10168 Deschutes Road

Palo Cedro, CA 96073 (530) 547-5483

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the Herd (Jr. High & Sr. High Students): August 2016

Activities

Watch your bulletin for more activities!

Bible Studies

Jr. and Sr. High (6th-12th graders) Bible Study: Wednesdays (6:30 pm) at Paul and Janell Rowe’s home

Sunday School 9:00-10:00 am (Education Building)

Contact Paul Rowe (917-4828) or Paul Kaukonen (243-6394)

for more information

Cow Creek Community Church

Delighting in the supremacy of God through Christ

Cow Creek Community Church

August 2016

Newsletter

Website: cowcreekchurch.com

Tuesdays (6-9 pm) Little Country Church

God has a "world-sized" role for every

Christian in His global purpose. Whether people go to distant countries or stay at

home is a secondary issue. The primary issue is what most people are hungry to

discover: vision to live a life of purpose. Discovering that vision makes this course

valuable, and perhaps crucial, for any Christian.

The Perspectives on the World Christian

Movement course is coming to Redding this fall! Orientation session is Tuesday, August 9th at Little Country Church. The

16 week class begins on Tuesday, August 23. Talk to Pastor Craig or go to

perspectives.org for more information.

Biblical Counseling

Conference: Together Honoring God

Towards Christ-Like Love

Shasta Bible College August 5th (6-8:40 pm)

& August 6th (10 am-4 pm)

Register at: http://shasta.edu

Lake Day & Baptism Sunday, August 7th

Come join in a time of fun in the sun at Whiskey Creek at Whiskeytown Lake!

Start arrival time: 3 pm (or whenever you want to come) Bring: your own lawn chairs, food, sunscreen, family, & friends!

If interested in being baptized, please contact Mike Foran at 221-1048 or the church office by Sunday, July 31st. Our Baptism service on August 7th will be held at 6 pm.

Be sure to purchase a day pass at the Visitor’s Center!

The Importance of the Doctrine of Scripture

The longer I live as a Christian and serve in pastoral ministry the more I am convinced of the importance of the doctrine of Scripture to the perseverance of churches and individual Christians. I am becoming more and more convinced that when you see a church or an individual depart from Christian orthodoxy it can almost always be traced back to a loss of confidence in the Scripture. And oftentimes, when you look more closely at these situations, you will find that somewhere along the line their loss of confidence in the Scripture was largely due to a combination of two major things: (1) they were never taught the biblical doctrine of Scripture rather it was simply assumed by their church and others in their life, and (2) they were influenced by false teachers or unbelieving skeptics who assaulted the Scriptures in various ways and they didn’t know how to respond. Let me illustrate some of the many ways the Scripture is being assaulted by false teachers and skeptics in our day. Many, following the lead of professor and author Bart Ehrman, are pointing to the variation between the thousands of New Testament manuscripts to question whether we actually have access to the original text of the New Testament at all. Related to this, there has been a concerted attempt in recent years, reflected at a popular level in Dan Brown’s massively popular book The DaVinci Code, to claim that power brokers in the church in the 4th century made an executive decision to include certain books in the New Testatment canon and to suppress many other Christian books, such as the gospel of Thomas, which are equally valid expressions of Christianity from the early church (even though in reality they are heretical gnostic writings). Others, like Peter Ens, a Reformed professor who was recently forced to resign from Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, have claimed that it is impossible to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture because it contains various historical and scientific errors as well as internal contradictions. Still others, having already denied the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, go on to say that the Bible’s views of such things as gender roles and sexual morality are simply outdated, reflecting the backwards mentality of a pre-enlightenment era, and therefore we ought not to use the Bible as our authority for what to believe and how to live in the modern world. In our postmodern era, the cultural assumption of relativity has seeped into the church, especially in the emergent church movement but also among many mainstream evangelical churches, leading many to think that while the Bible may be inspired and inerrant, it lacks sufficient clarity for anyone to claim that one interpretation of it is right and another interpretation is wrong. Defined doctrinal standards are therefore viewed as misguided and only serve to unnecessarily divide the church. Finally, consider the way many evangelical Christians with very orthodox views of the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture do not actually treat it as sufficient to give them all they need for Christian faith and practice but look to the ideas of men (even unbelievers) in vital matters such as counseling their members through difficult personal problems or figuring out how to organize and run their church. Each of the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph represents an assault upon and resulting departure from a different aspect of the doctrine of Scripture (what the Bible teaches about itself), namely, its original text, its canon, its inspiration, its inerrancy, its authority, its clarity, its interpretation, and its sufficiency. As young people who grow up in the church eventually leave the home and attend university and begin talking with a wider range of people in the world, they will inevitably be exposed to many, if not all, of these attacks upon the Scripture. Here’s my contention in light of all this. Obviously Christ is going to build His church and He will lose none of those whom the Father has given Him, so ultimately the perseverance of any church or individual in the Christian faith depends finally on the divine power of God. However, it is also true that God works through means, and I would argue that one of the critical means to any church persevering in the Christian faith is faithful teaching on the doctrine of Scripture in the church. This teaching ought to interact with and respond to the various challenges to the Scripture so that we won’t be caught off guard by these challenges and therefore be less likely to stumble over them. Obviously it is my goal to provide this type of teaching in our church, both in Sunday School and from the pulpit, but God has also given us so many other good resources in the English language to provide this teaching. For instance, BB Warfield’s The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible is an incredible resource on the subject (maybe the best!), but many recent books have come out as well which might be more accessible to the average Christians, such as, Kevin DeYoung’s little book Taking God At His Word, or Greg Gilbert’s book in the 9 Mark’s series titled, Why Trust The Bible, or John Piper 2016 publication called A Peculiar Glory: How The Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness. I could go on and on like this. I encourage you to strengthen your soul’s confidence in the Scripture by picking up one of these works and prayerfully working through it. Why? Because if we lose confidence in the Scripture, we will lose confidence in what the Scripture teaches. When we lose confidence in what the Scripture teaches what we are ultimately losing is the Christian faith itself.

