Dear Friends and Members of Shepherd of the Hills,

If I were to ask you to make a list of all the people in your life that you wanted to see come to believe in Jesus or grow in their faith, who would you put on that list?  This is what we did to start our Bible Study time this week.  We are learning how we are loved by God and sent with that love into the world.  Using a book called Loved & Sent by Pastor Jeff Cloeter we will work our way toward being able to share our faith in a concise, compelling, clear and consistent way with the people that matter to us most.  

From the back cover:

So many people are starving for identity and meaning today.  Loved and Sent describes how God took extraordinary action to address those two fundamental human needs.  Pastor Cloeter walks through his own quest for identity and meaning, revisiting core Christian convictions in a narrative style and making sense of why they matter today.  As christians, we often stutter when someone asks, “Who are you? What do you believe? Why does it matter to you?”  We get a unique chance to share our heart, and we say to much—or nothing at all.  Discover in this thought-provoking book who you are and why you matter, and then you’ll have something of greater value to share with someone else.

People want to know who they are and why they matter.  The compelling narrative of an almighty God who sends his Son into the world to live a perfect life, die and innocent death and rise victorious over sin, death and the devil is what people in our world long to be part of…even if they don’t know it.  We who are baptized into this narrative have what the world needs.  We can genuinely share that “you are loved more than you can imagine and sent with more purpose than you thought.”  

We start by understanding and believing this for ourselves.  See you this next Sunday at 9AM as we learn these truths together.

In His Love and Service,

Pastor Rust