Update on Lord's Supper schedule

-May 2 @ Oak Hall
We will not be taking the Lord's Supper.

--May 9
We will "break in" our new building by celebrating Communion together.

We passed!

This Sunday is last at oak hall

Memories of Oak Hall

Hoping this Sunday is our last.  We should know this afternoon after inspection!

Starting to reflect a bit.

I remember Sid, you man from Bombay/Mumbai-- came to our church because he worked with one of our people.  Very quickly got into a Christianity Explored group that our intern, Ray Treadwell was running.  A few months later he was professing his personal faith in Jesus Christ and being baptized into our church.  An amazing account of God reaching in and showing His love to someone--and then enriching our church fellowship mightily by Sid's work with youth ministry.

I agree

With all the good there is to exhorting myself and the peeps of Christ Community to maximize the opportunity that moving into the building offers--STILL

" People need to hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us." Tullian T.

So--CCC (and Rob)-- have you thought today on what God has ALREADY done for you?

Redemption, acceptance, imparted His Spirit, given Jesus, et al

Hey Hey, Pray!

Tomorrow we give this Certificate of Occupancy (CO) thang another go!

We'll update you here as soon as we know.

We got our piano!

Baldwin Model L

The piano is 6' 3" and was retired from the University of Florida.

Folks, we got an amazing bargain on a tremendous piano.  We did all our due diligence with piano experts and even had our own pianists drive to Orlando to test it out.  This tremendous instrument is scheduled to arrive before our first service in building.  Thanks to the generous gifts of some folks in CCC and some friends  of CCC, we have a great piano to use to the glory of God!

Mysterious Ways

Amy Julia Becker on how having a child with Down Syndrome has opened her eyes http://ow.ly/1D8Ef

From don miller

I remember Duane

Thinking back on the years-- gonna try to write some of these stories.

Duane came to us as a friend of one of our members. He was battling getting free from prescription meds. The drugs had wreaked havoc on his body and his soul. But he listened to the gospel and he put himself in the gospel community.

I sincerely believe that Duane trusted Christ prior to his sudden and tragic death. The funeral was on the campus of UF.

Only God knows how he has used Duane's brief life in Christ and his funeral service?

Getting ready for children @ our new building, just weeks away!

We have a shelter

Our final song tomorrow:

I have a shelter in the storm

When troubles pour upon me.

Though fears are rising like a flood,

My soul can rest securely.

O Jesus, I will hide in You,

My place of peace and solace.

No trial is deeper than Your love,

That comforts all my sorrows.

We are sincerely closer than we've ever been, seriously.

Hey folks,

Thanks so much for praying for the building process in general and
especially about our inspection yesterday. I'm sorry to say that we
did not pass this inspection, but another one is scheduled for next
week. I just bumped into our construction supervisor Gary and got the
run-down on our failed CO inspection:

I. Signage
There are some interior signs that need to be placed.

II. Sprinkler
There are some back flow valves and other equipment that need to be installed.

III. Kitchen
The ceiling needs to be finished.

Gary is very confident that these issues will be resolved by Tuesday
and that we will be "more than ready" for the inspector's next visit
on Wednesday afternoon. Keep praying!

Rob

try again next week, for Certificate of Occupancy

Dear folks of Christ Community,

We narrowly missed out on passing our inspection by the county.  Our treasured CO (Certificate of Occupancy) will be sought again next week.  Thank you for your prayers.  Keep them up!  God's timing is perfect.

And if you want---come to the covered porch at 6:30 am Saturday.  I will be meeting some people there to pray for a half hour.

Spirit, grant the gift of a clear, distinct, well-defined knowledge of Jesus Christ!

“Half our doubts and fears arise from dim perceptions of the real nature of Christ’s gospel. . . . The root of a happy religion is clear, distinct, well-defined knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

- J. C. Ryle

He paid it so we did not have to

“On the Cross we see God doing at the cosmic level what we all have to do when we forgive. There God absorbed the punishment and debt for sin himself. He paid it so we did not have to.”

- Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods (New York, NY: Dutton, 2009), 92.

No more, "Please move to the center."

Chairs in the House!

Serious help from RUF dudes

8:30 AM

Today the chairs arrive!

Big Day!

Pray for us to pass inspection and get a CO-Certificate of Occupancy

Reminder of Congregational Meeting

May 23

For the pupose of voting on elder candidate Richard White.