Pastor Jeremy

Year to date tithes: $168,819 Year to date expenses: $149,652 Capital Improvements balance: $45,783

July’s tithes to date: $18,456 July’s expenses to date: $14,342 Year to date miscellaneous income: $28,557

Giving Report:

Saints Alive Lunch Wednesday, August 3rd

11:30 am Cow Creek in the CLC

All Cow Creek Saints 55+ are invited to come join us for a yummy potluck lunch and great

fellowship time.

Gary and Kim Simmons will

provide the main dish. Please bring a salad, side dish, or dessert to share!

Short Term Missionaries Needed

Every year, there is a Family Retreat put on by Joni and Friends, an International Disability Center, and they are in need of Short Term Missionaries for the week of Aug. 21-26 in Rockaway Beach, Oregon. The cost is $425 and includes 1.5 days of training, housing, meals, and a lifetime of memories.

For more information, contact Rachel Olstad at (541) 601-0194 or retreat.jafsorgeon@gmail.com

Register at www.joniandfriends.org/family-retreats/twin-rocks-2-2016

Life Line Screening Thursday, August 18th

Cow Creek Community Church Life Line Screening, a provider of community-based preventive health screenings, is offering a preventive health event at Cow Creek Community Church on August 18th. Five screenings will be offered that scan for potential health problems related to: blocked arteries which is a leading cause of stroke; abdominal aortic aneurysms which can lead to a ruptured aorta; hardening of the arteries in the legs which is a strong predictor of heart disease; atrial fibrillation or irregular heart beat which is closely tied to stroke risk; and a bone density screening, for men and women, used to assess the risk of osteoporosis. All five screenings take 60-90 minutes to complete.

Preregistration is required. Please call 1-888-653-6441 or visit www.lifelinescreening.com/community-partners.

Missionary Spotlight

Ryan and Michelle Washburn (Geoffrey, Andrea, and Warren) Field Missionaries in Surprise Valley

Serving with Exalting Christ Ministries International

Ryan ministers as the Pastor of Lake City Bible Church, lo-cated in Lake City, CA which is in Surprise Valley. As area missionaries, they are responsible to reach unchurched areas of very NE CA, SE OR, and NW NV with the gospel.

Pray that Chr ist will be exalted within their daily lives and within the church body.

Pray that they would continue to reach their community with the Gospel and that God would be glorified.

Contact Information: rmwashburn@frontiernet.net

PO Box 202 Fort Bidwell, CA 96112 (530) 279- 2381 (Home) (530) 640-2229 (Cell)

Watch your bulletin or visit our website for more info.!