Sunday Morning Drive In Worship

Sunday, November 22nd. at 10:30 am.

Chris' sermon is:  

“Our Righteous King Is the Just Judge” – Revelation Part 17

Revelation 20:11-15

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A Word from our Pastor

In the beginning, God made us in His image. We have been making God in our image ever since. The result of this spiritual inversion is a god who is about our size and looks an awful lot like us. And most of our spiritual shortcomings stem from this fundamental mistake: thinking about God in human terms. We make God in our image, and as A. W. Tozer said in The Knowledge of the Holy, we’re left with a god who “can never surprise us, never overwhelm us, nor astonish us, nor transcend us.”

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Thomas Jefferson loved the teachings of Jesus. In fact, the author of the Declaration of Independence called them “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.” But Jefferson was also a child of the Enlightenment. He didn’t have a cognitive category for miracles, so Jefferson literally took a pair of scissors and cut them out of his Bible. It took him several nights. By the time he was done, he had cut out the virgin birth … the angels … the Resurrection. Jefferson extracted every miracle, and the result was a book titled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, or what is commonly referred to as the Jefferson Bible.

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Hard to imagine, isn’t it? In Wild Goose Chase, Mark Batterson writes, “Something rises up within those of us who believe that the Bible is inspired by God. Part of us scolds Jefferson: “You can’t pick and choose. You can’t cut and paste. You can’t do that to the Bible.” But here’s the truth: while most of us can’t imagine taking a pair of scissors to the Bible and physically cutting verses out, we do exactly what Jefferson did. We ignore verses we cannot comprehend. We avoid verses we do not like. We rationalize verses that are too radical.

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Can I make a personal confession? Whenever I’m reading the Bible and I come to a verse that I don’t fully understand or live up to, I find myself reading really fast. I speed-read right past those verses. But then I slow it down when I come across verses I understand and obey. That’s human nature, isn’t it? Here’s a lesson I’ve learned the hard way: when I come across a verse I want to read real fast, I probably need to read real slow!

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So while we may not cut sections of the Bible out with a pair of scissors, the end result is the same. We pick and choose the truths we want to accept. We become trapped by our own logic. Our lives are limited to those things we can comprehend with our cerebral cortex. We end up in the cage of our own assumptions. And the more assumptions we make, the smaller our cage becomes.”

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The lesson: A small view of God’s Word leads to a small view of God Himself. Let us submit to the truth of God’s Word, so that we can marvel over the majesty of our Maker!

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                                     Pastor Chris

       Sunday's  Worship Video

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Riverlawn Relaunch Team

Riverlawn Relaunch Committee

The Riverlawn Relaunch Committee has been meeting on an as needed basis since before we began our drive-in worship services. Our initial meeting took quite a while because we discussed all of our options and evaluated the data from the health professionals and the protocols put forth by the state. As you know, we decided on drive-in worship as the best option. We also decided to suspend Sunday School and Family Night. We made the decision to postpone Family Night activities until we can better gauge the patterns related to the schools in our area.

Our initial plan was to move to the gym at some point for worship so that we could maintain social distancing. We set up the chairs in the gym and were ready to go in case the weather turned bad or we felt like it was safe to move inside. We have since scrapped the plan to move into the gym in favor of moving directly to the sanctuary. We determined that we actually had more room in the sanctuary to spread out. In addition, with the new heating and air conditioning system the air movement and filtration will be better in the sanctuary. Still not as good as being outside but better than the gym.

Our main concern is and always has been the safety of our people. We don’t want to become a Covid-19 hot spot. Please know that if you come to worship with us and forgot your mask, we have plenty and will gladly provide you with one.

At our most recent meeting we decided not to make any changes and to continue with drive-in worship. It’s working pretty well with a few minor technical problems. The addition of the FM transmitter was a big improvement and the work of Paul Mullins on the videos has been spectacular. Thanks Paul! The FM transmitter broadcasts on 98.1 and the range is about 1000 feet.

We will eventually move in to the sanctuary and that will be a great day. I know we all miss the way we use to worship. I, for one, miss being able to hug each other. You can expect some big “Beamer Hugs” when it’s appropriate.

Rest assured that we will not return to the sanctuary until we believe it is safe to do so. We will continue to monitor the advice of the health professionals and the protocols of the state but we will make our own decision. No one knows us better than we do. We think we can handle the weather and attendance at drive-in worship has been good.

Stand by for more information as it becomes available.

Bill Michael

Chairman – Riverlawn Relaunch Committee