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Here you’ll find updates, announcements, and our thoughts on this world around us.
The Newsletter Podcast
The Newsletter Podcast is a production of Emmanuel Church for Emmanuel Church. With new episodes each week, we’ll hear what’s coming up, what’s gone down, and we’ll have a little fun along the way.
Episode 15- December 17, 2024
Highlight – The prayer ministry of the church (Mr. Andrew Pierson joins us in studio!)… Recap – Community Supper… Recap – Staff Christmas Party… Announcement – Christmas Cantata… This Week in Church History (John)… Top Ten!… Live Music (Tom)… Highlight – Church at Corrine’s School of Dance… Announcement – Christmas Eve Service… Announcement – Night to Shine… Announcement – Come and See… Mail Bag… Announcement – Baptism on January 5th… Announcement – Evensong
December 17, 2024
December 10, 2024
December 3, 2024
November 26, 2024
November 19, 2024
November 12, 2024
November 5, 2024
October 29, 2024
October 21, 2024
October 15, 2024
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The Sunday Dinner Podcast
Conversations with folks from the Emmanuel Church Family and friends about life, faith, and our God who knits us all together.
Chapter 9- Roosevelt Pires
Young Life… An Upward Spiral into apologetics… The most fun wedding at the Governor's Inn… Scale Free… All this and more with our very own Roosevelt Pires!
*Check out Roosevelt's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@ScaleFree777
May 29, 2023
April 6, 2023
March 22, 2023
July 11, 2022
June 24, 2022
June 10, 2022
June 5, 2022
May 22, 2022
May 8, 2022
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Our Sunday Roundtable- Week 13
“People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.” Samuel Butler
Ever since its release in October of 1971, John Lennon’s Imagine has been a lightning rod for the insecurities and indignations of the faithful. For just as long, the song has remained the wistful ballad of the wayward and the soundtrack to all secular longing. If man were the measure of all things and humanity divine, Imagine would be atheism’s loveliest hymn. But to anyone whose worldview has God at the center, Lennon’s lyric overreaches and underpays; an artifact from the ruins of Babel.
If we really care about people, then we will really care about ideas. What was John Lennon’s idea here and what accounts for its broad and persistent appeal? Lennon wasn’t evil, but simply a nonbeliever doing the best he could with what he had on hand. The Apostle Paul wasn’t threatened by all the false deities being celebrated on the hills above Athens and he wasn’t combative with the philosophers who argued for their veneration. He listened, observed, and proceeded to fill in the blanks for anyone who would listen. He simply shared the good news of Jesus Christ and let the Gospel topple all that was false. At this week’s Roundtable, we’re going to discuss the lyrics to Imagine and work to understand why a weary world is left to its imagination and how Christianity might be the dream come true. See you this Sunday, August 26th at 8:30 in the morning. God bless you!
Click here to read the lyrics to “Imagine”
Our Sunday Roundtable- Week 12
Much of history is a record of what’s done with sledgehammers. Men and women, frustrated with the nature and structure of things, cock back the wrecking ball and let it swing; smashing the established order to pieces. Boundary lines are moved, laws rewritten, statues toppled, books burned, and temples leveled for the rebuild. What are Paris, Jerusalem, and Rome but tubs of Legos that emperors, kings, princes, and generals have played in over the millennia? One of the lessons we’ve learned from these furious histories is that many of the things that get smashed should have been left as they were. Some that ends up as rubble should have been guarded as gold.
Ours is one of these iconoclastic ages when the sledgehammers are swinging. Under the banner of progress, a lot of our societal structure has been condemned as unfit for a noble and free people and is being slated for disassembly. As the chaos increases, those of us interested in preserving what’s best for our families and neighbors are left to decide what can be left to burn and what must be preserved. One of the changes Christians are being forced to consider is the rapid legalization of marijuana. Long seen as an illicit narcotic that seeks to arrest the energies of young people and fog the minds of all who get hooked, cannabis is today being championed as a medical miracle, a less dangerous alternative to alcohol, and even a gift from God. What should we say to our lawmakers, our youngsters, and our brothers and sisters battling chronic pain? In Marijuana to the Glory of God?, Pastor Jeff Lacine of Portland, Oregon offers his perspective for our consideration. Come join the conversation at the Roundtable this Sunday morning at 8:30am. Hot coffee will be brewed and baked goods spread out to sweeten the meeting – hope to see you there!
Click Here to read this week’s article
Our Sunday Roundtable- Week 11
There’s an old Yiddish proverb that asks, “If I try to be like him, who will be like me?” In this question is an affirmation of the important uniqueness of everyone and everything. To be created is to be cast by the Great Director to play a part in His great play. Never be another’s understudy, then – learn your own lines and hit your own marks.
