November 18th, 2012: Spritual Formation, part 5: Inward change

On this unseasonably mild and mostly sunny morning, Pastor Michael Hodge continued his series on spiritual formation by talking about inward change. As we read God's Word and as it pierces our hearts, we are transformed. This is what the Bible calls "the renewing of our minds" (Romans 12:2).
This is something that cannot be done on our own, but rather is done through the Holy Spirit, who opens our eyes to our sin and God's Word, and to help us align with God's Word.
We hope you are blessed by his sermon today.

And as we approach Thanksgiving, Mark Fagerstrom delivered our children's sermon. Using a grain of corn, he shows us how God multiplies that corn, and that we should be grateful for corn, and all the other things He provides for us.

Finally, we hope you are blessed with Roger and Karen's special music today.

You can find and listen to all of these things by clicking here:

http://archive.org/details/SpritualFormationPart5InwardChange

And we hope you have a blessed week, and remind ourselves of all the blessings God through Jesus Christ has given us as Thanksgiving approaches.

November 11, 2012: Spiritual formation, part 4: sanctification

On this windy but unseasonably mild and mostly cloudy Sunday morning, Pastor Hodge talks about the next step in spiritual formation that God does by his Spirit through us: sanctification. Once we repent and turn to Christ to be our Savior and Lord, our walk with Christ then becomes a lifelong process of growth. We no longer like sin, but hate it; we no longer live the way we once did, but live in faith, and repentance. Listen to Pastor Hodge's sermon on how all of this is done in the lives of a believer, and be blessed.

Also this morning, we heard from John Maulfair. His baby arrived at 23 weeks, way early. We as a church prayed for a miracle a few years ago, and God delivered one! Hear how our prayers a few years ago turned into a miracle for a now healthy two year old boy, who grabbed the microphone a few times (sorry!). Boys will be boys! :-)


You can listen to both of these items here:



http://archive.org/details/SpiritualFormationPart3-Sanctification

And, we hope you have a great week in Christ! Draw closer to Him this week.

November 4th, 2012: Part 3: Spiritual formation by spiritual transformation

On this partly cloudy and cool day, Pastor Michael Hodge delivered his sermon on spiritual transformation by Jesus, part 3 in his series of spiritual formation. He notes that working towards your faith is impossible---this is done by a heart transformation by the reading of the Bible, being convicted by it, and, by the Holy Spirit, convicted and bound to act. This is the only way the transformation of the heart can occur---not by works or effort on our part. We hope you are blessed by his sermon today. You can listen to it here:

http://archive.org/details/SpiritualFormationPart3-SpiritualTransformation

October 28, 2012: Spiritual formation, part 2: the heart

On this blustery and mostly cloudy Sunday, Pastor Michael Hodge continued his series on spiritual formation. He talked about how our hearts get changed by God. And, if not by God, than things of this world, which wwill lead us down a path of ruin.

While we were blessed by his sermon today, he got a little too passionate and accidently knocked his microphone out. While our audio engineer replaced the microphone, we lost about 1/4 of his sermon, which, when you listen to the parts that did get recorded, doesn't flow well without the missing piece. So, this week we regret that we don't have any audio of his sermon. We'll fix that issue for next week (actually, it already has been taken care of), and we apologize for the inconvenience.

October 21, 2012: What is your worldview?

On this sunny, breezy and mild morning, Pastor Hodge was out of town, so we had Steve Jameson from Freedom Lutheran Church north of Ottawa, IL preach our message this morning. His sermon was on "What is your worldview"? Unlike politicians who say that what they believe in their private, religious life has no bearing on their public lives and beliefs, God's Word is clear that not only is that not true---it's the definition of schizophrenia! So what is our worldview, and those of our elected officials, and everyone else...and why does it matter? Listen to Steve's sermon and be blessed by it today.


Also...we had special music with Roger Seldal, and our children's sermon about hymnals was done by Mark Fagerstrom. Listen to all of these by clicking here:

http://archive.org/details/WhatIsYourWorldview_238

And we hope you have a wonderful week in Christ Jesus!

October 14, 2012: Spiritual formation, part 1

On this mild and breezy Sunday morning, Pastor Hodge begins a series on spiritual formation: what it is, and how we can draw near to God through Christ.

Also, we had special music today, and we hope you are blessed by that!

You can find the links to both of these by clicking here...

http://archive.org/details/SpiritualFormationPart1

And we hope you have a blessed week in Christ Jesus!

October 7th, 2012: Prayer in a Christian's life

Prayer has a very important role in a Christian's life. It is our way of communicating to God through Jesus. The implications of this cannot be understated, and you can listen to Roger Scott's sermon, our guest speaker this week, by clicking on part 1.

Due to our older CD recorder, whenever he paused longer than a second or so, it started a new track. Just click on track 1 and it will flow naturally without you having to do a thing...except listen and be blessed. To begin, go here:

http://archive.org/details/Prayer_802

And we hope this is a blessing to you in Christ Jesus this week!