Philemon is a small book in the New Testament, but it is powerful with gospel truth.  It tells the story of how one man’s useless slave became another man’s useful son.  It shows us what happens when Jesus saves people – their lives are transformed, forever impacting their relationship with God and with others.

When we read this book, we see ourselves in the character of Onesimus.  Before Christ, we were hopeless, fearful, and rebellious.  We were slaves to sin and deserving of punishment.  In Christ, we received forgiveness and acceptance – a new identity and sense of belonging.  We were changed from useless to useful.  For every believer, the grace extended to Onesimus is the same grace that has been extended to us.

When we read this book, we also see ourselves in the character of Philemon – not only are we like Onesimus, but we also have people like Onesimus in our lives.  Paul shows us, in Philemon, what gospel love looks like; it changes how we love others.  When we have been wronged or betrayed, we are free to extend the same forgiveness that we have received through Christ.

The book of Philemon reminds us that when we encounter Jesus, everything changes.  We belong to Him, and we belong to each other.  The story of Onesimus and Philemon is our story — the story of Jesus transforming every facet of our lives, and showing us what it truly means to live in redemptive community.

Ladies of Immanuel, please join us on Tuesday nights during the month of August as we study this book together.  It is our prayer that God will refresh our hearts with a renewed love for Jesus and people, as He continues to write these stories of redemption in our families, neighborhoods, churches, and world.

Details:

• August 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th
• 6:00 PM
• Led by Sara Lowery and Sarah Feiler
• Home of Sarah Feiler (Church Hill)

When I was five years old, my family moved from southern Virginia to Richmond. Every June, I looked forward to the end of the school year. While my friends went off to summer camp, I looked forward to spending several weeks with my grandparents on their farm. Sometimes, my parents drove me to their house but many summers, I rode a Greyhound bus to South Boston, VA. Yes – at the age of seven, I sat in the front row seat of the bus with my favorite doll, Mrs. Beasley, and we watched the scenery go by on the two and a half hour trip. Traveling alone was exciting but what I looked forward to the most was attending Vacation Bible School at my grandmother’s church.

During VBS, the small country church was decorated in a special theme. I vividly remember sitting in pews embossed with church members’ names, singing songs and saying pledges with my cousins. After the opening ceremony, we could barely contain our excitement as we walked to our classroom, anticipating the activities of the day. I listened intently as my teacher made the Bible lessons come alive and I learned important lessons that have stayed with me over the years. It was difficult to remain patient, knowing we would make beautiful crafts after each lesson. Our creations included an octopus made of yarn, a jewelry box made of craft sticks and a caterpillar fashioned from colorful pompoms. Afterward, we would go outside to swing, jump rope and play hide and seek. Our fun ended with a refreshing snack of cherry or grape Kool-Aid and those pretty butter cookies with the hole in the center. My grandmother and I headed home for lunch each day after she helped clean up and prepare for us to repeat the fun the next day.

The week of July 30 – August 3, we at Immanuel Baptist Church are looking forward to our week of VBS. What a great way to make memories which will last a lifetime. We will walk through the forest to our camp where we will sing songs, say pledges… and possibly see a moose! Our adventure will then take us to our campsite where our camp leaders will bring to life Peter’s amazing journey as he learns how much God loves him, even when he fails. Each day, a young adult will describe a personal journey to faraway lands where they have shared God’s love with children in Ethiopia and Jamaica. These stories of love will inspire us to bring school supplies for children attending The Charter House here in Richmond. We will end our week of fun with a picnic for our campers and their families as well as our camp leaders on Friday, after our Closing Program.

Come out and join us for Camp Moose on the Loose. We look forward to seeing you there!

THE GOSPEL COMES WITH A HOUSE KEY
———————————————————-
A DAY WITH DR. ROSARIA BUTTERFIELD

Join us November 17, 2018 as we spend the day listening to Dr. Rosaria Butterfield share what Christian hospitality looks like in our current cultural climate. Dr. Butterfield will show us how “radical, ordinary hospitality” can be used to glorify God, serve others, and live out the gospel in word and deed.