Spurgeon

"We are come to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than
that of Abel."
- Hebrews 12:24

Reader, have you come to the blood of sprinkling? The question is not
whether you have come to a knowledge of doctrine, or an observance of
ceremonies, or to a certain form of experience, but have you come to the
blood of Jesus? The blood of Jesus is the life of all vital godliness. If
you have truly come to Jesus, we know how you came-the Holy Spirit sweetly
brought you there. You came to the blood of sprinkling with no merits of
your own. Guilty, lost, and helpless, you came to take that blood, and
that blood alone, as your everlasting hope.

This Sunday when Christ Community gathers!

Promises to be a great day:

1.) We are at Oak Hall. Get that right 1st.
2.) 9am classes for all ages
ADULTS: Frank Matthews starts a new 6 week class on "Being a Servant".
(In the Media Center)

3.) 10:30am Worship Service
Our last Sunday with all our college students, as they near final exams.
Looking at Psalm 127
Unless the Lord builds the house, you labor in vain

4.) After service, lunch!--For College Students: whip around the corner to our new facility for some pizza on the awesome covered porch. Tours shall be given as well.

Ladders to Nowhere

The first great fact which emerges from our civilization is that today everything has become 'means'. There is no longer an 'end'; we do not know whither we are going. We have forgotten our collective ends, and we possess great means: we set huge machines in motion in order to arrive nowhere.

--Jacques Ellul

calvin on psalm 127

It behooves us to remember what I have just now touched upon, that since the minds of men are commonly possessed with such headstrong arrogance as leads them to despise God, and to magnify beyond measure their own means and advantages, nothing is of more importance than to humble them, in order to their being made to perceive that whatever they undertake it shall dissolve into smoke, unless God in the exercise of pure grace cause it to prosper.

oh, so close

Nisi Dominus Frusta

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.    --Psalm 127:1
The coat of arms for Edinburgh, Scotland.

Above the anchor is the motto ‘NISI DOMINUS FRUSTRA’ associated with Edinburgh since 1647. The interpretation is ‘Except the Lord in Vain’ and is a normal heraldic contraction of a verse from the 127th Psalm.

The Greatest Work of the Holy Spirit

“Getting the glory of Christ before your eyes and keeping it there —
 is the greatest work of the Spirit that I can imagine.” 


- C. John Miller

Placing our affections on Christ

“The good news of the Kingdom is that our King has won a marvelous

victory for us. Through his sinless life, sacrificial death as our substitute,

resurrection, and ascension, he has not only conquered death for us,

removing its penalty, but he has also conquered sin’s power over us . . .

through faith, God means for us to tap into the powerful victory of our

King, so that we might be transformed into true worshippers of God and

more authentic lovers of people . . . through faith we are always to be

placing our affections on Christ”. 

--Dr. Steve Childers, Professor RTS, Orlando.

South Carolina Team

Life on the porch

Spurgeon AM

By thy power, O blessed Spirit,
my heart shall be exceeding glad,
though all things should fail me here below.

.

Big Thanks!

Thanks to the Plant Shoppe Florist, for the Peace Lillies they loaned us for Easter services.

Day 1 in Scarolina

Digging trenches, hangin sheetrock, lovin kids

Cross installed

Resurrection

(This is crazy good)

