One of my favourite things about studying the scriptures is learning about the original audience, the first ones who would have heard or read the words. 1 & 2 Thessalonians have been no exception. I've enjoyed figuring out who these folks were, how they came to Christ, what their circumstances were and how Paul, Silas and Timothy met and ministered to them. It has started to play out like the plot of a movie or novel in my mind.

The good news is that there is always more to learn and discover in the Bible. I mentioned this in last week's email, but wanted to again point your attention to an additional resource for you to use as we go through our People Get Ready series. Pastor Del's course, Get Faithful, has six lessons from 1 Thessalonians that will deepen your engagement with this short but powerful book of the Bible. You can find it on LearnDash, our learning platform. It's simple to set up a login and then navigate to the course. You can read it online or download it as a PDF to any of your devices.

My prayer continues to be that God will find us faithful, and that we will live with our expectation of Jesus' return in motion. (Learn more about that in last week's message!)

See you on Sunday as we look at chapter two!
Pastor Tracy

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THIS SUNDAY

SUNDAY, May 18 @ 10am

PEOPLE GET READY
A Model for Authenticity
Tracy Dunham

Join us for our IN-PERSON SERVICES OR
LIVESTREAM on Sunday!

10:00 - Live Service & Kids Church (+Church Online)

Follow along with the message on YouVersion.

The scriptures are great for so many things. 2 Timothy 3:16 say that they are useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that we can be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Thoroughly. And truly, that's what I need. I know that even when I apply my best learning and all my effort to living for Christ, I don't have what it takes on my own. I need more. I need to be taught what it means day by day to live a godly life. I need someone to show me how to walk in the light and live worthy of my calling, pleasing God in every way (Colossians 1:10).

Why is this so important? Well, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that the time is short and we've been told to be ready for Jesus to return at any moment. This mandate is ours to carry every day in the midst of a culture that is very far from God. There are pressures all around us to compromise, to become tired of doing what is right, and to choose apathy.

Over the next several weeks, we're going to study 1 & 2 Thessalonians together with an eye on how the scriptures are modelling for us just how it is that we can be people who are ready for the challenges of today and, ultimately, for the return of Christ.

Like we did in Nehemiah, we'll be taking a different path through these letters from Paul to the church in Thessalonica than Pastor Del's course from 1 Thessalonians called Get Faithful. But, I'd still encourage you to use it as a devotional guide in the coming weeks to get a more robust look at this short but powerful book. You can find it here: learn.freedomchurchkw.com

I'm excited to get started with our first message on Sunday called "A Model for Waiting." The Thessalonians have given us a beautiful model for what it looks like to set our intention on being ready for Jesus.

See you then, Pastor Tracy