PFBC: July’s Upcoming Events…

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July is nearly here! Below are the projected schedule of events taking place out here on the prairie…

Wednesday, July 3 = All Church Prayer and Fasting Day & Summer Night of Prayer at 6 PM

Thursday, July 4 = Independence Day!

Saturday, July 6 = Church Work Day from 8 – 10 AM

Sunday, July 7 = Communion, Food Fellowship, and Quarterly Meeting, Starting at 10:15 AM

Monday, July 8 = Women’s Prayer Group from 10 – 11 AM

Tuesday, July 9 = Donuts, Coffee, and Prayer from 6:30 – 7:30 AM

Wednesday, July 10 = Youth Group from 6 – 8 PM

Sunday, July 14 = Missionary Speaker, Louis O’Tool, Preaching at 10:15 AM

Monday, July 15 – Saturday, July 20 = Jr. High Camp at IRBC (Counselors = Pastor Tim and Jess Caster)

Thursday, July 18 = Eastern Iowa Biblical Counselor’s Coalition Meeting at 8:30 AM (Pastor Dave Attending)

Wednesday, July 24 = Youth Group from 6 – 8 PM

Friday, July 26 – Saturday, July 27 = Teen Boys’ Campout (More Details To Come!)

Sunday, July 28 = Leadership Team Meeting at 2 PM

Monday, July 29 – Saturday, August 3 = Sr. High Camp at IRBC (No Counselors Attending)

All Church Prayer and Fasting Day

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We are calling for an All Church Prayer and Fasting Day on Wednesday, July 3. Why? Because we should be practicing these spiritual disciplines, not just listening to preaching on these spiritual disciplines.

Here is the plan…10 days prior to our day of fasting, on Monday, June 24, please prepare yourself by reading “Prayer Changes Things” from Our Daily Bread (copies are located on the foyer table). From this booklet, you’ll read one devotional a day, for ten days, on the power of prayer. Then, from the time you wake up on Wednesday, July 3, until the time we meet that evening at 6 PM for our Summer Night of Prayer, fast and pray. We will break our fast by taking Communion together during our Summer Night of Prayer.

And what should you be praying for during our All Church Prayer and Fasting Day? Well, as hunger pangs erupt throughout your day of fasting, channel those pangs and pray/do the following:

  • Read one of the following Psalms and praise God for the attributes you encounter in the Scriptures (Psalm 3, 33, 63, 93, or 123).
  • Spend some time confessing your sins and shortcomings to God. Claim the promise of 1 John 1:9.
  • Write out every blessing in your life. Try to list 20 or more. Then thank God for those blessings.
  • Pray for your unsaved family members and friends.
  • Think through your family and business needs and pray over them.
  • Pray for our Missionaries. Ex. Joy Akkerman, the Galbraiths, the Kisarets, the Millers…
  • Google the names of our national and community leaders, pray for them by name.
  • Just for fun: pray for three of your closest friends and then text them to tell them you just prayed for them. It’s a blessing to be a blessing!

Won’t you join us for our church’s first All Church Prayer and Fasting Day? We are hoping that this day (and the ten days of preparation beforehand) blesses, encourages, and strengthens your faith. Please join us!

Three Quick, Well-Timed Encouragements For Anyone Who Is Crazy Busy Right Now…

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Busy, busy, busy. I don’t know about you, but life is crazy busy right now. Indeed, that’s kind of the nature of summertime, isn’t it? Things are just so fast paced and crazy busy. From you stay at home mothers out there who are toting kids from day camp to day camp to you farmers out there frantically putting your seeds into the ground, things are just fast paced and far too busy right now. So, here are three quick, well-timed encouragements for you to pocket away as you get ready to scramble out the door towards your next to-do list item:

