In the next two weeks you’ll have two opportunities to significantly improve your life.  Two opportunities to expand your vision and strengthen your faith.  We’ve made them as easy as possible.  Interested?

First, the Bishop will be speaking this Sunday morning, March 10^th.  If you’re relatively new to Seneca Creek, the Bishop is Eliudi Issangya, from Tanzania.  For the last 30 years he has provided leadership and vision for an incredible ministry in East Africa that includes

• a Bible School for church leaders,
• an elementary and high school for local students,
• a trade school for locals who need marketable skills,
• an orphanage for children whose parents are often the victims of AIDS,
• drilling fresh water wells for local villages,
• and a medical clinic.

For the last six years we’ve had a partnership with the Bishop and his ministries in Tanzania.  (www.ieoministries.org) If you were with us over the Christmas season, you know that we helped raise the necessary funds to complete construction of a brand new medical clinic.  Work is underway, and should be finished by May or June.

The Bishop is an engaging speaker , and a visionary leader who never fails to inspire the people at Seneca Creek.  I’m often asked, “why is he a bishop?”  (a term we associate with church hierarchy, robes and other things).  While there’s no official connection with Seneca Creek, he functions as a pastor and leader for many other pastors in that part of Africa, and legitimately serves as a “bishop” or overseer of pastors.  And no, he doesn’t wear a robe or expect special treatment.

The second opportunity to improve your life is our upcoming seminar on faith and science.  For too long these two areas of life have been seen as being in conflict with one another.  If you’ve taken any science classes in college, or even high school, you may have wondered how intelligent, thinking adults could ever reconcile what the Bible says about the origins of human life, with what science has learned about those origins.  Our own national history is full of regrettable battles waged over this debate, which still rages in many parts of the country.

On March 16^th (Saturday) from 9:00 a.m to Noon, we’ll hear from two distinguished scientists (Dr. Darrel Falk, and Dr. Fazale Rana) about how they understand the stories of the Bible and the findings of science to work together.  While their views do not necessarily agree with each other, both of them will present intelligent, satisfying answers to the questions that you may have long ago thought were unanswerable.  This is an event that you can confidently invite your skeptical friends to attend.  The last hour of this seminar will be devoted to Q&A from those in attendance.

For a little insider info, you can check out their organizations at the following sites:

• Reasons To Believe – www.rtb.org
• BioLogos – www.biologos.org

I hope you’ll benefit from both of these events in the next two weeks.  They will strengthen your faith, and expand your thinking like nothing else.

-Pastor Mark

P.S. Remember to set your clocks AHEAD one hour before you go to sleep on Saturday.