Join Us Sundays at Spotsy Village

Welcome! So glad you’ve visited our online home! Here, you’ll find out who we are, when we gather, and what we are about. We look forward to meeting you and getting to know you soon.

Services will be held weekly at the following times:

9:30am – Worship, nursery, and all children classes up through 5th grade.
11:00am – Worship, nursery, and all children classes up through 5th grade.
Adult classes  mostly meet in homes during the week. We have a couple of classes that meet at Redeemer on Sunday mornings.

For those not able to join us in person, we livestream our 9:30 service
each week on YouTube. If you miss a service, you can watch the
video in our media library, on our YouTube channel, or catch audio only on
our podcast.

Upcoming Events

Upcoming Events:

May 3 – Spring Gathering

May 4 – Child Dedication

May 5 – Craft Night

May 8 – Senior Group Bible Study

May 11 – Lord’s Supper

May 12 – Foster Care Support Group

May 18 – Covenant Sunday

May 19 – Prayer Meeting

Scripture

“Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them.” Acts 21:26 ESV

Latest Sermon

Vic Carpenter:

Paul Returns to Jerusalem

Spring Gather | May 3, 12:00 – 3:00pm

Join us for an old fashioned church potluck picnic. Prayer and lunch will begin at 12:30.

Sign up to bring food to share. Bring your lawn chairs. If you have a tent, bring it with you or coordinate to set up earlier. More details in the link.

This is a new address and GPS has not been updated. Please use the directions listed in the Signup Genius.

Signup

Craft Night | May 5, 6:30 pm

May’s craft night is Painting Pottery with Katie 2.0. This was so much fun last year. Please sign up so she knows how many pieces of pottery to bring. The cost will be determined by your selection ($15-$25).

Registration

Graduating Seniors | May 21 and 25

Graduating high school seniors, you have accomplished much in the last four years, and we want to recognize you! Please register by May 15, so we can prepare.

Register

Vacation Bible School | June 23-26

Save the date for VBS this summer. Note that VBS is only four days (Mon-Thur). Registration opens May 4. Video

Registration

 

Redeemer T-shirts
 

We have short sleeved t-shirts in stock. Colors are grey, blue, black and burgundy in most sizes. Place your order below. Donations may be paid online or in person. Delivery will be this Sunday at the welcome desk.

T-shirt

Redeemer Meetups
 

Want to meet up for ice cream? Is anyone going to the movies? How about yoga? We created a group for people to communicate about local events. You can invite people to join you or if you are looking for something to do, check out the calendar in this group.

Request to join.

Volunteer Board
 

Redeemer always needs help since we don’t have a team of full-time paid staff. If you see a need below that you can help with, or have other skills you’d like to volunteer, please reach out to us. We will find a place for you.

Streaming 9:30 Service: We need volunteers that can set up and run the streaming service then edit the recorded message. Training will be provided. For more info, see Dwayne Reynolds in the sound pit, or come the welcome desk.

Lonely No More: We need volunteers to help on Sunday afternoons at assisted living facilities. We are looking for musicians, speakers and anyone interested in adopting a senior. Email Lisa Gore for more information.  

Volunteer

 

Prayer
 

We have a prayer team that would love to pray for you. Come to the welcome desk or send us an email.

Prayer

Baptism
 

Do you have questions about baptism, or are you ready to schedule yours? Let us know! See an elder on Sunday, or email us.

Baptism

Counseling
 
Biblical counseling is one way we can help you during challenging times. Click below to start the process. 
 

Fellowship with God

Vic Carpenter
Preaching Elder

“Indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

1 John 1:3b ESV

In his first epistle, John writes to his audience about having fellowship with our heavenly Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Fellowship is an interesting and important word. Fellowship is about sharing true and meaningful relationship with another person. Having fellowship with another person is to be near them in such a way that they know you and you know the other person. Fellowship relates to caring for another person, as that person cares about you. Fellowship goes well beyond just knowing things about another person, it’s about sharing life with another person.

The Christian life is ultimately about entering into fellowship with God. The Christian life begins with learning true knowledge about God and about understanding the moral will of God for our lives. But this is the beginning not the end of the Christian life. What we learn of God teaches us that He is a person, and that His will is both right and good for our lives. As we believe truth about God, and turn away from our sins, we enter into relationship with God. The highest good of the Christian life is to glorify God by enjoying relationship with Him. We learn to believe in Jesus, obey His will, and live in relationship to Him.

The question I would like to consider today is, “How do we know God?” If fellowship with God relates to knowing God, then how do we know God? I believe people who call themselves Christians answer this question in at least two basic ways. The first way is wrong and the second way is right. The first way people seek to know God is through religious experience. In the past this way was called Christian mysticism. Christian mysticism seeks a direct experience with God apart from God’s word in Scripture. This is a problem as we are not in the place of the Old Testament prophets or the Apostles of Jesus. We should not expect a direct word from the Lord since the standard of Scripture has been given.

