Meditation

Meditation is nothing fancy or complicated.  Webster’s defines meditation as ‘to ponder or reflect on; to muse over’.  It really is pretty straight forward and you already probably meditate more than you think.  It is simply filling your mind with a subject and thinking about it.  Every time you stop and think about a problem that you need to solve, you are meditating by filling your mind with the problem and thinking about what it will take to solve it.  Every time you worry, you meditate by filling your mind with some kind of fear and working out the negative consequences of that fear.  If you study for a test, you are meditating on the subject and thinking about it.  The question is not whether we meditate but what do we meditate upon, what is it that we are filling our mind with?

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Bible Reading
2Timothy 3:16-17

Our life and our culture surrounds us, inundates us, flooding us with voices demanding to be heard, to be listened to.  We have spouses and children to whom we need to listen, we have bosses and jobs who demand our attention and time, the media screams at us that must listen, the Internet is jammed with voices telling us what they think about just about everything under the sun and you have this e-mail popping up in your in-box every week.  All are making demands on our time, our thoughts and our energy and emotions.  How easy is it for the Bible to become just another voice in the crowd, another item on our to-do list that may or may not get done.  After all, does it really make a difference whether or not I read the Bible?  Is reading the Bible important enough to clear dedicated time in my already crowded schedule to do it?

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Serve the Church
John 13:1-17

Jesus and His disciples have gathered for the Passover.  Jesus, knowing full well who He was and what was in store for Him, demonstrates the full extent of His love (13:1) and strips to His underwear, wraps a towel around His waist and begins to wash His disciples feet.

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Core Classes
Hosea 4:1-16

Hosea was a prophet who was active, primarily in the northern kingdom of Israel in the second half of the eighth century B.C. (c.755-715).  The Lord has commanded Hosea to marry an ‘adulterous’ wife (Hosea 1:2).  When Gomer, the wife that Hosea marries, continues in her adulterous ways, Hosea divorces her (Hosea 2:2) and then buys her back out of slavery (Hosea 3:1-3), all of which the Lord uses to make a point about Israel’s behavior in regards to Him and His love for His people.  As we pick up our story in chapter four, the Lord is specifying His charge against Israel; ‘There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.  There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.’

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Life Groups

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.  If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!”

Life Groups are a vital part of the Body of Christ known as Flatland Church.  They provide additional times when we can serve one another and grow in the Lord.  They are a continuation of the Sunday morning service and its purposes.

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Weekend Services

Hebrews 10:24-25 “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” (NLT)

Many question the value of the traditional Sunday morning church service.  It is often called an old boring ritual that has long out lived its purpose.  There is some truth to that statement.  Many Sunday morning services are just that, a ritual that has no purpose or meaning.  One attends because one “is suppose to” and nothing more, it is a religious duty to perform.  It turns the Sunday service into an empty, meaningless act.

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