Heart Lutheran Church – Temecula/Sun City, CA

Important Announcement: No Saturday worship service Saturday August 28. Sterling will be holding their annual luau and parking and room space make it impossible for us to hold services.

Our theme this week was the Narrow Door from the Gospel of Luke chapter 13. The message from the gospel is posted on our video page and can be viewed any time.
This week we will look at the second of 10 principle ideas needed to grow our church. This week’s topic: Grow Yourself. If we desire to be the church to lead newly churched people on their spiritual we need to be growing both personally and corporately. The 2 necessary actions in growth is attracting visitors (more on that later) and assimilating the visitor. A lot of emphasis in the past in assimilation was placed on programs but research tells us that if people feel that a congregation is growing spiritually they are often times willing to help build the programs necessary to minister to them. No matter how many programs a church has if the visitor feels that they need more spiritual growth than the members they are meeting they are less likely to become attendees. Simply said we all need to be going down the same road.

We had a meeting Saturday and discussed some ideas to put Heart back on the path of growth. Making more and better use of technology was suggested. Suggestions included interactive blogs and podcasts. We will look into how we can use these and other high tech ideas in growing our ministries. I am also working on a suggestion list of how each family can take charge of ministries that will serve to put our footprint on the communities that we serve.

Have a great week Loving and Serving the Lord with all your Heart.
Pastor Jerry

This passage of proper lifestyle behaviors can be summarized by simply remembering to respect and love your fellow man and keep your life focused on Christ. When we achieve these things life becomes better for us and everyone who comes into our lives.
(Hebrews 13:1-13 NIV) Keep on loving each other as brothers. {2} Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. {3} Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. {4} Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. {5} Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” {6} So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” {7} Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. {8} Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. {9} Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. {10} We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. {11} The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. {12} And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. {13} Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.