Month: February 2021

February 28, 2021 The Homeschool Ministry

Over the past months, the Homeschool Group has continued to meet weekly for a time of shared work and fitness. We’ve also been able to interact with several covenant members, as well as the whole Kindred Group.

In November, we bundled up at the church campground to look at the stars and planets through Cory’s telescope. We celebrated New Year’s Eve with a showing of The Lion, The Witch and Wardrobe with Kindred, complete with movie trivia. January brought a virtual Creation Science lesson with Laura, ice skating with Kelsey and a parenting discussion. Several weeks ago, the kids learned the different positions in ballet as Carrie gave a lesson in dance. We love that we are part of a church that has people with so many interests and talents!

Our weekly meeting is a time where the kids can share about different topics they are learning about. In this way, they are working on public speaking skills. Right now most of them are working on being loud enough for the people across the room to hear them as they speak with masks on. After a time of shared reading, workbooks are opened and practice spelling tests are given to each other. It’s nice to interact with friends during this time.

February 25, 2021 Shofar Missions Cebu

Read the latest update from Shofar Mission and see what God has been doing in Cebu, Philippines.

This month started with major updates to the two cable TV stations God has blessed us with. Shofar TV is currently broadcasting on Cebu Cable in Metro Cebu and ATD Cable in Balamban/Asturias.

Street Level Ministries

Since our last update, we had a chance to meet with two students that attend UV-Toledo and explain what SLM is all about to them. Issue 85 of Word on the Street is hot off the press. 1,000 copies will be distributed with modular learning packets to students at the University of the Visayas. We are hoping we can deliver the magazines during the first week of March. Street Level Radio continues to stream (with some minor tech upgrades here and there) and students are still volunteering for the station. We are pleased to announce our sister station Burning Dog Radio recently started streaming online worldwide!

Word on the Street Magazine Philippines
Seeing the Hand of God Up Close in Toledo
Street Level Radio Upgrades


Exploring Creation Science

Even though the “new normal” has classes in all levels from Pre-K to university online, the mission for Exploring Creation Science remains the same. Know why you believe what you believe. Again, since classes are online we are able to do things that would normally be more challenging. During the month of March, Explore booklets for students in grades 4-6 and 7-12 will be printed and distributed, a special four-week series using Facebook Live class for students in grades 7-12 will take place, and Zoom lessons will continue.

Science Experiment Up Close
Seeing God Up Close Through Science

Prayer Requests:

  1. Pray that God would continue working in the hearts and minds of all those we have met.
  2. We ask that God would bring people into the ministries.
  3. Pray for all the churches that are unable to meet in person due to Sunday barangay lockdowns.
  4. Pray for viewers to tune in to Shofar TV and that we could expand our broadcasting reach throughout Cebu Island.
February 19, 2021 River Falls Ministry

Get the latest news from Believers Church plant and College Ministry in River Falls, WI.

Community Outreach

We are excited to be starting back up our Sunday evening Bible Study. It will be at 5 pm in the River Falls coffeehouse. In order to help invite the community members, we are planning some increased advertising. Already, there is a new billboard up on highway 35 between River Falls and Ellsworth. Also, we created new posters to distribute and are working on sending out an EDDM within the community. We were previously meeting Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm and will continue to do so.

College Bible Study

The students have been back on campus for a few weeks. This semester UW River Falls has lessened some of the regulations, so we are able to be on campus a little more. We were able to do a table on campus this month and are investigating the possibility of having a Street Level meeting on campus.

Since it is the beginning of the semester we are being creative in our ways to meet other students. One way we are doing this is by hosting a plant sale in the coffeehouse with advertising directed at the college students. Also, the coffeehouse is running a $1 off student discount for the month of February.

We have had a couple of new students attend the College Bible Study this semester, and we hope to continue to build relationships with them.

  • Note “bucket of wipes”

Prayer Requests…

  • That the new students we are meeting will desire a deeper relationship with God.
  • For the advertising to be reaching the right people in the community.
  • That we will be led by God in our conversations with people in the coffeehouse and in the community.

Further Information

February 13, 2021 Believers Church Duluth

Bible Studies/Teaching/Preaching:

The core of our time together as a church is teaching and preaching and Bible studies. It’s a huge part of what makes us tick. And lately, there’s been a wide variety. While Pastor Justin was guest-teaching in Menomonie early in January, Pastor Jesse taught on a Wednesday and Sunday about worship and persuasion, asking us to consider: who or what do we worship and are we compelled to share the desperately-needed truth of the gospel with those around us? A few weeks later, Pastor Tim visited from Menomonie and toured through the challenges to Christians found in Colossians 3. Routinely on Sundays, after finishing the ever-intense yet hopeful book of Revelation, Pastor Justin is turning our attention to a series of lectures on the basics of Christianity in the format of “Anatomy of a Christian.” So far, we’ve covered the Head, Mind, Ears, and Eyes and learned of our need for transplants, proper alignment, and barriers to and results of bona fide spiritual seeing and hearing. On Wednesdays, we alternate between the book of Jeremiah, men’s and women’s studies, video discussions around the Horizontal Jesus series, and shorter teachings with small group discussions.

Fellowship:

Bingo night.  After so much relative separation, we got pretty desperate and Bingo was the perfect solution!  The game itself is actually quite dry, but throw in a crowd full of twenty-to-forty-somethings dressed like elderly folk, add a nice meal of fish sticks, potato wedges and peas, and you’ve got yourself a party!  But the real party didn’t start until we decided to live stream the whole thing and invite friends.  Having people join from literally around the world was a special treat and it was a night to remember!

