The Thursday Update

AUGUST 10, 2023

LAKESHORE FRIENDS—

The Beatles were not all that off when they sang, “All You Need Is Love”.  As you look around it is easy to see how our world has become so unloving and cold.  It’s to the point that LOVE is like a rare gem and is something that people desperately need to experience in their lives. 

As we’ve been learning on Sunday mornings in the Fruit(Full) series, LOVE is the basis for all of the characteristics that make up the Fruit of the Spirit. We have a great opportunity to show our community some LOVE coming up through LOVE WEEK.  From August 19 – 26, we'll be sending more than 225 volunteers to 17 project sites to meet a need in our community, all while showing them the LOVE of Jesus Christ.  Have you signed up for a project yet?  We still need about 70 volunteers to fill the remaining spots.  You can click here to register or stop by the LOVE WEEK table in the Atrium this Sunday to sign up.

I hope you will help us fill up the remaining spots so we can show our community some much needed LOVE.

Make a great day!
Frank D.

AUGUST 3, 2023

GREETINGS LAKESHORE FRIENDS—

"Goodness, the summer is flying." "My goodness, I don’t know where the time has gone." "Goodness gracious, you look like you took a bath in a mud puddle." "I’m indebted to your goodness."

The word goodness gets thrown around a lot these days, and not just in daily conversations.  It is a concept difficult to define and one that gets a huge degree of misuse when talking about God’s goodness.  Many times, people don’t believe that God is good.  They ask, “how could a good God allow all the suffering, abuse, violence, and calamity that we see in our world?”

We can’t answer every question about goodness this Sunday, but we can answer how you can acquire God’s goodness and then extend it to others.  It will be well worth your time.  After all, what family, what person, what work place, what neighborhood, or what town doesn’t need more people expressing God-level goodness?

We'll see you Sunday.

Blessings,
Pastor Brian

JULY 27, 2023

LAKESHORE FRIENDS—

While there are still so many kind people in our world, it sure seems like there are less of them these days.  I was watching the local news recently and five of the first six stories were all involved with some senseless murder, crime, or other act of violence.  It added a whole new meaning to the newsroom saying, “If it bleeds, it leads”.  There are a lot of stories involving a lot of bleeding these days.

But a lack of kindness can take on lots of different forms that don’t involve things that are so dark.  Sometimes, we simply don’t say thanks when it is appropriate, or we miss opportunities to do good when they present themselves. Sometimes we say things about people that are just plain mean.  We can fail to show kindness by commission and omission.

If we want to show people the love of Jesus, we have to stand out from the crowd, and one of the best ways to do so is to show kindness.  Lots of it.  Lavishly and lovingly. That’s something Jesus did for people regularly and it's what His followers do as well.

I need to be more kind sometimes and I want my acts of kindness to be intentional more so than random.  Maybe you do, too.

On Sunday, I want to help us learn how to live out this fifth fruit of Spirit.  I hope you’ll be at Lakeshore as we understand what kindness is and how it works in our everyday lives.

Our world really needs it, and so do we.

Warmly,
Vince