Views from The Ridge 09.11.2024
Sunset Ridge is a church that desires to follow Jesus, reach people, and radiate God’s love and hope to all.
This Week
Saturday, September 14 Second Saturday
9am Yoga
10:15am Storytime with Miss Anastasia
Sunday, September 15
9am Worship in the Sanctuary (Scott Heare preaching: Mark 8:27-38)
10:15am Classes for all ages
Adult classes in the Fellowship Hall: Bible Class; BEMA podcast discussion
Moms’ Group: Chapel Classroom
Youth Group
Roots & Roots 456 (PreK-3rd grade in Roots Room; Grades 4-6 in Rm 104)
11am Worship in the Chapel (Scott Heare preaching: Mark 8:27-38)
12:30pm Parent Group
Upcoming
Wednesday, September 18th 6pm Adams’ Baby Shower (meal train and registry)
Thursday, September 26 De Colores Opening Reception
Around the Community
If you are a Goodness Weekly subscriber, you got to read all about Sunset Ridge Collective’s upcoming photography exhibit, De Colores. We would love if you planned to be there to meet some incredibly talented members of our community.
Specific Speech
Mae Czarnecki, Communications Coordinator, Sunset Ridge Collective
Today is September 11th. Most of our collective memory associates today with New York City and the Pentagon, and the unifying shock, grief, and anger that washed over an entire nation. And it is on this day of remembrance years later that I’m going to try and carefully drop you into the setting of one of the first times I heard God’s voice.
This past Sunday, Pastor Scott walked us through the ways that Jesus uses simple and incredibly specific language when communicating with God’s people. I have seen this to be true repeatedly, both for myself and those I love. See, when I came to know God, I was addicted to habits that no one understood. I was broken and in desperate need of Christ’s love and was happy to receive it. I thought I would never struggle with my bad habits again, being a freshly dunked baby Christian, but eventually life and its ugliness required me to test my coping skills and I reverted.
On September 11, 2007, in the girls’ upstairs restroom, during a campus-wide moment of silence that was held in the quad at my university, I hid and cried in shame. I told myself I wasn’t a good Christian, that I hadn’t really changed at all, and that I was a fake. I heard the campus bells echoing throughout the buildings mixed with my sniffles. And in the tenderest thought that I felt through my entire body, the Lord said, “I still love you.”
I have seen God in the trees, felt God through my daughters' belly laughs, breathed God in through sunsets that required me to pull my car over and just sit on the hood for a minute. Relatable signs from our tender creator that many of us have experienced. When Scott talked about God specifically reaching out to him in words that were not his own, I thought of this moment. My thoughts were nothing that pointed to the fact that God loved me, loves me, and will continue to do so. These were the specific words that pulled Mae up off the floor and washed away her tears:
“I still love you.”
I invite you to remember today.
Remember that you are here, that you are loved, and that you are not alone.
