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August 6, 2024

August 2024 at First OPC

Dear congregation and friends,

These “monthly updates” have fallen on hard times this year, I’m afraid, largely because I have been recovering from surgery and finishing the last phase of my cancer treatment plan. Happily, I finished that last phase a couple of weeks ago, and so it is time to resume these. (Later this week, I will share a little more about this on my personal newsletter.)

Summer Pastoral Internship

Two months ago, we welcomed a summer pastoral intern, Austin Loewen, along with his family. We have kept Austin busy reading, preaching, teaching kids’ catechism and Adult Sunday School, leading worship services and prayer meetings. Besides his service in our congregation, Austin has also preached at three other churches in our presbytery. His biggest task, though, was teaching at Vacation Bible School last week. Austin will preach one more time this Sunday evening, and then we will say goodbye to the Loewen family as they return to Greenville, SC for Austin’s third year of seminary study at GPTS.

Vacation Bible School

Speaking of Vacation Bible School, please thank God with us for granting us a smooth and successful week of ministry to about 70 children. We are thankful for all of these kids, who listened carefully to the Bible lessons, worked hard to learn songs and memory verses, and played hard during the games and crafts! We are also thankful for the many volunteers who contributed their time and talents to this ministry. You may like to checkout this video recapping some of the week’s highlights.

Presbytery Bible Camp

Another summer highlight was the presbytery’s summer Bible camp, near Boulder Creek. We enjoyed good fellowship around God’s word with like-minded friends from our church and other churches in the presbytery. We enjoyed the ministry of Dr. Jonathan Master, who taught on Psalm 119. You may like to listen to the audio recordings of these messages.

Silicon Valley Bible Conference

Looking ahead now, we are excited to hold the Silicon Valley Bible Conference this year, on November 16-17. Our speaker is Pastor Jonty Rhodes from Christ Church Central Leeds, in England. He will be teaching us about covenant theology, in order to show how the whole Bible reveals Christ.

On the Friday evening before the conference (November 15), we will have a special event on biblical sexuality, especially for teenagers (but open to all). Jonty and I will each give a talk on how sexuality fits with God's purposes in creation and redemption. We hope you will mark your calendars and mention this to friends who may be interested.

In the meantime, we trust that God will bless the usual weekly rhythms of preaching and teaching, prayer and fellowship, counsel and mercy, by which we take small steps toward heaven.

Sincerely,

Pastor Calvin

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