Blast Off to Truth!

Marilyn Fisher reports on Rally Day 2000.

Blast Off to Truth! is our Rally Day theme this year. September 10^th marks the day when we will dedicate our youth workers and begin our regular fall schedule. Rally Day activities and fall classes are described below.

Sunday School

Kids from preschool to high school will blast off in the primary room with Brian Mondy playing guitar, and the junior and senior high leading the younger kids in camp songs. They will get an update on summer activities from those who attended camps, nationals, and DVBS.

Kindergarteners will be promoted on Rally Day, and will be presented with a Bible. New 7^th grade students will get a gift certificate to apply towards youth group activities.

Children's classes have been arranged as follows:

• Kindergarten-grade 1 - John Clinton, teacher
• Grades 2-3 - Marie Mondy, teacher
• Grades 4-6 - Janet Poston, teacher

Classes that will continue with the same teachers:

• 2 & 3 and 4 & 5 year-olds - Patty Mellema and Sherie McClun
• Junior High - Ginny Davis, assisted by Debbie Smith
• Senior High - Wayne and Julie Danielson

Adult Education

During Sunday School, the adult classes will press on toward truth in the following classes:

• Seekers, led by Dave and Dee Huanca, will add new arrivals from China.
• Agape will join forces with Fidelis and Maranatha for a series on the Beatitudes taught by Ross Olson.
• Post High School class will enfold the new high school graduates under the leadership of Jon Boyum and Shane Davis.
• A new class will start for adults who are in the age group not covered by the other classes. Mark Poston and Alan Peterson will share teaching responsibility.
• The Prayer Group has outgrown the library and will continue to meet in the pastor's office under the leadership of Bob and Lois Chapman.

Church Potluck

Rally Day will wind down with a salad luncheon/potluck hosted by the Council. It will begin immediately following Sunday School. Be sure to visit the photo display in the gym which tells of the many summer events. Everyone is encouraged to attend.

Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me." May we all meet the Truth in our Sunday School this year!

Praying Together

by Bob Chapman

The early church assembled itself with great enthusiasm for four things (Acts 2:42). One of those four was prayer. Interestingly enough, the need in our lives is NOT for prayer. Our great need is for God! We need to have Him at work in our lives, and in our church, doing what only He can do. He does these things, however, as we invite Him to do them. Prayer is communication, and only that. So we are not promoting prayer in our church, except as it is the connection -- essential, but not the end in itself. We are reminding ourselves of our great need for God to do His work, and so we invite Him into our midst. Individuals can do this, but the pattern of the early church was to do this as a body, maybe not always the whole group at one time, but groups meeting together. (Several thousand church members could not have squeezed into Mary's house when they were gathered together to pray for Peter's release from prison that night [Acts 12].) So we need to pray together -- "Where two or three are gathered together in my name..." is written in the context of prayer. So for this next church year we are going to be encouraging prayer, because we so need God at work in our midst. The work of God is the work of God!

Here are some of the things we're thinking about (you will get details later). We will try:

• reactivating the weekly Sunday noon prayer time this fall.
• adding an early morning prayer time at the church.
• possibly adding some prayer emphasis during or after the morning service.
• giving people opportunity to personally support individual young people, staff, and activities during their private prayer times -- prayer projects.
• having more teaching on prayer.
• encouraging weekly telephone prayer partner praying.
• broadening the scope of our prayer reminder bulletins.
• increasing our prayer support of our missionaries.
• involvement of our church in a nation-wide prayer activity.

Jesus said: "My house will be called a house of prayer." (Matthew 21:13)