Our next session of our membership class, 2BC 101, will be offered starting Sunday, August 7. Anyone who is interested in learning more about our church, our beliefs, and how we function is invited to attend. The classes will meet during the 9:30am Bible Study time in Room #218. Nancy Quesada, a longtime 2BC member and an enthusiastic speaker will be teaching the class. Childcare is provided.

Please make your checks out to the Franklin Graham Festival and fill out the Franklin Graham Festival Envelope completely.

During the month of July we will not be having Sunday Evening Worship Services. We will return with a concert by Mandi Peebles on Sunday, August 7 at 6:00pm. Sunday, August 28 at 6:00pm we will be having a Family Worship Night.

Series: GETTING OUR ACTS TOGETHER Sermon 4: Getting the World’s Attention Text: Acts 4:12-14 I stood in line at Barnes & Noble until 1:30 Saturday morning to purchase a copy of the new Harry Potter book. Two days later I saw a stack of ‘em by the register at HEB and no takers. Well, that makes sense, owing to the seven million or so volumes that sold in the first twenty-four hours, a quarter-mil per hour. So I could’ve waited – avoided the rush – but, like everybody else, I wanted to discover the identity of the half-blood prince. Could’ve gone to Canada, I suppose. Seems that a week before the official release date, a Vancouver bookstore accidentally put the blockbuster on their shelves. They sold a half-dozen or so before realizing their mistake. Subsequently, they obtained a legal writ ordering the purchasers to return their trophies and forbidding them to tell anybody the plot. Good luck with that. See, some news is just too good, too big, too juicy to keep. That was Peter and John’s point when they found themselves hauled up before the supreme court. They’d gotten hold of an advanced copy of the last chapter of a story God had been telling in serial form since Abraham…since Adam! Israel stood in line annually at the Passover, paying the full price in sacrificial lambs to learn the day of their redemption and the identity of their redeemer. But while nobody much was looking, the Author offered autographed editions to a dozen guys who could barely read. The tale took an unanticipated twist, the death of the hero and an ultimate happy ending…and they just couldn’t contain themselves.

"We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,." Peter used a very specific Greek verb, one that speaks of ability rather than volition, of power rather than permission. It wasn’t, "We aren’t allowed," but "We just flat can’t." The pronoun is emphatic: You deal in writs and regulations, but we’re sitting on a powder keg and its blown the lid off our secrecy. That’s the role of the church. We know the name of the Half Blood Prince, the God/man messiah who completes the plot of a story as old as eternity, and it’s just too much to withhold. "You shall be my witnesses," Jesus told the church; it wasn’t an order or even a prediction, but a promise, and we will know the Spirit has come when we find ourselves incapable of obeying gag orders against reading the last paragraph of the final page to anyone willing to listen. Pottering Around, Doug