN US ON THIS VERY SPECIAL DAY OF WORSHIP & CELEBRATION
SUNDAY, OCT. 21, @ 11am
It’s time to ROUND UP everyone for another great season of activities at Soul Cafe Church. Join us on Sunday, Aug. 26, for great music beginning at 10:30, then worship at 11:00 a.m. with singing, food, Doug’s message, and a time to hear about the fall activities & ministry opportunities. Western attire encouraged!
To listen to Jesus is to hear a call to a certain character that belies itself in our behavior to others. It is a call to live antithetically to the commonly accepted behaviors of the world. It is in the instructional insight that we refer to as the “talk on the hill”, where Jesus puts into words his radical call to a character that is rooted in and reflects the character of God. This is where we will begin to look at the picture that Jesus paints all through his ministry of the kind of person you are becoming under his visionary influence. Jesus believes that your character is at the heart of changing the world for the better.
God is good. That is just the way he is. Good. However, God has also created a lot of good people and it seems he has brought more than a fair share to take up residence in and around Ledbetter, Texas.
Several years ago, Lorri and I thought it would be good idea if Ledbetter had a church in the immediate community. There are so many good churches around but there just wasn’t one in Ledbetter. We started meeting in our home but before we could turn around we needed a larger space to take care of both adults and children who were coming.
Ultimately, the Ledbetter Cemetery Association made the church building on Prospect Rd. available to use for Sunday worship and activities and learning for children on Wednesday nights. We are wearing that old building out but somehow the walls are telling us that it loves being used in the community. The part about good people comes in here. All the officers of the association have bent over backwards to support us and do all they can to make us feel at home. That’s a sign of good people.
Most of you know by now that we call the church Soul Cafe. As we grow and develop, it never leaves our consciousness that we really exist because of this community’s kindness. So, we just don’t know any better way than to live up to our metaphorical name and invite you to lunch.
On Sunday, April 15, we invite everyone to come eat crawfish and sausage and whatever else the good folks at Soul Cafe bring that day. It is our way of saying thank you for all you have done to encourage and support the church. The Ledbetter Volunteer Fire Department is our gracious host this year. They continue to provide space, tables, support and help and we want to thank them as often as we can.
We have a verse in the Bible that we feel is especially instructive to us. It says this: Whosoever will, let them come and drink of the water of life freely, without cost. So this is not a way of raising money. There is no charge. We just want to say, “Thanks.” We’ll meet at the Ledbetter Fire Station/Community Center on Labadie St. at noon to start serving lunch and do hope you will come and let some of our folks hug your neck. If you want to join us for worship that day we would love to have you as our honored guest. We’ll start worship at 11:00 a.m. and have lots of fun in the process, around the tables in the Community Center. Casual, come as you are!
P.S. Someone asked what would happen if 5,000 folks show up for lunch on April 15. I said we would have to look around for a little boy with a brown paper sack with some of those barley loaves and Sea of Galilee sardines. Somehow, by the grace of God, there will be enough. You might want to come just to see how that works out.
(If you like to run, or walk, join the Fun Run 5K at 9:00 a.m.)
Following the Easter event of Jesus’ resurrection, His friends, followers and even His enemies had to make sense out of the unexpected. The question was, “What does it mean that Jesus died, was laid in a tomb and yet three days later He is alive?” There are at least three ways His followers began to think about the meaning of resurrection.
One is that Jesus’ resurrection is a promise and potential that we will one day share in His resurrection. Death is not the final defeat.
Secondly, faith began to inform His friends that resurrection had already begun. The resurrection of Jesus was not just about something yet to be but that a resurrection kind of life had already taken root in the lives they lived in the immediate present.
And three, the Bible seems to use the promise of resurrection as a way to touch our sense of purpose in the world right now. Our spiritual resurrection is the reality out of which we become the living presence of Jesus in the world right now.
It is still the greatest news you will ever hear. He is still alive!
You are invited!
Soul Cafe Church will have 2 services tomorrow morning: April 1, 2018
Sunrise Service at 6:45 a.m. (outside)
and Resurrection Sunday Worship Service at 11:00 a.m.
Potluck Easter Lunch following the 11:00 a.m. service.
Kids! Bring your Easter baskets for an Easter Egg Hunt after church!!
Everyone is welcome! Casual dress, come as you are!
Here for the Antique Show? Join us for coffee at 10:30 a.m. and stay for church and lunch!
Let’s celebrate the Risen Savior!
Soul Cafe Church 