BODYLife
Office Address: 4039 E. Harmony Ave. Mesa, Az. 85206-3285 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED Inside: GIVING MARRIAGE BACK TO THE WORLD Nov. 14: Phoenix SUNS GAME SHARE WITH ONE: My Hope @ Billy Graham WORSHIP Sundays @ 9:30 a.m. BODYLife With CHRIST in our midst! Experiencing His Presence, Power & Purpose. LCF is committed to experiencing the living Christ organically in friendships, small groups, & ministries! SUNDAY MORNING Groups! Spirituality of the Cross BOOK STUDY @ Chandler 7th Day Adventist 1188 W. Galveston, Chandler, AZ. 85224 Nov 2nd Nov 9th Call Todd Baio #602-741-7911 for info ►Sundays 9:50-10:30 am during Sermon time Call Karla Emerson #480-753-9243 for info Youth Group (5th thru 12th Graders) All Saints Sunday — @ Holy Communion Religion Is Not Enough! @ Pastor Todd Persecuted Church Sunday! Christianity Is Dangerous! Acts 19:21—20:38 Nov 16st 23rd Sunday of Pentecost Acts 21-22 Witnessing At Home Nov 23th THANKSGIVING Christ The King Sunday Love That Never Lets Us Go! ►Sundays 8:30-9:15 am before Worship Children’s Church Acts 18:18-19:20 Acts 22:3--23:11 Nov 30th First Sunday in Advent Acts 24, 25 & 26 Continuing Series: ACTS OF T HE APOSTLES! @ Pastor Todd Who’s On Trial? ►Wednesdays 6:15 - 7:30 pm Chandler Presbyterian 1500 W Germann Rd WEEKLY EVENING Groups! ►Mondays Revelation 7 - 8:30 pm in So Chandler 1821 W. Lynx Way—Karthik #765-413-8831 ►Thursday BIBLE 6:30 - 8:00 pm in East Mesa area 4039 E Harmony Ave--James #480-234-4457 WEEKLY DAYTIME Groups! Ladies Romans Bible Study ►Thursdays 9:30- 11 am @ Ella’s Home Call James Hoefer, #480-234-4457 for info Ladies THE STORY Bible Study ►Tuesday at 3 pm in Chandler area Call Karla #480-753-9243 for location ANGEL TREE: We will have 19 children who will need sponsors this Angel Tree Sunday, Dec. 7. A special service is being planned, and Sonny will do an exclusive MAGIC SHOW at ARROWHEAD PARK PICNIC at 11 am for all our FAMILIES! Nov Birthdays (3) Bruce Bergeson (5) Michelle Eisenhawer (6) Clarence Golden (11) Hannah Wright (14) Ryan Weise (15) Kyle Tygret (16) Cristian Bergeson, Tiffany & Trinity Thibideau (17) Mary Larrison (20) Michael Mancini (21) Ruth Wilson (25) Stephanie Alamond (26) Alicia McNeill Phoenix SUNS GAME: Pastor James some Phx Suns Basketball game tickets for Friday, 7pm, Nov. 14 against the Charlotte Hornets. The tickets are only $16, on a first come, first serve basis. HOPE FOR HORN OF AFRICA: Keep Negest and Shoan Zeleke in your prayers as they continue to lead this vital ministry. Currently they are supporting 16 orphans in Ethiopia. Amazingly, 4 are in college and an additional girl has a scholarship to the University. We hope to have them with us soon to share more. SHARE WITH ONE! Order a DVD today, or simply play it on-line! Share this outstanding Billy Graham’s evangelistic program entitled ‘HEAVEN’ in your home, or even at a Starbucks, to your unsaved friends or any seeker who wishes to know the truth of what the Bible teaches. https://myhopewithbillygraham.org/program/heaven/ We are asking everyone at LCF to share this with at least ONE PERSON! FEEDING THE HOMELESS: We had a wonderful opportunity joining Joe’s Team to feed up to 150 hungry men and women and children at 5:30pm Tuesday Oct 21 at MY FATHER’S HOUSE (3030 W. Van Buren), plus sharing the Gospel. Kyoko and Erin were there with their special gifts! Joe especially thanks the Sisters of Mary at Canaan for hundreds of BRATS, and Lloyd at "Biscuits" Restaurant on Elliott and McClintock for their help storing the brats and letting us buy the sauerkraut at their cost. Thanks to Carolynn, Erin, Jeff, Kyoko, Joe’s two friends from work, Geoffrey and Tim along with all the others who contributed behind the scenes to help those that need our support and need Jesus in their lives, as we all do. PIE & PRAYER NITE: MEN are welcome to join to share and pray for one another on the FIRST Wednesdays. Join us Nov 5 @ 6:30—8pm at VILLAGE INN on Southern and Dobson Our WOMEN have a similar group starting at 6:30 p.m. at COCO’s on the NE corner of Dobson and Baseline. LCF Newsletter dated November 1th 2014 MEMBER: The American Association of Lutheran Churches www.taalc.org MEMBER: Alliance of Renewal Churches www.allianceofrenewalchurches.org Dr. James Lyman Hoefer Office Phone/Fax # 480-981-5457 e-mail: [email protected] JESUS CHANGES LIVES! www.livingchrist.com GIVING MARRIAGE BACK TO THE WORLD Not everybody has a great marriage. Starting with Adam and Eve’s Blame Game leaving the Garden of Eden, marriages between two sinners get pretty complicated. It's like the young bride who called her pastor three weeks after her wedding day. "Pastor," she wailed, "George and I had a dreadful fight!" "Calm down, my child," said the pastor, "it's not half as bad as you think