Coming up this Sunday 23rd September 2018
This Sunday we continue our series on ‘Romans: The Heart of Truth’, with Jodie speaking on the topic ‘The future of Israel’ from Romans chapter 11 verses 11 to 36.
We’re going to get the special opportunity during our services to meet a member of our church, as we get to know our special community from Oak Flats Anglican.
We will have also our weekly question and answer time during our services, and Jodie will be answering these questions:
- What is “unwanted, same sex attraction”?
- What is “spiritual death”?
- If we say to God, “choose me”, then will that work?
Our youth group, Refuge, meets at 4pm in the Neighbourhood Centre, and then head over to join us for church. Kids’ Club and Andy’s Club meets at our 5pm evening service for their program, followed by a great dinner together for the whole family.
As always, come along and visit us at 10am or 5pm at 35 Fisher Street Oak Flats, or if you can’t make it in person, jump online at www.oakflats.tv to watch a livestream of our services.
See you at 10am or 5pm this Sunday, God willing!
Welcoming without affirming
CREDIT: Photo UNED, via Flickr.
Last weekend Mandy and I attended the ‘Anglican Future Conference’ in Melbourne.
One of the keynote speakers, Wes Hill, encouraged us to think about the challenge of having our churches open to including people who experience unwanted, same-sex attraction.
He encouraged us to be ‘welcoming, not affirming.’
We are to be welcoming to people with all sorts of backgrounds and experiences, but do so in such a way that we do not affirm behaviour that is against God’s will.
As a basis for his encouragement, he led us through a Bible study on Romans 9 to 11, where he outlined the remarkable way in which God’s gospel makes believers go from spiritual death to life.
And when God acts to save his people, his salvation is unifying.
We who were excluded as non-Jews have been included into the nation of Israel, and it had nothing to do with how faithful we were to his law.
In fact, he included us in order that we might be dependent on God’s grace, not on our own merits.
The result is that “we must forsake our looking down on others.”
For this reason, our church welcomes LGBTQI+ people.
God’s saving message of his love and mercy is for everyone: we are all welcomed, but our sin is not affirmed.
For as we read in the Bible:
Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 9b-11)
JODIE McNEILL
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