Jesus Christ was raised from the dead
by J.I. Packer
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. (LUKE 24:1-3)
Jesus' resurrection, which was a divine act involving all three Persons of the Godhead (John 10:17-18; Acts 13:30-35; Rom. 1:4), was not just a resuscitation of the ruined physical frame that was taken down from the cross for burial. It was, rather, a transformation of Jesus' humanity that enabled him to appear, vanish, and move unseen from one location to another (Luke 24:31, 36). It was the creative renewing of his original body, the body that is now fully glorified and deathless (Phil. 3:21; Heb. 7:16, 24). The Son of God in heaven still lives in and through that body, and will do so forever. In 1 Corinthians 15:50-54, Paul envisages that Christians who are alive on earth at the moment of Christ's return will undergo a similar transformation, though in 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 he shows himself aware that Christians who die before the Second Coming will be "clothed" with their new body (the "eternal house in heaven") as a distinct event, at or after the time of the old body's return to dust (Gen. 3:19).
Christianity rests on the certainty of Jesus' resurrection as a space-time occurrence in history. All four Gospels highlight it, focusing on the empty tomb and resurrection appearances, and Acts insists on it (Acts 1:3; 2:24-35; 3:15; 4:10; 5:30-32; 13:33-37). Paul regarded the Resurrection as indisputable proof that the message about Jesus as Judge and Saviour is true (Acts 17:31; 1 Cor. 15:1-11, 20).
Jesus' resurrection demonstrated his victory over death (Acts 2:24; 1 Cor. 15:54-57), vindicated him as righteous (John 16:10), and indicated his divine identity (Rom. 1:4). It led on to his ascension and enthronement (Acts 1:9-11; 2:34; Phil. 2:9-11; cf. Isa. 53:10-12) and his present heavenly reign. It guarantees the believer's present forgiveness and justification (Rom. 4:25; 1 Cor. 15:17) and is the basis of resurrection life in Christ for the believer here and now (John 11:25-26; Rom. 6; Eph. 1:18-2:10; Col. 2:9-15; 3:1-4).

From: Concise Theology

What is different @ Jesus' Resurrection body?

"Think of the Resurrection as the reanimating, with enhanced powers, of a visible, material, physical organism that was destined for further transformation when the Savior, whose body it was, ascended to His Father's throne."

--J.I. Packer
(No relation to Todd)

Saturday and the Silence of the Lamb

A good meditation here from Scott Clark. An excerpt: The burial of our Lord ... http://bit.ly/baDGbG

Who doesn't like finding eggs?

Watch with the kids, or feed your own soul

Here’s a video telling the resurrection story by using the art from the Jesus Storybook Bible and David Suchet’s narration. This would be great to watch with your kids. The intro is long (45 seconds) so you can just skip ahead.

John PIper explains how Jesus' suffering for 3 hours can pay an eternal debt

Sin-free goods are on the way

Christs resurrection not only guarantees us that brand new, sin-free bodies are on the way but a brand new, sin-free world is on the way too. --Tullian T.

First Century "Lay of the Land" stuff

"The ancient world--with the exception of the Jews--was adament that dead people did not rise again; and the Jews did not believe that anyone HAD done so or that anyone WOULD do so all by themselves in advance of the general resurrection."

--N.T. Wright

God of the scars

 
The other gods were strong;
but Thou wast weak;
They rode,
but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds
only God's wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.


-Edward Shillito

"He answered him to never a word."

He had never been slow of speech when he could bless the sons of men, but
he would not say a single word for himself. "Never man spake like this
man," and never man was silent like him. Was this singular silence the
index of his perfect self- sacrifice? Did it show that he would not utter
a word to stay the slaughter of his sacred person, which he had dedicated
as an offering for us? Had he so entirely surrendered himself that he
would not interfere in his own behalf, even in the minutest degree, but be
bound and slain an unstruggling, uncomplaining victim? Was this silence a
type of the defencelessness of sin? Nothing can be said in palliation or
excuse of human guilt; and, therefore, he who bore its whole weight stood
speechless before his judge. Is not patient silence the best reply to a
gainsaying world? Calm endurance answers some questions infinitely more
conclusively than the loftiest eloquence. The best apologists for
Christianity in the early days were its martyrs. The anvil breaks a host
of hammers by quietly bearing their blows. Did not the silent Lamb of God
furnish us with a grand example of wisdom? Where every word was occasion
for new blasphemy, it was the line of duty to afford no fuel for the flame
of sin. The ambiguous and the false, the unworthy and mean, will ere long
overthrow and confute themselves, and therefore the true can afford to be
quiet, and finds silence to be its wisdom. Evidently our Lord, by his
silence, furnished a remarkable fulfilment of prophecy. A long defence of
himself would have been contrary to Isaiah's prediction. "He is led as a
lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he
openeth not his mouth." By his quiet he conclusively proved himself to be
the true Lamb of God.
As such we salute him this morning.
Be with us, Jesus, and in the silence of our heart, let us hear the voice
of thy love.

Hanging the chandelier

Maundy Thursday Communion Service 7pm @ Church Property (parker rd)

No foolin'

John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.


It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.


The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.


Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.


The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.


And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.


Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

drive it into our heart, Lord

O Sacred Head, what glory
What bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory,
I joy to call Thee mine.

--1563, Bernard of Clairveux