Book Study- How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth

If you are wanting to join in on the summer book study you can hope on over to our new website where we have the daily reflection questions as well you can share thoughts and ask questions. Head over to: Book Study Online

What’s Happening

Here are some of the things happening in October. From more details check out our EVENTS PAGE Wednesday Oct 9th Men’s Breakfast at 7am Meet at Denny’s Restaurant Praying Meeting 7pm at Highland Park A time to seek the Lord in prayer together. If you would like prayer we will also pray over you. Thursday […]

Upcoming Events

As we kick off the New year, here are a couple of things happening that you can be a part of: Kid’s Morning Out Free indoor playground for kids ages 0-5 10-Noon at Highland Park every Wednesday Men’s Study Starting Jan 23rd at 7pm at Mission Heights. February Daily Reflections Every day in February there […]

Christmas 2023

This year we are doing Christmas Eve services a bit differntly. Highland Park We will only have a 10am service at Highland Park Mission Heights There will be service only at 7pm and there is no 10am service Christmas Day There will not be services at either site. Hope you all have a blessed Christmas […]

Musical Starts This Week!

This Friday is the first performance of our musical “Welcome to Bethlehem”. It is a show for all ages and focuses around hope. We have 4 shows that all start at 7pm. Admission is at the door by donation to MyLuVPak (find out more about MyLuvPak)

Blessed and Blessed- Day 2

Med#2: Blessed..and blessed.
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ..
Again, we see the Father and the Son in the same breath; but not ‘Father and Son’, rather, ‘Father of Son’. Also, not ‘our Father and Lord’, but, ‘the Father of our Lord’. Subtle differences that demand attention from this detail addict. And, the word ‘bless’ appears twice: ‘blessed be God who blesses us in the Son’.

Reflection Questions
1) So why the subtle differences?
2) Consider other PP’s (prepositional phrases) as well as ‘in Christ’: i.e. ’with every spiritual blessing’, and ‘in the heavenlies’.
3) What are some of your personal blessings?

6 Weeks of Reflection

We kick off 6 weeks worth of Daily Reflections from Dave Duinker. Every Saturday we will meet for breakfast at Highland Park at 9am. Here we will discuss and share our thoughts on the week’s reflections. Please let us know if you plan to come! Click the button to sign up: Week 1 Breakfast Signup


IN CHRIST or “Jesus, what have You done?”
A six week biblical study by Dave Duinker covering 30 meditations focusing mainly on the prepositional phrase, “in Christ”.

INTRODUCTION
Had I the discipline, I would have been a linguist. I love words, on their own and in their loosely ordered interplay, making up the English language. I also love the Bible. In this study called “In Christ”, I hope to stir you, reader, and bolster your understanding of the eternal extent your Father went to in sending Himself to bring you to Himself. In other words, “Jesus, what have You done?”
I am not a student of the original Biblical languages – although I have dabbled some in Hebrew, which I prefer to Greek – but it seems to me that the New Testament, being written in Greek, is polluted with prepositional phrases. Prepositions are those little words that signal position. Prepositional phrases are groups of words consisting of a preposition and its object plus other related words: e.g. in the house, over that bridge, at school, under his hat, in Christ. Through the following 30 meditations, I want to explore a specific kind of Biblical prepositional phrase: PP’s with Jesus as the object, which I will shorten to JPP. We cannot cover all of them in 30 meds, as “in Christ” occurs almost 90 times in the NT, and “in Him” 100 times.
So, get your Bibles, turn to Ephesians 1, and let us discover together what God has done in Christ in order to make us His own.

Meditation #1: There is meat in the greeting.
Ephesians 1:1 & 2 (NASB) Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus; grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
How many pp’s (prepositional phrases)_ did you catch in this 2 verse intro? I count 7, including 2 JPP’s, which will form the basis for this first med (med is meditation but could also mean medication, you choose). The first is ‘in Christ Jesus’, which is a pp acting as an adverb modifying the word ‘faithful’. Now, I approach the Bible in 2 ways: dissection and big picture. The former is a study of details which are ascertained through dissection; the latter is a stepping back to see the big picture, the broad themes and ideas. The first involves single verses, phrases and words; while the second involves paragraphs, chapters and entire letters. I prefer the first, if you hadn’t noticed, but both are equally valid and one should not trump the other. So, as we study these JPP’s, we will see that they have both powerful import on their own but certainly cannot be removed from the surrounding ideas and the bigger picture.

Thus, let us see the details and the big picture in ‘faithful in Christ Jesus’. Here are some questions for consideration and eventual discussion.
1) What does the tiny word ‘in’ mean?
2) Who are the faithful?
3) What is the difference between faith and faithfulness?

The second JPP is ‘from..the Lord Jesus Christ’.
1) What does ‘from the Lord Jesus Christ’ modify?
2) Why from God and Jesus?
3) When letter writing was a thing, is this how you might open a letter?

This first entry was a bit wordy – too many PP’s . I promise to shorten them for future posts.

Learn about Finances

On Oct 14th, we are having a financial basics class led by a CPA (Trevor Davis) and a successful businessman (Reg Dodd). Thwy will both share thoughts on how to best manage your finances and things they have learned from their past experiences. This will start at 9am on Oct 14th.

A Christmas Musical

This year we are planning to put on a musical during the Christmas season. We hope to put on 4 performances of it in December. We are looking for all kinds of help. If you are interested in helping in any way please reach out to Dave using the contact info above.