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A Note From Dan

This past week we welcomed Scooter Kellum as our Interim Youth Minister.  Scooter is a State Missionary for the Alabama State Board of Missions and serves as the youth ministry strategist. Scooter and his wife, Chelsea, have three children; Trip, Will and Abby. They are members of Taylor Road Baptist Church. We are excited that they are with us and as you saw this past Sunday in our worship service, there is excitement in our youth ministry about his coming. Join me in welcoming Scooter and his family to Eastern Hills.

Scooter Kellum will bring our devotion this Sunday, November 19, as we meet for Eastern Hills Family Fellowship at Sweet Creek. Join us at Sweet Creek Farm Market for a time of fellowship and fun. The café will be open for those who wish to purchase food or their famous ice cream. We will be at Sweet Creek Sunday from 4-6:00 pm. Don’t miss the fun!

Tuesday night before Thanksgiving is a special time at Eastern Hills. It is our Annual Harvest Banquet and Praise Service. Families are encouraged to join us for a meal in the gym at 5:00 pm. Be sure your dinner reservation has been made. Our service will begin at 6:15 pm in the Sanctuary with Dr. Dale Huff bringing the message.

Thank you for your vote and your support as we adopted our 2018 church budget. Our Stewardship Committee has worked very hard to present a budget that will be challenging yet realistic. Let me remind you that this budget represents the funds that will support all of our facilities, our staff, and the ministries of our church.  As we voted to adopt this budget it is now time to make a commitment to support it with your tithes and offerings. During this interim time, it is important that we are faithful to what God has called us to do as we reach out to this community.

I invite you to visit the Nativity Village in our vestibule. Greg Gosselin, and a host of others have worked hard to make this a presentation that will remind us that the Birth of Christ is central in the Christmas season.

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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