it is. Every marriage has to have its first fight!" "I know, I know!" said the young woman, "but what am I going to do with the body?" So not everybody has a great experience with marriage, and God doesn’t intend everyone to marry—but still marriage is the norm. In fact a poll in the L. A. Times of 2,000 adults revealed that the overwhelming majority of single adults, when asked about their main goal in life, responded "to be happily married." Deep down, God has put a strong and healthy desire in the depths of most of us to experience the fascinating joy of connecting heart and soul with a someone so utterly different in sex, temperament and basic needs, and yet strangely complementary and supportive. The Bible makes it clear that marriage is God’s good gift. My father used to say that the marriage relationship was the one thing that Adam and Eve were able to take out of Paradise with them when they goofed up! God intends our homes to be a little taste of heaven on earth! That doesn’t mean it is easy! Studies have shown that the five basic needs of a woman are totally different from the five basic needs of a man! Marriage is difficult! It’s no secret that women can relate much easier with another woman, and men with another man. But as George Jessel once said, "Marriage is a mistake that every person ought to make." What he meant is that yes, it’s difficult, and will thoroughly challenge us, but it will also help us grow up! Martin Luther advised many monks who wanted to become self-denying disciples of Jesus leave of the quiet solitude of monasteries and get married! For thousands of years our societies had laws and customs protective of this sacred institution, supporting the public vows of a man and a woman committing to stay together to raise their children—but that has changed. Pornography and sexual abuse are a plague! Our entertainment media seldom depicts marriage in a healthy light. Many young people have simply given up on marriage altogether. Lots of couples cohabite because they don’t believe it is possible to maintain a lifetime commitment. With our “No-fault divorce laws,” marriage is the only legal contract a person can break without the other party’s consent and without facing any legal repercussions! And now our U.S. Supreme Court (which just in April, 2013 ruled that individual States had the final word on marriage law), cowardly chose last week not to overrule the decision of lower federal courts striking down marriage in a host of States, including Arizona--based upon “the times are achanging” interpretation of the Constitution (not “original intent”)! Instead of seeing marriage as a sacred gift from God, protected by one of His Ten Commandments, this world regards it as a sociological experiment, to alter at will. Teachers are instructed to replace the words “father” and “mother” with parent. “Let’s get government of the bedroom,” is the cry. “If three people want to get married, let them. Marriage is an entirely private affair.” But that is just the point. Marriage is not merely a private affair. Children suffer the most when marriages die. It is the most essential social institution we have, and history is full of dead civilizations that forgot that. Governments should be supportive of it, because God’s plan works! Thousands of expensive scientific studies tell us overwhelmingly and conclusively what common sense already knew--that children do best when raised by a biological mother and father cemented by marriage. Today this is being denied, and we shouldn’t be surprised! It is what inevitably happens when “men love darkness rather than light” (John 3:19). But don’t think for a moment that any court, or congress, or commander-in-chief can redefine marriage! Marriage will always be what it was created to be, God’s good gift for those who discover it. As Dr Frank Beckwith said, “You can eat an ashtray, but that doesn’t make it food.” In fact, history demonstrates that the truth of God’s Word shines brightest when the contrast with the world is most severe. Today the Church is being called upon to teach and model what marriage is according to God’s plan. That means taking a strong stand against divorce, just as God does, and honoring the sanctity of human life, fleeing immorality, and seeking healing for our own sexual brokenness. This will take courage, and the power of the Holy Spirit. When Pastor Rick Warren was challenged recently on the Piers Morgan Live show about his views of “same-sex marriage,” he appropriately responded, “I fear the disapproval of God more than I fear your disapproval or the disapproval of society.” We will be asked also, and now is the time to be ready with words and actions to testify to God’s greatest earthly gift! Pastor James
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