The Thursday Update

OCTOBER 16, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

On Monday, after more than two years of Hamas captivity, the twenty living hostages held under barbaric conditions were welcomed home by Israel. Thanks to the efforts of President Trump and others, they were turned over as part of a potential peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians. When considering the approximately 1,200 people killed by Hamas and the 251 people kidnapped (with many of them being murdered while held hostage), you would think that people everywhere would celebrate this long-awaited victory.

Sadly, you would think wrong.

It is amazing how muted the celebration was around the world. Protestors still protested, “From the river to the sea” which is their expressed desire to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth. Way too many news agencies gave such passing and faint praise for it all as well. Many politicians on the left said very little about how great this day was. The world seemed to accept it with a collective yawn.

What is clear to me in all of this is that there is a lot of hate in our world that comes from more than just those who are terrorists. According to The New York Times polling, shortly after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, 47% of Americans sided with Israel while 20% sided with Hamas. That in and of itself makes no sense to me, but it only gets worse. Today, 34% side with Israel and 35% side with Hamas, with 31% being unsure. Slightly more people in our nation back a group recognized world-wide as a terrorist group that had just killed nearly 1,400 innocent people over a nation that defended itself like America did after 9/11. And the numbers are stronger in support of Hamas among younger Americans thanks to so much cultural indoctrination. This is both sad and baffling.

Why is that the case? I think there are two main reasons.

The first reason is the legacy media has clearly provided slanted coverage in favor of Hamas over Israel. They accepted the narrative and number of casualties that Hamas provided them, despite it being virtually impossible to be as high as they reported per experts in this field. They rarely, if ever, reported that Hamas used civilians as human shields for their terrorism plots. They rarely, if ever, reported how they blocked the aid sent into Gaza by Isarel and other nations, in effect starving their own people. The New York Times even erroneously posted a picture of a child who was barely skin and bones claiming that he was in this condition because of the starvation and food not entering Gaza, when in reality it was a rare medical condition. The lies were so frequent that it’s hard for any reasonably minded person to not think this was intentional and by design due to their biased reporting.

But the second reason is even more significant: The rise of antisemitism. People have an unexplainable hatred for Jews and Israel. It’s prevalent on college campuses, in politics, and around the world. Even though Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, it is the country so many people love to hate. In fact, the Arab and Muslim nations surrounding Israel are 643 times the size of tiny Israel. But just like the little child who only wants to play with the one toy it cannot have, people do not even want Israel to have their present land, the land that was given to them by God in the covenant promised to Abraham (Genesis 12, 15), by military victories through King David, and by the British and post-World War II mandates in May 1948.

Where does antisemitism come from? Ultimately, it comes from the evil one. Satan hates God and hates His covenant people. We have seen this throughout world history, at the birth of Jesus, during World War II, and we see it in Revelation 12 when Satan will take one last stab at wiping Israel off the face of the earth. This is ultimately a spiritual battle above anything else.

I hope you will do what the Bible says to do with respect to Israel in Psalm 122:6-9:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” For my brothers and companions' sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.

And I hope you will be here on Sunday when we kick off a new series called, “Heaven, Hell, And Everything In Between” and look at how the “Invisible Battle” that we all face works.

Vince
Senior Pastor

OCTOBER 9, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

The Bible is often quoted and used as an expression by people in our culture. Many times they have no idea that it comes from the Bible, but use it anyways. One of them is this one: “The truth will set you free.”

This phrase came from Jesus in John 8:32. The words Jesus spoke right before this statement are super important to understand its full meaning in context. In John 8:31-32, Jesus said: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

So before the truth sets us free, we have to know the truth. And it’s only when we hold to Jesus’s teaching that we can know the truth. Then, after knowing the truth and holding on to it as we live our daily lives, we can then be set free…. truly free!

So many people in our world know so little truth because they know so little about the Bible. That is frightening, but it’s no big surprise that our world is in such a moral mess. Isaiah the prophet’s words are being fulfilled right before our eyes: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.” (Isaiah 5:20-21, NIV). Since I believe we’re living in the last days, this is what we should expect because the world is on a steep decline in the ability to discern truth from error.

What concerns me more deeply is that people who profess to be Christians know so little truth because they know so little about the Bible. It’s no wonder that they are struggling so much and not living the “set free” life.

If you doubt that, consider these two statistics:

1. 51% of church attenders do not believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven (despite what Jesus claimed in John 14:6).

2. 65% of church attenders believe that Satan is not a literal person (and that’s just how he prefers it, 2 Corinthians 11:14).

Wow!!!

Lakeshore exists to help people know God’s truth, hold on to it, and then be set free by it. Set free from all kinds of bondage, all kinds of addictions, all kinds of depression, all kinds of discouragement, all kinds of unforgiveness, all kinds of meaninglessness, all kinds of lies, and all kinds sin. But to be set free by the truth, we have to know the truth.

Midweek Bible Study is for anyone who wants to know the truth and better understand it in the Bible, God’s only objective source of truth. It kicks off today, October 9, with a series called, What They Really Believe: Understanding Cults And World Religions. We’ll study what these groups believe and then see what God’s truth in the Bible says about them. In the process, we’ll all go deeper in our theology and grow deeper in our faith and then know the truth that sets us free.

Regardless, I hope that you will be someone who studies the Bible to learn God’s truth, and not just someone who reads it. As always, we’re here to help you do it better.

Vince
Senior Pastor

OCTOBER 2, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

Since Lakeshore reopened on July 12, 2020 (after the 17 week shutdown from the COVID crisis) we’ve been growing. At first, it took time for people to come back but it was to be expected that we would keep growing at least until we returned to our previous attendance level before the shutdown. But over the past year, we have reached Sunday attendance levels that have exceeded what we have ever seen in our history.

People leaving Rochester? It doesn’t matter as far as our attendance. People dropping off from regularly attending? Still hasn’t mattered. Culture turning against Christians like we’ve never seen before in our nation? We still keep growing. We’re reaching people who have indeed given up on church, but not on God. We’ll be baptizing people for consecutive Sundays later this month as a result.

As I shared at Vision Night a couple of weeks ago, we are now in the top 4% of churches in America in terms of our size. And if we keep growing, in time we will need to think about adding a third service.

We’re sending out a direct mail piece to about 54,000 homes next week to promote our next series, “Heaven, Hell, And Everything In Between”. We’re trusting God to use it to reach more people.

I want to thank those of you who invite people to church. I keep hearing stories of guests who tell me that a friend invited them to check our church out. I also want to thank all of you who pray for Lakeshore to reach people, especially the regulars at Saturday Synergy Prayer times. But more than anyone, I thank God that He is answering our prayers. After all, growth is impossible without Him as 1 Corinthians 3:6-9 reminds us:

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Thank you, Lord, for helping Lakeshore grow. And thank you to all of you for inviting and being a part of the “planting and watering” process of church growth.

God will reward us according to our labor and efforts to invite people.

Warmly,

Vince
Senior Pastor