I am excited to tell you that we are experimenting with churchtrac.com, a church management software platform. It enables us to have an online church directory, webpage (https://fbcmtgilead.churchtrac.com/), and accept bank transfer, debit card, and credit card donations. It gives us contact information and church records in a central location.
If you want to move to online giving, you can use the same link as above (https://fbcmtgilead.churchtrac.com). This is also available at our church website (fbcmg.org, button in the upper right hand corner) and on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/fbcmg). Note that there are credit card fees involved, and it will ask if you would like to cover those fees as part of your donation. You can elect to give once or as a regular donation (weekly or monthly).
If you would like to access the online church directory, you will need to create an account at https://fbcmtgilead.churchtrac.com.
My hope is that this platform will give us a central location for church membership information, an online church directory for church members, and a place for people to give online and with debit cards/credit cards. Our society has shifted away from cash and checks, and churches will need to make that shift as well.
We are excited to welcome Michelle Perry Austin to give her testimony this Sunday. Ruby Parnell heard Michelle speak at Bethany United Methodist Church in Albemarle a few months ago, and it was her idea to invite her to speak at our church (so thanks, Ruby!). We are grateful that Michelle can be with us to tell us about her experience of God’s loving presence in the midst of a terrible accident.
John 14:18-27. [Jesus said to his disciples,] “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me. “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
The gospel of John is thought to be one of the later books of the New Testament and the last of the gospels. It presents a different perspective of Jesus than the other gospels: Jesus has long speeches of instruction, the cleansing of the temple is in a different place in Jesus’ ministry, the Last Supper is omitted, and Jesus’ suffering (especially in Gethsemane) is also omitted. In this passage we have a unique teaching about the Holy Spirit as the Advocate.