  1. God loves you. Now, don’t roll your eyes at the simplicity of this statement. This no mere platitude, it’s a Gospel fact. You, no matter what you do or don’t do, are loved by the God who made you and sits enthroned above you. You are loved by a God who is never frantic or haggard because of the enormity of His to-do list. You are loved by a God who knows you by name and knows the very number of hairs on your head. You are loved by a God who never slumbers or sleeps, but always keeps watch over you. Yeah, you might be crazy busy right now, but God is perfectly and totally and calmly in control of everything. Trust Him.
  2. Your family needs you. I just feel led to say this to you tired moms and dads out there. You work so hard. Some of you might be at the point where you think, “What’s the point?” Hear me…discouragement is a very close cousin to depression, and you need to know that your work matters and your family needs you. Your family members, specifically your kids, might be unthankful, but whether they realize it or not (and whether you feel it or not), you are needed by your family. Keep going.
  3. Done is better than perfect. This final point goes out to all my fellow perfectionistic people out there. I feel ya. I really do. We desire for everything to be done just so, accomplished with excellence, and performed to perfection. But when life gets cranking and things become crazy busy, you must develop the mantra, “Done is better than perfect.” Just get it done. Sometimes you have to dot every “i” and cross every “t”, but at other times you just need to get it done. Don’t allow your desire for precision/perfection to prevent you from getting things accomplished. It may not be perfect, but done is better than perfect. Make sense?

Well, there you have it. Three quick, well-timed (I hope) encouragements for your very busy, fast paced life. Just before I end, and you get ready to dash out the door to your next appointment, be sure to do two things (Yes, I’m adding to your already overwhelming to-do list): 1) Thank God you have the ability to do all that you’re doing…some people are flat out on their back right now (literally) and are unable to do anything…your crazy busyness is actually a grace of God. And 2) Remember that this crazy busy season is just that…a season. It won’t last forever. Take some measure of hope in that.

From the Associate Pastor’s Desk: The Need For Unity

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“Can’t we all just get along?” I’m sure you have thought this or heard this at some point. I know my mother had to think it when she struggled with the conflicts between me and my eight siblings. Maybe you’re tempted to think it when you are watching any news network these days…or perhaps in looking at conflicts in our churches, even with calls from God over and over to pursue unity.

I think it’s easy for young people especially to idealize unity in their minds before they start to really experience all the nuances of the conflicts of life. As we age and gain experience, we rightly come to realize that unity is virtually impossible with such a broken species. This can cause those with more experience to grow cynical and to even stop pursuing unity, except maybe with their own small, like-minded tribe.

This should not be so for the Christian, but sadly, even with all the commands and warnings in Scripture against disunity, we are still almost indistinguishable from the world in terms of our unity. Some of the most bitter struggles come between those bearing the name of Christ. We have all seen it. Whether it is Christian children fighting over an inheritance, or a church unable to set aside personal preferences and desires for the sake of our mission.

I am someone who generally tries to stay out of the muck of polarizing Facebook or Twitter discussions. I just do not really see any benefit to the discussions in those formats. I broke my rule a while ago when I saw a post laying out the political divide in our country. This post condemned the conflict and said, “We all need to unify to make the world a better place.” Not many people could argue with that statement, right? Who does not want less conflict and a better world? I still had to ask what seemed like the obvious question, “Unify around what?”

When talking about unity, this always needs to be the question. It is easy to throw out statements calling for peace and unity, but those things require a unifying principle. In this country, in years gone by, we could generally unify around our founding principles: “We find these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” These and other principles were ideas that we could all unify around. This seems like a great center point for a nation, but as a church what is our center of unity and what can we unify around?

Just as our best hope for unity as a country is found in our founding principles, this is even more true in the Church of God. So, what are the essential principles that we must accept in order to have unity? Namely this, our hope. And our hope has a name, and His name is Jesus Christ. It is important though, that we know who the true Jesus is. If we do not, then our unity will be a mirage because the only true hope for finding unity rests in the objective truth claims of Jesus, both in who He says He is and what He has done.

We must not unify for unity’s sake. We must all pick up our cross and follow Him, and when we are truly pursuing Christ, we will find unity with the other believers who have chosen to do the same. Those who have chosen to do as Paul says in Philippians 2, specifically, “Let each of you esteem others as better than self.” The first mark that Jesus said would characterize His disciples would be their love for one another. Is your life characterized by that love? If it’s not, you will never achieve the unity that Christ calls us to have.