In the past, Christian mysticism grew during times when the Scriptures were minimized or neglected. People felt distant from God and longed for fellowship with Him. The idea was that a person could turn their attention toward God individually in such a focused way that it would produce a direct experience with God. In the Middle Ages this particularly related to monks and monasteries. The idea was that long periods of personal introspection, humility, and ascetic deprivation would bring a person mystically closer to God. Perhaps God would draw close and produce some mystical vision or experience that would encourage the soul.

In our day you seldom meet a monk, and deep personal introspection is uncommon, but people still readily seek God through personal religious experience. The most common modern western version of this is through the religious experience of musical worship. In our day, well-funded churches go to great lengths and great expense to produce ecstatic religious experiences every Sunday morning. Through carefully choreographed lights, perfectly mixed and broadcast sound, songs chosen for their lifting and then soothing effect cause large audiences to have religious experiences week after week. Millions of people go to church each week and “have a religious experience.” These people will tell you that they have been near to God, and that their hearts were moved. They long to go back and experience that same feeling again, but those same people cannot tell you about fellowship with God. These same people may not be able to explain the gospel to you or have any true love for God’s word.

We can be moved in our heart by music and lighting and have no true experience with the living God. This modern evangelical experience is not altogether different than the ancient religious experience of massive cathedrals, the light of stained glass, ethereal chanting, burning incense, and priests in elaborate costumes. All this leads the participant to think, “Surely there must be something of God here, since this is outside my normal daily experience and it moves my heart!”

The trouble with seeking God through religious experience is that the experience must continue to enhance to produce the same emotional effect. If the same “show” is put on each week, the experience will soon grow repetitive and less mystical. The person may begin to see the production more than feel the intended effect of the religious emotional event. To keep the religious effect at its height, there are expensive workshops and seminars to train staff in the use of technology, light, and sound to maximize the effect of a weekly religious experience.

I do not believe this is what John was talking about when He urged us to have fellowship with God. The apostle John had fellowship with Jesus through a personal relationship with Him, and so can you. The opposite of seeking fellowship with God through mystical emotional experiences, is seeking God through His word. Words are how people communicate with each other. God has spoken to us in His word that we might know who He is. One of the many problems with mystical religious experience is that it has no standard. What is of God? What is contrived? What is of your own mind or imagination?

Scripture is the unchanging truth about God. Scripture is illumined by the Holy Spirit to help us understand who God is and what His purposes are in the world. Scripture teaches us of the atoning work of Jesus Christ and of His great and precious promises to us. We cannot come into fellowship with God apart from a clear knowledge of Jesus, “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). As we study Scripture, God does speak to our heart through specific and clear words. We learn the way of salvation and the way of holy living.

As Martyn Lloyd-Jones states so well, “The way of fellowship with God, therefore, is to come straight to the Word, to know its truth, to believe it and accept it – to pray on this basis and to exert our whole being in an effort and an endeavor to live it and to practice it. ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled’; filled with the fullness of God, with the knowledge of God and such blessings as God alone can give.

The seeking of religious experience apart from Scripture is based on feelings and feelings waver all about. Seeking fellowship with God based on Scripture truth gives a clear foundation for setting both our feet on the solid ground of hope. Fellowship with God based on truth will continue to grow and grow, as one grows to know the infinite personal God. No earnest Christian will ever tire of studying the Bible and encountering God therein.

Let us have fellowship with God by Holy Scripture,

Pastor Vic

 

Connect With Us

Worship With Us

The best place to start is joining us on a Sunday morning. There's nothing like worshiping Jesus together.

Serve

We would love for you to leverage your time and talent for God's glory and the good of others by serving at Redeemer!

Connect Groups

Don't get lost in the crowd. Join a Connect Group! Redeemer Connect Groups meet at various times and locations.

Online Resources

We have sermons, studies, podcasts, and playlists that will help you grow spiritually and apply the Bible to your life.

Back to Spiritual Basics

Looking to get into a rhythm of reading the Scriptures, but aren’t sure what to read?
Pastor Vic has put together a 10-week reading plan that will help you grasp the foundational beliefs of the Christian. As you read, you’ll be equipped with questions to ask of any text that will take any study you do to the next level.

See for yourself. Click below to download the reading plan.

Grandpa's Devotions

Mike Patterson, one of our Redeemer elders, has written several devotions for young or young-in-the-faith Christians. If you’re looking for a great new Bible study to do on your own, or perhaps even with your family, Mike has you covered!

And when you finish with Grandpa Devotions, check out his library of Bible studies at DoctorMikeP.com.