Found this post shared in a Facebook group I’m a part of for church people involved in communications. Very interesting stuff in the article, especially about how Facebook is a form of reaching into our community. As we think about new ways of measuring engagement outside of the church and living our faith outside the four walls of the church building, stuff like this will be super helpful.
I’m especially interested in the possibilities for posting quotes from the sermon and/or scriptures and celebrating volunteers. Interesting stuff.
For a church that’s only 3.5 years old and worships just over 400, we have just reached over 3000 likes on Facebook. And here’s the coolest part about the people that are engaging with us on Facebook: 98% of the likes and the people that are reached are people within our immediate context.
God always provides a way out when we are tempted. He also is our defense against all evil.
Lead Us Not Into Temptation
Read James 1:13-14
Underline: God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
Circle: each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
Margin: God doesn’t tempt me.
Read 1 Corinthians 10:12-13
Underline: he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Margin: God helps me resist temptation.
Read 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
Underline: Both Verses
Margin: God is with me.
Read James 1:2-3
Underline: that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
Margin: Temptation makes us stronger.
God is good and can only give good to His people. Sometimes we struggle with why God would then tempt us with bad things. The truth, however, is that God does not tempt us. Rather, as James said, we are tempted by the devil and our own evil desires. Yet while God allows us to be tempted, he restrains the Devil in a way that always allows us to resist the temptation. We take courage in the fact that Jesus Himself faced every temptation that we do, and yet resisted them. We know that God walks with us through the temptation and refines and molds our faith through the process.
Deliver us from evil
Read Proverbs 18:10
Underline: The name of the LORD is a strong tower
Margin: The Lord protects.
Read 2 Thessalonians 3:3
Underline: Entire Verse
Margin: The Lord protects.
Read John 17:14-15
Underline: My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.
Margin: We will be attacked, but God protects.
God is oftentimes referred to in the Bible as our protector. He is a strong tower, a mighty fortress, our deliver. And so here we call upon God to protect us from all evil. Jesus tells us that we will in fact have trouble in this world. He didn’t ask God to remove us from this evil world, but rather that God would protect us as we live in this world.
Back in 2012, I released my first set of Lenten Worship Backgrounds. At the time, we were using the same blank slide for the entire service. I’ve since gone back and re-done the slides to include the different parts of the service. Here’s a preview of some of the slides:
You can access the full set of backgrounds for General Lent/Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday via this Dropbox folder. There’s a green version for use on Easter in the original post linked above, but it’s only the blank slide. I ended up creating a completely different set for Easter.
Here are some backgrounds we created for Christmas Eve this year. Click the pictures to see and download the full collection via Dropbox. There is a blank slide that you can customize with whatever you’d like as well as slides for each of the majors parts in our service. If there’s a slide missing that you’d like to see added, drop me a comment and I’ll see what I can do to get it added in.
These files may be freely distributed under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License. Please link people to this blog post when sharing the files. You may also be interested in the Lessons and Carols set that uses the same basic design, but has some added text headings. I also have a Christmas set that we use for Christmas Day through Epiphany.
If you use them in your church, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
About Me
I am the husband of one and father of three. I work at First Trinity, where I help facilitate worship planning, guide our communications process and minister to Middle School students.
I also dabble in writing online and building websites.
For a church that’s only 3.5 years old and worships just over 400, we have just reached over 3000 likes on Facebook. And here’s the coolest part about the people that are engaging with us on Facebook: 98% of the likes and the people that are reached are people within our immediate context.