The church was founded and created by God to be the agent of salvation in the world. What the ark was to Noah and his family, the church would be and now is to Christ and His family. And just as God gave to Noah very specific details on how the big boat was to be built; the church’s design and make-up was also neatly blueprinted for its builders and custodians. In recent years, it seems the church in the West has grown insecure in its design and despairing of the peculiar part it’s been asked to play. Past generations built grand spaces, big enough to accommodate the entire town and on most Sundays it seemed like the entire town crowded in. But today, the pews are largely empty and the rafters no longer ring with the hearty chorus of hundreds. The population has flocked to other venues to be about other things. There is a great temptation for the church to be somebody else; something more hip, more attractive, more relevant. Our reading for this week is a fascinating Op-Ed by Rachel Evans published in the Washington Post back in 2015. Entitled: Want millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church “cool”; Evans offers her insights as one who grew up in the church, left the church, and has found it again. There’s plenty to consider here and much to discuss. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts this Sunday morning at the Roundtable!
Click Here for this week’s article
Our Sunday Roundtable- Week 10
Every generation is a guinea pig being experimented on by the generation passing away. New ideas and innovations, brimming with optimism and goodwill seek immediate and widespread application. Processed food, commercial banking, electricity, aqueducts, birth control, television, and the internal combustion engine – these innovations and many, many more have all been gifted from one age to the next. Wrapped in pretty paper, bound with shiny ribbon, and topped with a bow; each generation opened these presents with wide-eyed wonder. While some of these gifts proved to be golden geese, many turned out to be white elephants. Most didn’t come with batteries, some assembly was always required, and there seemed to be lots of missing parts. But a gift’s a gift and we try to be thankful.
One of the shiny new toys given to us in the twenty-first century by our not-so-ancient ancestors is, of course, the internet. The parallel universe of the World Wide Web is an ever-expanding, almost exploding thicket of extensively linked hypertexts that is fast finding a foothold in every aspect of modern day life. Media, commerce, communication, entertainment, industry, and society are all moving from brick and mortar to byte and modem; from face to face to screen to screen. It seems of late that our new toy is losing some of its luster and it might be time to check the cage and see how the guinea pigs are doing. In Unfriending Convenience, Christina Crook gives a thoughtful assessment of some of the adverse effects of the internet on the fabric of our society and, for us as Christians, on our mission to be ambassadors and evangelists. Should be a great discussion – hope you can join us this Sunday morning at 8:30 for the Roundtable!
Click Here for this week’s article!
Get Ready… Get Set… VBS GO!
Calling all travelers:
Pack your bags and get ready to venture out as together we’ll take a missions journey around the world!
Join us July 30 – August 3
9:00 – 11:30am
Travelers ages 3 through 5th Grade are welcome!
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Our Sunday Roundtable- Week 9
Do you remember climbing trees as a kid? The big maple in the backyard, the tall oak in the far corner of the corn field, the quiet pine standing as a second steeple next to the church; each offering a new world to explore. It could sometimes be a little scary, was often exciting, but always a lot of fun. As we scaled the trunk, hand over hand, foot in notch; we’d soon find ourselves having achieved a dangerous height. Should we misstep or lose our grip now, our fall could be deadly. Nearer the top of the tree and at the end of our climb, we began testing the limb we thought of stepping out on. Before we put all our weight on a branch, we inspected it the best we could.
For those in the Christian faith, climbing the old, lovely tree planted by the water has us also ascending to some fearful heights. Not every branch we’re asked to believe in seems as sturdy as we’d like. One limb we’re particularly shy about putting all our weight on is the promise of God’s healing power meeting an immediate need in our lives. As we examine this belief, we discover that the limb comes off the trunk and is rooted, is alive with foliage and fruit, and looks strong enough. But just how strong and full of life is it? Can it handle the load of the things burdening my life? We shouldn’t live out our faith bear-hugging the trunk; but we shouldn’t wager our peace by taking fliers on the unfounded either. To help us think through this struggle, Andrew Wilson has written a wonderful article for an old issue of Christianity Today. In God Always Heals we learn a helpful perspective from a theological Tarzan. It should offer us a good hand-up for this Sunday’s climb. See you then!
Click here to read this week’s article
Our Sunday Roundtable- Week 8
There’s great power in a pathway. When out for a wandering walk, we’re more apt to follow a path than make our own. Though field and forest, mountain and meadow be open before us; we usually default to what is mown, paved, salted, or blazed. Those who first made these ways, whether deer, trader, courier, or civic planner, exercised tremendous power in directing future footsteps.
What’s true for traffic on land is also true for traffic in thought and feeling. Our hearts and minds tend to wander on the broad and banked pathways paved by those looking to speed all traffic past what might lead to heaven and onward to what most certainly will dead-end at the gates of hell. Following Jesus requires that every disciple take the next exit off the highway for the slower, narrower, and more ponderous path. As the wonderful summer months are now upon us, it would be good to consider how we might make the best use of opportunities to slow down and recreate a bit. To that end, two readings for this week’s discussion. First is an excerpt from Pirsig’s classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The second is A Forest Hymn; a poem by famed American poet William Cullen Bryant. Of the two, the poem is the more difficult read, but give it a shot. There’s a lot of encouragement in these two readings for our project of knowing and living a more authentic faith. I’m looking forward to the discussion!
Click here for Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
Click here for Bryant’s “A Forest Hymn”