We got back on Saturday from a week on the Warm Spring Reservation. The team was able to share about their trip last Sunday. We also showed a video that the Sacred Road team put together of the week. Here it is for those who missed it (or just want to see it again).
Increasingly today, it seems like people struggle to find meaning. It is something we all long for, but few find. We live in a time of unprecedented peace, economic prosperity, technological advancement, and global connectedness. Yet we feel turmoil. We feel poor and alone.
Perhaps this is because we look for meaning in the wrong places… and this is not new. The quest for meaning has always been a part of what it means to be human. So too is the tendency to look for it in the wrong place. More and more we fill our lives with distractions, afraid to face life's biggest and hardest questions.
On January 13th, we will be starting a new sermon series on the book of Ecclesiastes, which is a breath of fresh air with its honest questions and sober answers. It is not afraid to ask the big questions… confess the big failures… and announce the way of meaning, peace, and hope.
I look forward to working through this book with you.
This Spring we are doing a short six-part Sunday School series on Discipleship. Discipleship is one of those subjects that the church often talks about, but seldom defines. We began last week as defining discipleship as the restoration and perfection of the image of God in us. Or to put it even more simply—discipleship is about becoming more like Jesus (Luke 6:40).
This is what the church is called to do—make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). But what that looks like and how it is done is not always easy to answer. That is what we will be talking about for the next five weeks before our Summer break.
This Sunday we will look at who is responsible for discipleship (whose job is it?). After that, we will spend on three weeks on the major focuses of discipleship—your mind, your heart, and your life. Then we will conclude the series with a look to your calling and responsibility toward helping others grow in their faith.
I encourage you to come and be a part of the study. See you Sunday at 10am!
This is the third of three posts responding to a request made at the Annual Congregational meeting for a tutorial in subscribing to the church blog and podcasts. In the first post, we discussed the church blog. In the second post we looked at how to subscribe to the sermons podcast. This last post will cover much of the same ground as the second, but specifically look at how to subscribe to the Sunday School podcast.
As mention in the second post, a podcast is used to distribute digital content—such as audio or videos. While we have no video content, we do make audio recordings of sermons and Sunday School classes available. These can be accessed directly from the website on the Sermons page and the Sunday School page. However, a more helpful way to access these on a regular basis is to use a podcast application (app) on your smart phone or tablet.
There are several apps available on Android phones and tablets such as PocketCasts, DoggCatcher, and Stitcher. iPhone has it's own built in app simply called Podcasts. Two others apps that are very good are Overcast and iCatcher. If you have not already done so, you will want to find the app already installed on your phone or install one of these.
Once you have the app installed, you can subscribe to the Sunday School podcast either by searching for Reformation Presbyterian Olympia or by entering the the address of the podcast (http://www.ropcolympia.org/sunday-school/?format=rss) directly. Once you have done this it will check for updates regularly and let you know when a new sermon has been uploaded. You can listen to it right in the app.
It is also possible to subscribe to a particular Sunday School series. On the Sunday School page, you will notice a bar on the far right (or the very bottom if you are on your phone or tablet). This has a list of sermon series at the top and Sunday School series below that. To the right of each one, you will find RSS. Typically on a phone or tablet you want to press and hold on RSS and you will get the option to copy the link or link address. Press copy and then paste it in your podcast app under subscribe by URL. On a desktop computer simply right click on it and select "Copy Link Address."
If the app says that the link is invalid, try resubmitting it. Sometimes it takes a few times to work. We have covered many things in Sunday School and this is a great way to visit (or revisit) a book or topic. You will find classes on Esther, Job, Daniel, Jonah, 1 Peter and the Beatitudes. You will also find topical studies on the Five Solas of the Reformation as well as parenting, marriage, evangelism, the church, and a few other topics. We also have had classes going through the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Shorter Catechism and we are currently studying the Heidelberg Catechism.
