America's Choice - fall message series at Church at the Gate

We sent out a little mailer this week into a few Sioux Falls area zip codes announcing our fall message series and the grand opening of our new children's and youth ministry center addition. Typically, at the start of the school year, at Christmas, and at Easter we and many other churches do a little extra marketing to reach out. This year is no different - although I noticed this afternoon that the message series I'm doing is already standing out. I reclaimed a word that is sacred to some - that word being "choice."

Churches in South Dakota aren't motoring on this fall like it's any other year. We know Providence has given the family of churches in South Dakota a brief window of opportunity to deal with what many Christians believe to be the number one issue holding back the fullness of God's blessing on this nation - the shedding of judicially innocent blood - abortion.

Even beyond that, the entire nation is in decision mode. In light of all this, I decided to speak this fall on the doctrine of free will and call it America's Choice. The Bible has much to say about this topic and every American ought to consider the choices before us with great sobriety. This weekend my message is titled "Voluntary Love" - God doesn't force us to love him - love that isn't voluntary isn't love - we are free to reject him. Next weekend I'm talking about the flip side of free will - that each choice we make individually and nationally comes with consequences, good and bad. The following week, you guessed it, the message is titled Choose Life. And there is much more to come after that, but you get the idea.