This is our last month in the book of Colossians. You can print out the handouts for your home group by clicking this link or looking in the Documents section of this blog.
If you have any questions, feel free to send an email to Pastor Ryan or Sarah.
The 2019 Group Leader’s Retreat will take place April 12-13 at the Wesley Inn & Suites in Gig Harbor. Take a moment to watch this brief video about the retreat:
The retreat will begin on Friday evening (after a “typical” work day) and end around 4 p.m. on Saturday. Hotel accommodation and breakfast will be provided. If you plan to attend the retreat, please send an email to Sarah Biggerstaff to confirm your spot.
This month we’re back in the Book of Colossians after a brief break for our Christmas series. The sermon discussion questions for each week are available in handouts that can be downloaded and printed by clicking this link. You can also find the pdf file in the documents section.
Please let us know how we can be supporting you as a home group leader in 2019. Email Sarah or Pastor Ryan with any questions, requests or comments or call the church office.
Season’s Greetings!
This weekend we’ll begin our Christmas series titled “Come Let Us Adore Him” which will highlight the prayers of those who celebrated the birth of Jesus with great acclaim. Sermon discussion questions for the month of December are now available and the handouts can be saved and printed by clicking this link or navigating to the Documents page of the blog.
Additionally, Paul David Tripp’s advent devotional “Come, Let Us Adore Him” will be available to purchase for $11 each in the foyer this weekend. Stop by the cart and pick up a copy if you don’t already own it.
Group Leaders, if there’s anything we can do for you as we enter into the Christmas season, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Here’s a video message for you from Pastor Ryan:
Have a safe and happy holiday weekend!
For the next two weeks we’ll continue through the first chapter of Colossians. The handouts that include the scripture passage and discussion questions can be downloaded by clicking this link, and are also available in the Documents section.
During the month of December, we’ll be taking a break from Colossians for a special sermon series called “Come, Let Us Adore Him.” If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Some of you have just finished or are about finish the Gather to Scatter study, so we wanted to have sermon discussion questions available for when you need them. Click this link or click on the Documents page of this site to download and print the pdf file that has the first four lessons of the Colossians sermon series.
When you have time, Pastor Ryan would LOVE to hear your feedback about Gather to Scatter. Please give him a call or send him an email when you have a chance. Thank you!
In case you missed it, we wanted to share the announcement with you that Lighthouse is partnering with Freezing Nights, a Christian ministry here in Puyallup that gives the homeless a warm place to stay from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. during the months of November through March.
Please watch this video with more information from Pastors Art & Brandon:
For more information, visit http://www.lighthousehome.org/freezing-nights.
This article, Contacting Versus Connecting, is from the Church and Culture blog.
One of the great myths of relational life is that community is something found. In this fairy tale, community is simply out there – somewhere – waiting to be discovered like Prince Charming finding Cinderella. All you have to do is find the right person, join the right group, get the right job or become involved with the right church. It’s kind of an “Over the Rainbow” thing; it’s not here, so it must be over there.
Which is why so many people – and you’ve seen them and probably flirted with this yourself – go from relationship to relationship, city to city, job to job, church to church, looking for the community that they think is just around the corner if they could only find the right people and the right place. The idea is that real community exists somewhere and we simply must tap into it. It’s not something you have to work at; in fact, if you have to work at it, then you know it’s not real community.
This mindset runs rampant in our day. If you have to work at community in a marriage, you must not be right for each other. If you have to work on community where you are employed, you’ve got a bad boss or bad coworkers or a bad structure. If you have to work at community in a neighborhood, you just picked the wrong subdivision. If you have to work on things with people in a church, well, there are obviously just problems with the church or its leadership or… yep, its “community.”
I cannot stress enough how soundly unrealistic, much less unbiblical, this is. Community is not something you find; it’s something you build. What you long for isn’t about finding the right mate, the right job, the right neighborhood, the right church—it’s about making your marriage, making your workplace, making your neighborhood and making your church the community God intended. Community is not something discovered; it is something forged. I don’t mean to suggest any and all relationships are designed for, say, marriage. Or that there aren’t dysfunctional communities you should flee from. My point is that all relationships of worth are products of labor.
This is why the Bible talks about people needing to form and make communities, not just come together as a community or “experience” community. It’s why principles are given – at length – for how to work through conflict. It’s why communication skills are articulated in the Bible and issues such as anger are instructed to be dealt with. It’s why the dynamics of successfully living with someone in the context of a marriage or family are explored in depth. As the author of Hebrews puts it so plainly:
So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your
feet… run for it! Work at getting along with each other.
(Hebrews 12:12-14, The Message)
James Emery White
Lighthouse Groupies 