We hope that the Sunday School recordings will be helpful to you and that, by making them available as podcasts, they will be more readily accessible.
At the Annual Congregational Meeting this year, the request was made that we put up a tutorial on how to subscribe to the church blog and sermon and Sunday School podcasts. To that end, this will be the second of three posts giving a brief "how-to guide" to subscribing to these on your phone or tablet. In the first post, we discussed the church blog. Now we will look at the sermons podcast.
A podcast is much like a blog, except that it is used to distribute digital content—such as audio or videos. We have two main groups of audio files—one for the sermons preached at Reformation and one for the Sunday School lessons taught. These can be accessed directly from the website on the Sermons page and the Sunday School page, or you can use an application on your smart phone or tablet to access them when they become available.
Android may come with a built in podcast app, but, if not, there are several available such as PocketCasts, DoggCatcher, and Stitcher. iPhone has it's own built in app simply called Podcasts. Two others apps that are very good are Overcast and iCatcher. The first thing you will want to do is find the app already installed on your phone or install one of these.
Once you have the app installed, you can subscribe to the Sermons podcast either by searching for Reformation Presbyterian Olympia or by entering the the address of the podcast (http://www.ropcolympia.org/sermons/?format=rss) directly. Once you have done this it will check for updates regularly and let you know when a new sermon has been uploaded. You can listen to it right in the app.
It is also possible to subscribe to a particular sermon series. On the Sermons page, you will notice a bar on the far right (or the very bottom if you are on your phone or tablet). This has a list of sermon series. To the right of each one, you will find RSS. Typically on a phone or tablet you want to press and hold on RSS and you will get the option to copy the link or link address. Press copy and then paste it in your podcast app under subscribe by URL. On a desktop computer simply right click on it and select "Copy Link Address."
If the app says that the link is invalid, try resubmitting it. Sometimes it takes a few times to work. If you are looking for an old series, this is a great way to get just those sermons.
The sermons page is there to help you. Podcasting is a simple and helpful way to access the many sermons we have up on our webpage. We hope this little tutorial is helpful to you to get started in making use of what is available.
At the Annual Congregational Meeting this year, the request was made that we put up a tutorial on how to subscribe to the church blog and sermon and Sunday School podcasts. To that end, this will be the first of three posts giving a brief "how-to guide" to subscribing to these on your phone or tablet. First, we will cover the church blog.
The church blog is intended to serve as a place to share information that we think may be of interest to the congregation. This may be as simple as an update on what is going on at church or something more substantive such as follow up to a sermon or a book review or some thoughts on an issue in the Christian life.
However, it is not a daily blog, but occasional in nature. You will not want to check it daily—so it is easier if you are notified when a new post is made. To help with that there are apps for smart phones and tablets called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) readers.
Currently the most commonly used service is Feedly. You can create an account and then subscribe to the sites that you want to follow. Feedly has apps for Android and the iPhone/iPad. There are other RSS readers available—this is just one solution that is pretty easy to use for beginners. If you already use another RSS reader, you can use it with the church blog as well.
Once you have downloaded and installed the RSS app and logged in with your account, you can just tap the magnifying glass in the upper right hand corner and paste or type the address of the church blog (http://www.ropcolympia.org/blog/?format=rss) into the search field and hit search. It will find the blog (called "Blog - Reformation Presbyterian"). Click on that and you will be subscribed.
We hope that the blog is an encouragement to the congregation and that these instructions are helpful to notify you when it is updated.
We are finally getting around to launching our new website. I hope that you like what we have come up with. The session is extremely grateful to Charlie and Sara Montes for all their help in getting it launched.
There is still a lot to do. We need to get the Audio Archive (sermons and Sunday Schools) moved over to the new site, which will take a while. But once everything is up and running, we think that this will be a much more helpful place for the church to find news, listen to audio and keep up to date. We also hope that it will be a helpful place to visitors to find out more about our church.
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