It’s time to register for Vacation Bible School! It will be held July 12 - 16 in conjunction with Harrisburg United Methodist and Shalom Lutheran churches. We hope your kids can join us! For more information and a registration form, click here!
June 11 2009 | News | No Comments »
It’s shaping up to be a busy summer!
Harrisburg Days events:
Wednesday, June 17, Join The Connection at Thunder Road! – We will be gathering at Thunder Road Family Fun Park in Sioux Falls on Wednesday, June 17. At 6:30pm we will be serving a meal of BBQs and chips in the shelter at Thunder Road. If you are able, each family is asked to bring a salad or dessert. Come on out, invite a friend, neighbor, co-worker or take your whole Life Group and enjoy a night of go-carts, mini-golf and more! Hope to see you there!
Connection Camp-out weekend:
May 29 2009 | News | No Comments »
Everyone is invited to camp on June 26-28 at Newton Hills State Park. Ten spots have been reserved, and ten campers have signed up, but all sites can be doubled up, so we still have room for many! If you have questions, talk to Glenda Wilts or Sharon Smeenk.
May 25 2009 | News | No Comments »
I talked with Paul Logan (Arise! Ukraine Ministries) and he informed me that The Connection blessed the poorest of the poor in Ukraine with nearly $1,000 worth of wheelchair sponsorships. Praise God! Arise! Ukraine has partnered with Hope Haven International Ministries and God’s Hidden Treasures to provide 200 wheelchairs for the disabled in Ukraine by Summer 2009. This is a $25,000 goal, and The Connection made a huge impact in reaching this goal. Thank you for your generosity, people of God! You are blessing people in many ways locally and around the world!
For more information on blessing others with the gift of a wheelchair, go to www.hopehaven.org.
March 05 2009 | News | No Comments »
Thanks to everyone who participated in CIA Wednesday, March 4! We had a great time at Volunteers of America–playing volleyball (Travis P & Monica get the awards for “Most Promising Newcomers”), basketball (Bill R dominated in the paint and CP was devasting with his crossover), UNO (I couldn’t tell, but it looked like Glenda W was cleaning house). Special thanks to Carrie (who set it up) and our gracious hosts at VOA. One of the kids said to Bill R as we left, “Can you guys come back tomorrow night?” Praise God from whom all blessings flow–particularly that blessing of being a blessing to others!
Sorry no pics this time ’round. Be sure to check out http://www.voa-dakotas.org/ for more info on Volunteers of America. Stay tuned for info regarding April CIA. Wynia LifeGroup is on point.
March 05 2009 | News | No Comments »
The Connection is a place of worship and prayer.
The Connection meets in the local public high school (they’ve been wonderful to work with and completely gracious).
What are we to make of a provision in the new economic stimulus package working its way through the Senate?
Check out this story and comment–THIS AFFECTS US!!!
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=409082
February 13 2009 | News | No Comments »
Thanks to everyone who participated in Christ in Action on Saturday, February 7! We spent the morning delivering furniture with the Sioux Falls Furniture Mission. This was a great opportunity to be a blessing to families in Sioux Falls by providing the most basic furniture (beds, couches, tables & chairs). Each family also received a Bible. We also spent time sorting beds at their warehouse and home base on Nesmith Road. A special thanks to the Pederson/Bonnema LifeGroup for putting this together!
February 13 2009 | News | No Comments »
Thanks to everyone who participated last night at C.I.A. We cleaned like crazy, sorted and hung winter clothes, and prepared “baby baskets” at Center of Hope in Sioux Falls.
For more info on Center of Hope, check out www.centerofhopesf.org.
Mark your calendars for our next C.I.A. on Wednesday, February 4. Details forthcoming!
Pictures (from left to right): Joel, Kathy, Ashley, Isaac, and Amanda getting coats ready; Tim and Trav getting down and dirty; Kelly, Angie, Brenda, Kori, Kayla, and Ian prepping “baby baskets”; Devin, Skylar, and Carol getting the kitchen in order; Julie, Martha, and Krystal cleaning toys; Steve displaying the goods.
January 08 2009 | News | No Comments »
Alright Connection, here we go.
In January, we are starting a LifeGroup push. It is our hope that everyone who calls The Connection home would make the bold, risky (I’m being serious here) move of connecting with a LifeGroup. Jon DeGroot, our worship pastor, wrote this piece that, I think, is very helpful in explaining LifeGroups here at The Connection and our sister church, The Crossing.
