Views from The Ridge 07.24.2024
Sunset Ridge is a church that desires to follow Jesus, reach people, and radiate God’s love and hope to all.
This Week
Sunday, July 28
9am Worship in the Sanctuary (Riley Stirman preaching: Ephesians 3:14-21)
10:15am Formation time for all ages
Adult class series: Practicing The Way
Teen formation: The Chosen
Children’s formation: Godly Play
11am Worship in the Chapel (Jess Lowry preaching: Mark 5:21-43)
Watch previous sermons here, and listen to this month’s worship inspiration here.
Upcoming
Tuesday, July 30, 9:30am Storytime on the lawn
Wednesday, July 31, 11am Open court
Please note Women’s Wednesday Fellowship will not meet in July.
Around Our Community
This week is Bear Week, a chance for our teens to serve our community and city in a number of ways and grow closer as a group as they work. We are so grateful for their service and the way they are giving back together!
Our friends over at Camelot Elementary are in need of some help as the school year begins. As you know, we partner with Camelot to provide Snack Paks for children who struggle with food insecurity, affordable Christmas gifts for Camelot families, teacher appreciation, and more throughout the school year. Camelot’s Family Specialist Landy has asked for the following help:
“Next year, the community partner that has traditionally provided us with brand-new uniforms will now only be able to supply polos. As a result, we are seeking additional support to meet our needs. The Amazon wish list has only uniforms listed, and the Target wish list has uniforms and school supplies listed. We gratefully welcome and appreciate any contributions, even if they are not listed on the wish lists.
Thank you so much for all your support and everything you do for our school.”
The Nearness of God
Riley Stirman, Preaching Minister, Sunset Ridge Church
"It may not be too much to claim that the future of our world will depend on how we deal with identity and difference. The issue is urgent. The ghettos and battlefields throughout the world - in living rooms, in inner cities, or on the mountain ranges - testify indisputably to its importance." - Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace
Our world is defined by differences. Conservative and Liberal. Christian and Muslim. Wealthy and Poor. Russians and Ukrainians. Israelis and Palestinians. We regularly devolve into conflict with our differences in identity as either the cause or the result. It is, after all, far easier to treat cultural differences with suspicion or hostility than with curiosity or interest.
What is the call to the modern Christian in respect to our world's division? How are we to live in light of the reality of Christ, who has "destroyed the dividing wall of hostility" (Eph. 2:14).
One way I think we could be better imitating Christ is in the simple concept of nearness. When we look to God's example at interacting with people, we see an eternity-long pattern of God choosing to draw near. God is the one who bridges the distance created between us by the Fall. God speaks to Moses from out of a burning bush. God fills his Holy Temple with his presence. And in the person of Jesus Christ, God lowers himself for our benefit so that he could be near to us.
Jesus shows us that the treatment for difference (because what could be more different than God and God's screwed up creation?) comes in the act of intentionally drawing near in a posture of love - what Miroslav Volf refers to as embrace. The call for us who would imitate Christ is to actually seek out those who are different, to be with them, and to love them in whatever ways we can.
If you're like me, this may take some work. We tend to surround ourselves with people who are largely pretty similar to us. But we know where to find those people. You know those people. The people who drive you nuts. The people you may actually sort of despise. The people who you wonder sometimes whether they may even be evil.
Something or someone popped in your head, right? Did you forget? It's an election year!
The point is that God is in the process of drawing all of humanity into himself, into the New Creation. And we can join that work by working to step over the lines we use to divide ourselves. We can make the decision to imitate our Lord and close the distance between us and the "other." We can choose to practice nearness. We can choose to embrace. It's what the world needs.
Praises and Prayers
Meta Mancinelli requests continued prayers for healing.
Ephesians 2:22, 3:14-19
“In him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit…
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith– that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