Sunday lunches started.  After a long break, we brought back Sunday lunches – meals that are fast to make and a snap to eat.  This allows us to linger long after the sermon, having communion, discuss with our neighbors what the sermon prompted in us, what’s going on in our lives and what God is doing through it all.

Super Bowl Party. A small group was able to gather the afternoon of the Super Bowl for a sweet time of enjoying one another’s company.  It was bring-your-own-snacks and overall a simple event, but it was a great opportunity to be together and catch up on the goings-on in each others lives.

Service:

Kitchen training.  After some at-home required reading, Matt led kitchen volunteers through the ins and outs of the “Church Lady Law” in a brief in-person meeting.  The training provided very practical help in keeping food and people safe – allowing us to serve one another and guests with the care required to make meals an enjoyable aspect of church life.

Community group and Media Ministry started.  Through posters, online presence, neighborhood events, and more, two new Duluth ministries seek to make sure the community knows we exist. Collectively, we’ve already had several meetings, including crossover between the two groups as these are intended to work hand-in-hand with each other, doing whatever we can to give the Twin Ports area the clear option to say “Yes, I’ll come to that church,” or, “No, I won’t,” rather than the recurring, “Never heard of it.”

Street Level.  A meeting with some SL Menomonie folks just before the start of the new semester rolled into in-person weekly dinners and Bible Studies at the Garage. The Garage, Street Level’s next-to-campus meeting space, was recently re-insulated. It is reportedly toasty warm now, making the space even more welcoming to guests and regulars alike. In a key aspect of both online and local ministry and advertising, the Word on the Street magazine crew has been continuing the development process and recently submitted ideas for the next issue.

Prayer Requests:

It’s exciting to move forward, but each step certainly comes with challenges. Pray for our spiritual integrity, that we wouldn’t be intimidated by what the world or the devil or our Lord sends our way.  That we’d be ready for what’s next, faithful in the not-in-public-sight elements of our lives, open to be helpful and helped by one another, and able to minister to the people around us.

-Karla

February 10, 2021 Pastor Jesse Moss

A placebo is anything that seems to be a real medical treatment but isn’t. It could be a pill, a shot, or any other type of fake treatment. What all placebos have in common is that they do not contain an active substance meant to affect health. They have no therapeutic effect but are sometimes used as a control in testing new drugs or are designed merely to calm and appease someone’s desire for treatment. 

Although there is no chemical reason for placebo treatment to be effective there is seemingly irrefutable evidence that these counterfeits do produce some positive results. The cause of this improvement cannot be placed on the substance itself, but on the human body’s incredible ability to heal itself. A disease that the human body is incapable of improving will never be affected by a placebo. 

The Real Disease

Sin is a disease that has spread throughout the world and through the ages. It’s a disease that if left untreated leads only to pain, hopelessness, and eventual death. The body has no ability to cure this disease on its own. There have been many attempts, but none successful. That means that no placebo will do the trick. It is a problem that requires the real thing. Real faith in the real Jesus saves, nothing else does. The problem is that people have settled for a false treatment of their own creation. They pacify their desperate need for a savior with a counterfeit solution. Many in our culture accept a placebo version of Christianity that has no real power and provides no real answers.

Acts 16:30-31 “What must I do to be saved?” So they said,

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved”

Placebos seem innocent enough. A sugar pill causes no real harm, but a counterfeit treatment will do more harm than good if it pacifies the patient with a false solution rather than leave them searching for the true cure. This is doubly true in the spiritual realm. Placebo Christianity can only placate, it can never cure. 

The Religious Placebo

The Bible has a lot to say about what real faith entails. This is because there are so many false variations out there intent on pacifying us with a false version of Christianity that has been created by our culture or our own minds, not the word of God. People feel secure because of the religious games that they play. They alleviate their guilty conscience by saying the right words. They appease the unshakeable knowledge that something is not right by trying to fulfill religious obligations. 

We know that going to church doesn’t save us. No amount of service or tithing to the church fixes anything. Nothing that we do on our own power provides any kind of salvation. But how often do you allow those things to be seen as the solution when it is only acting as a placebo in your life? But sin isn’t cured by the placebo of adherence to an empty and lifeless religion, it is only cured by Christ.

The Real Medicine 

Why is it that we are prone to turn to placebos when Christ is readily holding out the real thing? Placebos are pleasant and agreeable. They are usually low cost and painless. Medicine can be costly, hard to swallow, and accompanied by all kinds of difficult side effects. Real faith, that can cost you everything. It will undoubtedly have side effects that come along with it. There will be trials, persecution, hard work, and discipline. The fact is if there are no side effects, it’s likely you haven’t taken the real treatment. The only treatment that provides a real cure is prescribed by Gods word and it comes with guaranteed side effects such as love (John 13:35) obedience (John 14:15) good works (James 2:17)

Placebos are cheap and easy but they don’t work. The danger with placebos is that they can look like the real thing. So much so that we trick ourselves into settling for a “cure” that is no cure at all. Don’t settle for anything less than the real thing. 

February 7, 2021 JFB Books and Media

The Believers Bookstore is available to the anyone 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Tuesday through Friday (when the bookstore sign is near the front door). Purchases may be made during these hours in the coffeehouse during those hours. Simply take your book downstairs and request to purchase a book.

On Sunday or Wednesday… bring your book to the coffeehouse when the counter is open for coffee service.

Any questions? Simply ask the staff in the coffeehouse to find someone who manages the bookstore for immediate assistance or email below.

Central Desk

Any other transactions related to the Central Desk can be made in the coffeehouse during the hours above also.

Contact: bookstore@jfbelievers.com

All prices are suggested donation