“What LifeGroup is Not…”
By Jon DeGroot
Maybe you’ve been there. It’s been a hectic day; you got home late from work, scarfed some food, dropped the kiddo (who you haven’t seen all day) off at childcare and arrived 10 minutes late to LifeGroup. It doesn’t matter though because LifeGroup doesn’t “start” for another 10 minutes anyway! Mildly frustrated your turn comes to answer a seemingly ridiculous question regarding something from your childhood memory that the person who went before you took 10 minutes to answer. When everyone who already knows each other has said their name and taken their turn, someone leads a passionless prayer and it’s called “worship”. The next hour is spent mostly in awkward silence after each question is meticulously asked until one of two people who actually talk, give the answer, which is usually “Jesus.” After this, you either break up into twos to pray about the same problem that your prayer partner has had for the past 12 years, or you pray for someone’s grandma and a guy who you don’t know with cancer from someone’s hometown. You eat a brownie, pick up your over-tired child, and go home.
I hope that most of you cannot identify with this paragraph. I have a hunch however that if you’ve been in a group for more than 6 months, you resonate with at least a part of it. Placed next to a Sunday worship gathering, LifeGroups are set up to fail. Here’s why. Our worship services are prepared in such a way that we touch people on both an emotional level and an intellectual level. We hear songs and prayers that stir our emotions, then we listen to a message that challenges our thinking and causes us to contemplate life and faith. It is a deeply individualistic experience. Comments like “I get fed” or “I get moved” are often associated with worship gatherings. Don’t feel guilty about this…there is a place for all of it! We need to be fed and we need to be moved! The problem comes when we lay our Sunday gathering experience on top of our LifeGroup experience. It is something all together different.
While Worship services are designed to touch us on an intellectual and emotional level, LifeGroups are not! If we expect a beginner on the guitar to move us in song the way our experienced worship leaders do, or for our “leaders” in LifeGroup to speak eloquently and “challenge us” the way our pastor does, we’re placing unfair expectations on them! It’s tempting as a follower of Jesus to chase after “super Christians” who we want to be like and like to be around. It’s a lot harder to give your time, your energy, and yourself up to people who you 1. Don’t know 2. Don’t trust 3. Don’t like 4. Don’t respect 5. Don’t think have anything to offer you 6. Don’t commit 7. Don’t open up. 8. Don’t try.
LifeGroup isn’t designed to touch you at an emotional level – go see a movie. It isn’t designed to touch you at an intellectual level – go do Bible Study Fellowship. It is designed to touch you on an intimate level, and most of us are not good at this! We are very careful and guarded, and we protect ourselves with walls of every kind. We like the control and freedom to choose who we spend our time with and who we love. LifeGroup is about learning how to live in love with everyone. If you want to experience Christ’s church the way it was designed to be, open yourself up to your group. Take down your walls of fear and control. Release your annoyances, judgments and your stereotypes to God, and learn how to love His people, His church, the way He does.
December 11 2008 | Pastor Travis | No Comments »
“It is the dogma* that is the drama–not beautiful phrases, not comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to loving-kindness and moral uplift, nor the promise of something nice after death–but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the heathen, and they may not believe it; but at least they may realize that here is something that one might be glad to believe.” (Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? [New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949], 25.)
We’ve talked before at The Connection about the importance of words. How God spoke (”Let there be light…”) and by the power of His words, the heavens and earth were created. How the people of Israel were made God’s people by the word spoken from the Lord on Mt. Sinai. How God, through His prophets, was constantly speaking words to His people that they would turn from the wickedness and follow Him.
How God’s word became flesh for us in Jesus Christ. By this word-made-flesh we have been reconciled to God, no longer under condemnation but co-heirs with Christ of God’s eternal kingdom that has no end!
This word is always dramatic, as it is spoken and we are enfolded into the drama. This word has always been and always will be Jesus Christ. The Word.
John writes in his gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). He tells the story later in his gospel of Jesus, after having fed the crowds miraculously with bread, informs them that it is he whom they must eat: “I am the bread of life…I tell you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (6:35a,53). At this comment, the people leave. They want miracles and earthly bread. It is Peter, emboldened by the Holy Spirit, who cries out, “Lord, to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (6:68-69).
Jesus is the word. And we must receive this word. The word for us is Jesus Christ. The word we speak is Jesus Christ–his life, death, and resurrection. We are recipients and witnesses of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, enfolded into God’s drama by God’s word spoken and enfleshed, and are now called to proclaim this word!
We must hear it, remember it, know it, and speak it. That is what we are called to do. The only thing we have to offer the world is this word–spoken and lived out wherever God leads us (the office, classroom, home, behind the wheel of a truck, etc.). And only in hearing and knowing this word (the Gospel!!!) can we go out and love the world as God intends.
*Dogma–teachings & doctrine; beliefs we profess as God’s gathered people.
December 11 2008 | Pastor Travis | No Comments »
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