Growing up, what I enjoyed most about Sundays is that we always had people over after church. I had a lot of fun on Sunday afternoons with all kinds of folks who came over from our church, both new people and regular people. When I moved away for college, I wasn't so much doing the inviting, but others from the church took me in. What I remember is not the food but their kindness, the warmth, how accepting and undemanding they were. It made a great impact on me. Since I became married, my wife and I have done much hospitality. This month as we start off the ministry year we are talking about the power of God in the Church. Today I want to talk today about the power of hospitality. The scriptures command us to show hospitality without grumbling, open yourselves, open your homes, open whatever you have, to others include others, bring others in. It's the velcro that makes a body of Christ stick together. So when the church shows hospitality to people, it's powerful and impactful. Reading from Genesis 18.

Extra reading: 1 Peter 4:7-11

Preacher: Bill Dyck

Over the years, our church has, by the grace of God, seen many people turn to faith in Christ in the different things that we've done. And I think we're getting better at helping those people leave their patterns and other things and really truly walk with Christ, setting other things aside and just going on with Jesus. That's what the Lord Jesus gave for us to do. Those are his last words: make disciples baptizing all who turned to me and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. I have held it in my heart that there's a time coming where there's going to be a lot of people turning to Christ right here. Let's say suddenly there were a ton of people who come to the church and other churches, who have really been stirred by God and saved by Him. How would we handle that? How would we handle these people who've definitely been drawn and saved by Christ to help them then to walk with Him? That's what I wanna talk about here today. The power of making disciples. I want to reflect on a couple verses out of 2 Timothy 2.

Extra reading: Exodus 18:13-27

Preacher: Bill Dyck

I want to talk today about the power of volunteering, working from an old Testament passage. It's about where God gives his people an important work to do. They're going to build the Tabernacle that will be a symbol of God's presence and the place on earth where His presence would be manifest. God is everywhere but his presence particularly was in and through the Tabernacle. And the whole thing start to finish is going to be built by volunteers. Nothing is contracted out and the whole thing is built in the middle of the desert from what people have on their person or in their tents. There is no home depot anywhere nearby. From a bunch of nomads, it will be what they have in their tents that will house the glory of God.

Extra reading: 1 Peter 4:7-11

Preacher: Bill Dyck

I very much believe in the power of God. It can show up in any way, but one thing the Bible says that is interesting is that the power of God is made perfect in weakness. This is a huge invitation to us because we have weakness. We're all qualified for experiencing the power of God because we have a lot of weakness. But I also believe in the Church, which has weakness and is therefore qualified for the power of God. Churches aren't perfect, but the Church can definitely experience the power of God. I want to talk in September about how the power of God shows up in the Church. Today, I want to talk about the power of a witnessing congregation from Acts 11:19-26.

Extra reading: Psalm 96

Preacher: Bill Dyck

This morning, we're gonna continue to look at first John. And one thing about first John is that John loves to talk about things over and over. Like in chapter three, John talks about love. And today in chapter four, which you just heard, is a lot of love and love and love. It's also about love. If I ask you to tell me your love story, you might tell me something like how I found my loved one, or that something happened in my past. Each person has different stories because love is something that we all know, love is something that we exercise every single day and in different situation. In love, we have something in common. For example, love is difficult to explain. You can't really explain what love is. Or something in common about love is there's no maximum of love, we could always love more. So today I want to draw out three things in the scripture, how the scripture talks about love.

Preacher: Oscar Wong

In 2023, Webster dictionary picked a word of the year. My hint is, when we scroll on social media and we look through all the pictures, do you ever wonder is that picture real or is that family truly that happy? Another thing that has come up with AI is, did that student really write that paper? Did I really prepare this sermon or did AI do it for me? With all of that, the 2023 word of the year is "authentic". This is interesting because even just a few years before, researchers were saying that nearing half of people in our culture were starting to believe that there is no truth. And very quickly as people and culture adopted this thought, that there is no truth, people realized what the world is like without truth. And so they're searching for something that is authentic. Why is truth important?

Extra reading: Jeremiah 29:7-14a

Preacher: Leslie Shillinglaw

I was walking with two of my grandchildren recently, a boy and a girl. It had just rained. The girl is a little princess and the boy loves mud puddles. They were walking beside each other when the boy stomps in a deep mud puddle and soaks his sister almost up to her waist, which completely exasperated her and she cried out expressing her deepest frustration, trying to wipe the mud off. Well, he was surprised by her reaction and he looked down at his own feet which were from the knees down was completely mud, which he considered to be a badge of honor. He looked his feet and he looked at her and he looked at me, and smiled. What an accomplishment! I found the whole situation was very funny, though, it was not very loving. I want to talk here today about why love is such a big deal. We're walking through the book of 1 John in a series called "Solid footing in shaking times". Today we read starting from 1 John 3:11.

Extra reading: Leviticus 19:9-18

Preacher: Bill Dyck

When I was a boy we heard that the Prime Minister of Canada was coming to our little town to make a speech to become re-elected. My dad took me along. The stage was the back of a truck. Everybody stood around and waited for his appearing. All at once a black limousine pulls up, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau stepped out and walked up the little stairs on the back of the truck. I don't remember a thing he said, but I was within 10m of the Prime Minister of Canada. The Bible talks a lot that there will be another appearing, not of a prime minister or a king but of the Lord Jesus. There will be a day when just as he walked and healed on Earth, he will return in person and be seen visibly. His appearing should be precious and anticipated just like when I was a kid. The news says much about how everything will end. But the Bible says he is the one who ends things when he comes and not before. Our series is called Solid Footing in Shaking Times and I wanna talk about living today with that day in mind.

Extra reading: Psalm 2:1-12

Preacher: Bill Dyck

Sometimes things get lost in translation. Once when my son was a boy he ordered hot chocolate at a nice coffee shop and somehow they heard "espresso", which was very disappointing for him. Another level of frustration is a DIY project where the instructions, guaranteed to be very simple, confuse you so much that you wonder if it's easier to just set them aside and figure it out yourself. I used to live in terror of someone thinking wrong about me. Since then it has happened so much that I've moved past that. What frustrates me deeply is when people think wrong of the Church. And far more grievous when they think wrong of God. People walk away from God because of misinformation. That's so much more weight than a simple DIY project. I want to talk today about how to avoid falling away in a world where there is more and more misinformation. We're walking through 1 John in a series called "Solid Footing in Shaky Times". Today's message is called "Clear Thinking Amid Confusion". I want to read chapter 2:18-27.

Extra reading: Deuteronomy 18:15-22

Preacher: Bill Dyck