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Writing to you today with a full stomach! We enjoyed a staff luncheon together as a thank you to Pastor Kevin for his dedicated service to our church family. It was nice to spend some time in fellowship around our planning and caring discussions. 

It’s hard to believe that we’re gearing up for all of the end of year events and festivities. We’re looking forward to the Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas Eve services. I know the Live Nativity team is working hard to plan that wonderful community event. Check out your church newsletter for all of the dates for the upcoming and Advent events that are ahead for us. 

The Roots Crew had a great planning meeting last week. I am so grateful for that team and their commitment to the vision for Family Ministry at Mechanic Grove. We spent some time discussing how the church can partner with individuals in all of their life milestones. Man, such great ideas came flowing out of our conversations! I look forward to how this team will continue to build the “milestone ministry” here at Mechanic Grove. 

I “assigned” this recording from one of the breakout sessions at last year's D6 Conference to the Roots Crew to listen to before our meeting. It was a great conversation starter for us last week, but it’s a MUST listen to all church family members. Please take some time to listen to Eradicating Silos & Cultivating a Unified Vision of Family Ministry in Your Church, Jonathan Williams. You won’t regret it!

It was fun to hear your thoughts as many of you took advantage of taking a tour of the building renovations yesterday morning. The progress is exciting! Keep praying about how you can participate, whether financially or with your time. Also be praying for all of the ministry groups that have big transitions ahead of them as this project concludes. 

Last night was a really wonderful night of prayer and preparation for election day. I’ve been listening to lots of different podcasts and sermons about this topic. I'm grateful for the many Christian leaders and churches who are being bold with truth in these conversations that pertain to life today. I’m prayerful that the church will continue to be bold and rise up for truth despite how heavy tomorrow and its outcome feels like. Kay Swarr led the efforts last evening so gracefully. She used the imagery of “tugging;” we’re being tugged one way and then another in a lot of different ways... In who to vote for, what to vote for, how to feel etc. Her theme for the evening reminded me of a way one pastor put it in their sermon about this upcoming election. He said “your convictions should pull your vote RIGHT or LEFT, but our ultimate goal is our heart is “tugged” UP into the kingdom of God so that the Holy Spirit can be “tugged” DOWN into our life and so we can bless the lives of others.” Be tugged UPWARDS tomorrow, and always, friends. Our God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Amen!

What WE’RE Learning This Week: A nugget of what our Lil’, Youth and Adults Roots heard this week

Our Family Theme: God Knows What Is Ahead

Our Root Text: Joshua 3:1—4:24

Verse of the Month: Joshua 1:9

How Every Generation Lives This Out: The stones in Joshua 4 were a literal, visible representation of God’s faithfulness, patience, power, and guidance. What can we do to remind ourselves of what God has done for us?

What I’M Learning This Week: Sharing what I’m reading and listening to lately

I heard a devotional on Matthew 7:7 this past week and I just had to share it with you. I hope it will sit on your heart like it’s been sitting on mine. 

Matthew 7:7 reads “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” This is Jesus talking during the Sermon on the Mount. There’s three verbs in this verse; ask, seek and knock. The author of this devotional I was reading talked about how this verse has us praying with our whole body. 

We ask and we pray with our mouths. We seek and we pray with our eyes and our hearts. We knock and we pray with our body. 

These verbs are also all in the present tense. We’re to keep on asking, keep on seeking, and to keep on knocking. This is the picture of persistent prayer. We keep coming with our mouths, eyes and bodies - hearts, too! We keep asking, trusting that we can be “confident that [our] Father will provide whatever is best for them, according to his sovereign, gracious will.”

Make Every Week Count: Parenting, Grandparenting & Spiritual Mentoring Resources

Something to Read: This was shared last night during the Prayer & Worship Service. Read or listen to “A Liturgy for Election Day.”

Something to Listen to: In preparation for tomorrow… How to Talk to Your Kids About Politics with Mama Bear Apologetics.

Something to Follow: A RightNow Media resource for you… I think this group's content is excellent! Check out Praying the Psalms: A Prayer for Everything.

How Can You Pray? Prayer Requests and Praises from Roots Ministries

PRAY for our teams headed out this week to serve those in need! The Young Adults group departs on Wednesday and the BDM team leaves on Saturday and Sunday.

PRAISE for the start of a new month! An opportunity to restart and refresh!