Cost: $12
Time: 9:30 AM – 4:00 PM (Lunch is on your own)
Location: Immanuel Baptist Church

Register at ibcrichmond.org/events
Further questions can be directed to womensministry@ibcrichmond.org

Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse University, converted to Christ in 1999 in what she describes as a train wreck. Her memoir The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert chronicles that difficult journey. Rosaria is married to Kent, a Reformed Presbyterian pastor in North Carolina, and is a homeschool mother, author, and speaker.

Raised and educated in liberal Catholic settings, Rosaria fell in love with the world of words. In her late twenties, allured by feminist philosophy and LGBT advocacy, she adopted a lesbian identity. Rosaria earned her Ph.D. from Ohio State University, then served in the English department and women studies program at Syracuse University from 1992 to 2002. Her primary academic field was critical theory, specializing in queer theory. Her historical focus was 19th-century literature, informed by Freud, Marx, and Darwin. She advised the LGBT student group, wrote Syracuse University’s policy for same-sex couples, and actively lobbied for LGBT aims alongside her lesbian partner.

In 1997, while Rosaria was researching the Religious Right “and their politics of hatred against people like me,” she wrote an article against the Promise Keepers. A response to that article triggered a meeting with Ken Smith, who became a resource on the Religious Right and their Bible, a confidant, and a friend. In 1999, after repeatedly reading the Bible in large chunks for her research, Rosaria converted to Christianity. Her first book, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, details her conversion and the cataclysmic fallout—in which she lost “everything but the dog,” yet gained eternal life in Christ.

Rosaria’s second book, Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ, addresses questions of sin, identity, and repentance that she often encounters during speaking engagements. She discourages usage of the term “gay Christian,” and she disputes “conversion therapy,” in part because heterosexual sin is no more sanctified than homosexual sin. Her heart’s desire is for people to put the hands of the hurting into the hands of the Savior, who equips us to walk and grow in humility.
Rosaria’s third book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in our Post Christian World, blends memoir and theology to warmly invite readers into her home, sharing from her life and experience how “radically ordinary hospitality” can allow strangers to become neighbors, and by God’s power, those neighbors can be part of God’s family.

Rosaria is zealous for hospitality, loves her family, cherishes dogs, and enjoys coffee.

The Gospel Comes with a House Key emerges from Mark 10:28-31—Jesus’ call to forsake home and family for the Gospel’s sake. Christians are to use their homes for the good of others. Rosaria Butterfield paints a beautiful picture of radical ordinary hospitality. With stroke after stroke of spiritually rich and practically realistic applications, hospitality becomes “using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God” (page 31). The book is an extraordinary description of an ordinary Christian practice.

What power does this house key hold? What door does it fit? What tumblers will it turn? And what future will it open? Well, applications are as unique as your homes and as personal as its furnishings. You will learn best by reading the book for yourself. And you should. This key will unlock much more because of hospitality’s powerful potential. Here are three takeaways.

It will unlock the soul and what it means to be born in God’s image

Throughout the book, Butterfield will use words like acceptance, dignity, and respect. Every human being is created in God’s likeness. Loving those who are different from us and those who disagree with us is the real-life expression of biblical theology. Be assured that acceptance does not necessitate agreement, but it does include love and grace.

It will unlock the past and what it means to care for family

Perhaps Butterfield’s retelling of her mother’s dying days is the most heart-rending section of the book. Have you cared for a dying parent? She describes it, “Hospitality always requires hands and heads and hearts, and mess and sacrifice and weakness. Always” (page 155). Deathbed hospitality has a struggle and a glory all its own. If you care for an aging parent, especially an unbelieving parent, your heart will be strengthened by Butterfield’s raw and candid retelling of the story.

It will unlock the practice of grace and what it means to be vulnerable

Hospitality is an act of grace. Because hospitality opens your door to neighbors, it makes you vulnerable. Butterfield urges Christians to model the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ—a grace she describes as contagious grace: “The grace that allows the margins to move to the center, the grace that commands you never to fear the future, the grace that reveals that what humbles you cannot hurt you if Jesus is your Lord” (page 30). Christians do not need affluent neighborhoods, manicured yards, or immaculate living rooms to practice hospitality. But you will need grace.

Blessings,

Pastor Michael L. Wilburn

Mark your calendars for November 17 (9:00 am-4:00 pm)  

Men’s and Women’s Ministry will be hosting a one-day joint event featuring Rosaria Butterfield. 

