Memorial Service for Terri Tucker, Sat (3/28/2009) @ 1:00 pm

Alison, Nathan, Kevin & Terri (this picture is a few years old).

Valley Gace Day of Fasting & Prayer - Wednesday 3/25/2009

You are being invited to join with the Valley Grace church family in a time of fasting and prayer for individuals in our church family going through some difficult times, as well as opportunities for ministry in the days ahead.

Where: doors at Valley Grace will be open by 7:15 am on Wednesday so that you can come in and pray individually or schedule to meet with others to pray silently or audibly. Obviously you can choose to participate by fasting over breakfast or lunch, at home, at work by going to you vehicle and setting aside the normal time of eating to focus on prayer requests that will be available. You can participate at school as well.

How: you may choose to forgo all food and drink, or you may choose to drink fruit juice, water or some other healthy beverage. Obviously, if there is a medical condition that does not allow your participation, you can still invest time in praying for the needs of our church family.

Procedure: Begin with a time of prayer and repentance so as to clear up any personal barriers of fellowship with the Lord. Then follow this with a time of adoration and praise for who God is -- a time of worship. You can listen to a song that focuses on our great God, or read a hymn or song that reminds you of His attributes. Then bring your requests before the Lord.

Prayer Requests: prayer guides will be available on Wednesday morning beginning at 7:15 am here at the church located at the Welcome Center. You can swing by and pick one up in your travels. We will also be emailing them out via the Valley Grace email group. If you are not receiving group emails, you can request that they be emailed to you by calling the church office and providing your email address.

Staying on Mission

We are living in days of great challenges but also days of great opportunity to stay focused on our mission of introducing people to Jesus Christ. Our responsibility as individuals is to share with people that Jesus Christ alone can provide peace with God, guarantee our eternal destiny, and help us to live life with purpose. Ed Stetzer quotes a study entitled "The Shape of Things to Come" which was conducted by Brad Waggoner among evangelical Christians which indicated that "In the past six months, 29 percent of respondents said they shared with someone how to become a Christian twice or more, 14 percent did so once and 57 percent did not share at all."

We showed a video clip from an atheist this past Sunday indicating that he would expect that if a Christian really believed that Jesus is the only means of salvation, they would have a responsibility to share that news if they really cared. As Penn said, "How much do you have to hate someone not to tell them ... of eternal life?" See the clip below:




By the way, a couple of other thought provoking items from Waggoner's study:

* Only 16 percent of Protestant churchgoers read their Bible daily and another 20 percent read it "a few times a week." (How are we going to be able to intelligently share Christ with people if we are not studying what God has to say?)

* Just 23 percent "agreed strongly" with the statement, "When I come to realize that some aspect of my life is not right in God's eyes, I make the necessary changes." (How can we encourage other people to live the truth if we are not living it out? This ought to challenge us to ask the question, "am I only obedient to God 25% of the time?")

Let us continue to ask God for those Divine Appointments so that we can make a difference in our world for Christ and live out the Truth in our world!

Thanks to Valley Grace @ Special Olympics

We want to thank youth and adults who served by helping out with Special Olympics on Saturday, March 7 2009. They took of their time to be an encouragement.

Joni Eareckson Tada - Theology of Suffering (takes a little while to load, but worth the wait and time to watch!)

New Music & Drama Ministry at Valley Grace

Erika Osborne has been using her musical abilities by working with the music in Children's Church. The Church Board has asked her to expand her ministry involvement by helping us to further use the musical talent that many of you have in serving our Lord here at Valley Grace. Erika has felt the Lord leading her in this direction over the past year. We will be referring to her responsibilities as Music Director as she helps to organize ensembles, choir, enhance our Worship Services, and focus on the further development of the music ministry here at Valley Grace. Chuck (her husband) is helping to provide leadership with drama. Please pray and encourage both Chuck & Erika in these new opportunities. If you wish to be part of the choir that will be singing in both the Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday programs, please contact Erika (or come to practice on Monday nights @ 7:00 pm). Chuck is working with the drama part of the Palm Sunday program. Note: Erika is a graduate of Shepherd College with a degree in music and is currently teaching in the Washington County School system. Chuck is a Philadelphia Eagles fan (so be gentle with him!)