Views from The Ridge 03.20.2024
Sunset Ridge is a church that desires to follow Jesus, reach people, and radiate God’s love and hope to all.
This Week
Sunday, March 24
9:15am Life Groups, children’s Roots gathering, teen gathering (see website for more info)
10:30am Worship in the Sanctuary (What He Said! - Matthew 7.13-23)
4:30pm Chapel worship
6-7pm Parent Group: Every Season Sacred
6-7pm Youth group gathering
Upcoming…
Sunday, March 31
10am Easter Sunday Potluck Brunch - Each family is asked to bring a breakfast casserole, bread/pastries, or fruit. Click here to sign up to bring something!
11am Combined Worship in the sanctuary
12pm Easter Egg Hunt - please bring filled Easter eggs to the fellowship hall next Sunday (no chocolate, gum, nuts, or coins, please!)
Friday, April 5 Kids’ Night Out: A free night of fun for children 6 weeks through 5th grade! Sign up here.
Interested in what’s scheduled for our campus at large? Please consider subscribing to Goodness Weekly.
The Image Of God
-Riley Stirman, Preaching Minister of Sunset Ridge Church
I grew up going to church. Just about every Sunday of my life, I was in a church somewhere. Despite my glowing attendance record, there's only a handful of Bible class lessons that I really remember well.
One such lesson came when I was a junior in high school. There was a youth group parent teaching a series of classes - he had two daughters and the oldest was in my grade. He taught that day on what it meant to love each other when we have become convinced that all people bear the image of God. And like every good youth group teacher, he came prepared with some examples.
"Now I'm a father," he said. "And here's what you need to know about being a father. These girls are my world. And if you aren't okay with them, you're not okay with me. If you have something against them, you have something against me. If you're fighting with them, you're fighting with me."
Now admittedly, I probably only remember this because it seemed like he was teaching directly at me. His daughter and I were always fighting, we drove each other crazy. So maybe this was his weird dad way of making sure I knew what I was up against. I definitely remember feeling about two inches tall sitting in my chair.
But I've also seen the truth in this lesson played out in real life. I don't have children, but any time I've talked to my parents about people who have hurt me or have made me angry, I have to talk my mom down from going to war on my behalf. She doesn't like it when people mess with her babies - even when her babies are out of the house and have their own insurance plans. There's a reason we use the phrase "Mama Bear" to refer to someone ferociously protecting the people they love.
I worry that I often don't take this as seriously as I should when it comes to being a disciple of Jesus. I act as if my worship to God exists in a vacuum, is just a private affair between God and me. And the way I interact with others has nothing to do with my worship, right? Well, I'm not sure it's that simple.
I think, as we discussed on Sunday, God wants us to be a people who recognizes that our treatment of others is an act of worship. I think he wants us to see that if we aren't loving his children well, it's very difficult to love him well. We have to be convinced that we are all, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., "caught in an inescapable network of mutuality." We should become the kind of people who can honestly pray, "God please be as gentle and merciful to me as I am towards your children." Because how we treat others affects our worship. And how we worship should affect how we treat others.
Jesus was deadly serious when he warned us that whatever we did for the least of these in our society, we did for him. I hope that in our worship we can begin developing the habit of treating every human interaction as a place where we come face-to-face with the image of God. If we can train our hearts and our minds to see that God is at work in every place humanity is brought together, we will have no choice but to become kinder, gentler, more generous to people than we ever thought possible.
Otherwise . . . we'll have their father to answer to.
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Praises & Prayers
From Kathy George: Dear Church family, thank you so much for all the prayers and cards during my recent hip replacement surgery. I am truly blessed to be a part of such a loving and caring community.
A Prayer For Curiosity
By Chelsea Stirman
God of wonder and mystery,
Grant me a small measure of your Spirit today.
In a world of suspicion, guardedness, and fear,
Grant me a scoop of wonder.
Fill my heart with openness
My mind with curiosity
Toward those I encounter today.
I do not know what they face.
I do not know who has wronged them.
I do not know where they have walked.
What I do know is this:
All that has breath and life belongs to you.
Each person is your delight.
Teach me, O Lord,
To delight with you.
Form my curiosity into wonder and my wonder into joy–
The joy of knowing and being known in this fragile world.
Amen.