Rosaria will be speaking on her newest book, The Gospel Comes with a House key. 

17 Best Quotes:

“Radically ordinary hospitality is this: using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God. It brings glory to God, serves others, and lives out the gospel in word and deed.”

“The truly hospitable aren’t embarrassed to keep friendships with people who are different. They don’t buy the world’s bunk about this. They know that there is a difference between acceptance and approval, and they courageously accept and respect people who think differently from them.”

“Too many of us are sidelined by fears. We fear that people will hurt us. We fear that people will negatively influence our children. We fear that we do not even understand the language of this new world order, least of all its people. We long for days gone by. Our sentimentality makes us stupid. We need to snap ourselves out of this self-pitying reverie.”

“Practicing radically ordinary hospitality is your street credibility with your post-Christian neighbors.”

“In post-Christian communities, your words can be only as strong as your relationships. Your best weapon is an open door, a set table, a fresh pot of coffee, and a box of Kleenex.”

“Because Christian conversion always comes in exchange for the life you once loved, not in addition to it, people have much to lose in coming to Christ—and some people have more to lose than others.”

“If I had a dollar for everyone who has told me (both inside and outside the church) that I am wasting my education by staying at home and caring for my children, I would be a rich woman.”

“If men aren’t trained to lead by God’s design, they often destroy by Satan’s command.”

“Radically ordinary Christian hospitality does not happen in La La Land. It’s gritty and messy, and it forces us to deal with diversity and difference of opinion, with difficult people, with our own unrepented sin and hard hearts. It demands forgiveness before any of us is ready to cough it up.”

“Repentance always bears the fruit of giving glory to God. Repentance is not an end point; it is a launching pad. We repent unto holiness.”

“‘I am not weak like you’ will be forever my keywords. I am weak. As I heard my mother’s dying words, I felt that wall of shame wash over me. And then God’s Word had the last word in my heart: in my weakness, Christ is strong (2 Cor. 12:9–10).”

“That the whole neighborhood accused us of loving this sinner was likely the best Christian witness we have ever had. But that doesn’t mean it was pleasant.”

“That edge was ours now, like it or not. And here is the edge: Christians are called to live in the world but not live like the world. Christians are called to dine with sinners but not sin with sinners. But either way, when Christians throw their lot in with Jesus, we lose the rights to protect our own reputation.”

“There is something about grieving in the backdrop of God’s Word. It makes you long for the power of God’s Word—and fear it with a holy fear at the same time.”

“If hospitality becomes a point of contention, something is wrong. Stop and reevaluate. Pray. Map out goals and values. Be a team.”

“Hospitality shares what there is; that’s all. It’s not entertainment. It’s not supposed to be.”

“People who have too much often take themselves too seriously to actually give themselves to others in the way that God’s hospitality commands require.”

Come out and support the IBC men’s softball team on
Monday, June 11 at 7 PM at Henderson Field #1 as
they play Redemption Hill City Rain Line (804) 646-0751

New Church Office Hours: Beginning Monday, July 2, the church office hours will be Monday through Friday 8 AM to 4 PM.

Host Families / August 2-11, 2018
Looking for American host homes for 12 Chinese children, (male and female, ages 8 to 16) from Weifang, Shangdong Province. The children will be attending a summer camp
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM each day in town.

If you can provide a place to sleep, breakfast and dinner during their stay, transportation to and from camp, then contact Kelly Ober, kober@immanuelbaptist.org

Vacation Bible School
July 30 – August 3

SUMMER READING CLUB

Don’t Monkey Around: Go Bananas for Reading
July 8 – August 19 (6 weeks)
More details to come!

A weekly gathering dedicated to inter-generational worship of the Lord Jesus. We are serious about sharing our lives around knowing, singing, and praying God’s Word.

YOU ARE INVITED | ALL ARE WELCOME

JUNE, JULY, AUGUST
Wednesdays | 6:00 PM | Fellowship Hall

Upcoming Events:

June 10 – Graduate Sunday
June 17 – No PM Service/Father’s Day
June 24 – Acquaye Missionary Report
July 30 – Aug 3 – Vacation Bible School