On the 21st the congregation was pleased to see new carpet in the sanctuary; it is a deep red color very much like the original 1979 carpet.
Ray LaBaume along with Pastor Ken Lunsford over-saw the installation crew doing the carpet. It was quite a chore to collect the hymnals, Bibles, pencils and envelopes and move them, then take up the pews, altar, and altar rail and move them to the foyer. Everything is now back in its place as it should be. Many thanks to the members who volunteered to work on Saturday, 9-20 to restock the back of the pews and put out the flowers.
Cole Moore and Joe Salinas served as acolytes this past Sunday, Conner Moore and David Cleveland took the offering, and Laura Leatherwood was the Worship Leader.
Laura also gave the children’s lesson. She asked the children if they ever said “That’s not fair!” They answered yes they did, especially lately at some football games.
Laura reminded them that Jesus told parables; she said parables are telling a story. She said Jesus told a story about a landowner who had a vineyard and he needed workers. The landowner hired workers early in the morning to work for the usual day’s wage. Next he hired some more workers at 9 a.m., and then he hired more and more all through the day. When it came time to pay the workers they all got the same money, so the early workers said that is not fair! Then the landowner said “Aren’t I allowed to do what I want with my money?”
The lesson is, you may follow Jesus’ teaching when you are young and spend all your life serving God and someone else may not know about serving God till they are old, but you will all receive your reward in heaven. The children were ‘rewarded” with a small bag of green grapes and a coloring page.
Rev. Ken Lunsford titled his sermon “I Did You No Wrong.” In Matthew 20:1-16 Jesus tells the story of the vineyard owner who pays all his workers the same days wage whether they began at sunrise or at 5 o’clock. When the earlier workers complained about the pay the man replies “I did you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?”
There is a story about a little church in Winchester Virginia whose minister was worried and preoccupied one Sunday morning. At the close of the service the minister told his congregation about his daughter. “You know my wife and I have a daughter we haven’t seen in a long while. She had a lifestyle that we didn’t approve of. We found her in an apartment with no heat, electricity or warm water. She has a three month old baby boy, our grandson. We asked her if she wanted to come home and she said yes.”
Many of you will not approve of her living in your parsonage, but she’s our daughter and we love her. There are two doors into our church, I’ll be at one and if you don’t want to shake my hand you can go out the other, that’s ok.
People are always slipping out the back or side door to get away quickly for lunch or some other reason. But, that Sunday every member went out the minister’s door to shake his hand. And they didn’t stop there; they accepted the daughter and her child into their congregation.
We don’t comprehend the nature of God’s unmerited grace. The Kingdom of God is not about how hard or how long we work. We sing songs like “Amazing Grace,” but we are usually uncomfortable with last minute conversions. We feel that these persons have gotten away with both worlds. It doesn’t seem fair. Something else wasn’t fair, that Jesus, a sinless man, went to the cross for your sins and mine, yet that is what happened.
It makes no difference whether you came to Christ seventy years ago, or if you come to Christ today. He loves you the same.
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