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Upper Room Daily Devotional

A Note from Pastor Bill

Dear family in faith,

The Holy Spirit must have been moving among us in a remarkable way last Sunday. Apparently both Pastor Jenn and I were deeply moved and inspired by the story of Peter and the Roman Centurion Cornelius in Acts 10 and our passionate preaching reflected it. We know that there are a few of you who attend two worship services on Sunday, traditional and contemporary to hear how each of us will deal with the same text.

As preachers, we study the same scripture each week, share ideas and resources, but the direction the Spirit takes us by the time Sunday rolls around is unique for each of us. I love the fact that our age, gender and life experience differences shape our messages and give our church family two perspectives on God’s Word. (This is definitely part of our spiritual heritage: the two creation stories in Genesis, the two versions of the same history of the Jewish monarchy in Kings and Chronicles, and the four (not one!) Gospels of the life of Jesus attest to the ways in which the one God does not limit inspiration and witness to just one voice.)

Because many have said, "I wish you could have heard Jenn last Sunday," and others have said, "I wish you could have heard Bill," we have decided to each preach the same sermon we did last Sunday in each other’s regular venues. That means Jenn will preach on Acts 10 in the traditional services and I will preach in the contemporary services and at HopeSpring. And if you are one of the "sermonophiles" who heard both sermons last week, try writing your own sermon and share it with your small group or Sunday School class!

With social networking having become such an important aspect of connection for many, I have joined Twitter, and you can follow my tweets at wmsbarnes. (If you are trying to figure what that name means, it is "wm" for William, "s" for my middle name, and obviously "barnes." There were already many Twitter iterations of "Bill Barnes." Go figure. And I thought I had a unique name... not!

At any rate, I hope this will give you Twitterers a quick and easy way to respond to sermons, emails and eupdates without having to go through my church email address, which by the way is bbarnes@st.lukes.org. As for Facebook, I do not have an account, but we are exploring some possibilities for the church itself.

See you Sunday, with hopes that you will be blessed by a summer re-run from both Jenn and me.

Bill