Grace Church Modesto

Useful Scriptures Page Added

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:46:00 +0000

Each week at Grace, we are encouraged to learn a new verse from the Bible. It can be so helpful to have some key Scriptures instantly accessible in our minds throughout the day, so we can meditate on them, or use them in witnessing or in our spiritual warfare.

We decided to create a page on our blog to collect all these verses in one place. This complements a set of memory verses that are present in the Memory Tools area of our site, so there is a link from the new blog page to take you there if you want to expand your Scripture and catechism memory.

Here is the address of the new blog page - we hope you will find it helpful!

http://graceopcmodesto.blogspot.com/p/useful-scriptures.html

Memory Verse for the Week Beginning May 27, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:25:00 +0000

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may
boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Memory Verse for the Week Beginning May 20, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:43:00 +0000

"But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they
will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'"" (Luke 16:31)

Translation Tool Added to Grace Church Blogs!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Sat, 12 May 2012 03:59:00 +0000

We are delighted that we have been able to add a Google translation tool to several of our more text-based blog services. You will see a drop-down box at the right of this blog which enables you to choose the language you would like it to be displayed in.

You will find the same tool on our "Daily Reflections", "Why Use the Means of Grace?" and "What is the Gospel" blogs.

It is our hope that this addition will make the contents of these sites more readily accessible to those whose first language is not English.

Grace Church on Pinterest

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Sat, 12 May 2012 03:49:00 +0000

We are starting to explore how we might be able to make use of Pinterest in our internet ministries. You can check out our boards at this link:

http://pinterest.com/gopcmodesto/

Memory Verse for the Week Beginning May 13, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:46:00 +0000

But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and
be with Christ, for that is very much better;" (Philippians 1:23)

Memory Verse for the Week Beginning May 06, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:38:00 +0000

And He said to them, "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it
is written: 'THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR
AWAY FROM ME." (Mark 7:6)

Memory Verse for the Week Beginning April 29, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:52:00 +0000

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor
stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! 2 But his
delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and
night. 3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in
whatever he does, he prospers." (Psalm 1:1-3)

New Internet Ministry Space with Gospel Focus!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:00:00 +0000

We are very excited about the changes we have made to the structure and format of quite a lot of our internet ministry content. We are even more excited that these changes enabled us to create a space, integrated with our main website, but devoted to materials that present the Gospel one way or another. You can find this space at this link:

http://gracemodestogospel.blogspot.com

You will find sections devoted to Gospel-focused sermons, to short audio clips with a Gospel challenge, to video clips and to other presentation formats in which the Gospel is communicated.

It is our prayer that this area will be a useful resource in evangelism - both to equip Christians to preach the Gospel themselves, but also as a place to point non-believers so they can find out what the Gospel is all about.

Changes to Our Internet Ministry Formatting

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 01:53:00 +0000

You may have noticed this already, but just in case you haven't, we thought we would send out a note to let you know. We spent some time over the last two weeks putting quite a lot of our content on the internet into a brand new format that looks surprisingly familiar - because it is just like the format we use on our main Grace Church website and it integrates much more closely with that site than it did before. Here is a summary of the changes we have made:

We have created a new space to host our church blog, our bulletin, our widgets and our video tutorials. As a result, over the next month or so, we will be retiring the separate spaces that used to contain this information. The new space lives at this address: http://graceopcmodesto.blogspot.com.
We revamped the format of the following spaces:

We created an entirely new area that we are very excited about but we want to make a separate post about that!

We hope you like the new format, the extra functionality it gives and the tighter integration with our main website that we now have for all this content!

Memory Verse for 4/22/2012

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:11:00 +0000

And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His
nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made
purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on
high," (Hebrews 1:3)

A Risen Savior!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:53:00 +0000

We took the opportunity on Easter Sunday to remind ourselves that Jesus is not a dead person, but rather One Who conquered death and reigns in heaven forever. As such, we need to pay careful attention to His work and His words, since He has opened the only way for any of us to get to heaven.

Click here to see this message.

New Grace Church "Quotables" Ministry

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:49:00 +0000

We have begun to produce very short clips from our audio recording ministry (up to about 45 seconds in length) and to share them on our Facebook and Twitter pages. We are using the "Audioboo" site to distribute these. Check out our new "Quotables" page to see (and hear) the 20 most recent clips.

We hope you find this new ministry useful!

New Home For Our Church Blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:43:00 +0000

Hi! You have come to a new area of our web site, which is still under development but (apart from anything else) will be the new home for our blog. This is the place where we will give news about the development of our ministries, but we will also highlight special events happening in the church or other items worthy of comment. From time to time we might also remind readers of the resources that are available to them on our website and in other parts of our internet ministry. The blog has an RSS feed you can subscribe to if you want to make sure you don't miss any of our posts - or else come back from time to time and catch up on our news!

Martyn Lloyd-Jones' Expositions on Ephesians

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Hodson) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 03:00:00 +0000

The Martyn Lloyd-Jones Trust in the USA recently announced that they intend to podcast the sermon series from his expositions in Ephesians, beginning On January 8th. It will take 3-4 years to run through them all at the rate of one a week.

You can find the podcast at this site.

Gospel 'Prezi'ntations

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 02:34:00 +0000

We have been developing some presentations of the Gospel using an internet tool called Prezi. We are still experimenting with it but we thought you might like to take a look at what we have come up with so far. We have posted them on our facebook page, and they can also be embedded on blogs (like this one) and shared in a variety of other ways. If you like them, feel free to share them with others!

The Gospel on Prezi

Standing in Christ - The Pit of Destruction on Prezi

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Featured Ministry Contents - June 2011

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 02:56:00 +0000

Digging down into our website, we found the following tools and teaching content related to God's Word. We hope you will find them useful!

Why Read and Hear God's Word? We publish one good reason to do so every week on our "Why Use the Means of Grace" blog.

Bible Study and Tools. Twelve lessons from our Four Year Curriculum reviewing principles for Bible Study.

Scripture Index. Search for messages on our site from different books of the Bible.

The Gospel in 2 Minutes: watch a clip from a recent message preached at Grace:

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Why Use the Means of Grace?

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:17:00 +0000

We have just completed our series of 52 Biblical reasons for believers to pray together - one reason for every week of the year! We began with the fact that we are commanded to pray, then worked through prayer as a spiritual weapon, prayer as a means to know more of the Holy Spirit's influences in our lives and therefore to have more of His fruit produced within us, and closed by looking at how to overcome some things that may hold us back from praying. As one of the “Reasons” asks us, “can we think of anything more powerful and effective that we can do to forward God's plans and purposes than to pray?”
You will find links to each of the reasons by clicking here. Read each entry prayerfully(!) and ask God to convict you of the truth of the arguments presented and to motivate you to pray more, in private, in your families and in your fellowships.
With the completion of our series of 52 Reasons to Pray, we decided to expand the blog to consider reasons to use the other means of grace that God has provided. This week, therefore, we have begun a series on 52 Reasons to Read and Hear God’s Word.
We begin this series by meditating on the fact that God’s Word is really that - the Word of God and not of men. The King of Kings Himself has spoken to us through His written Word, but sadly in many cases all our household Bibles do is to gather dust on bookshelves. The series presented here is therefore designed to give us reasons from the Bible to encourage and persuade us to read its pages more than we currently do. It is as we read and listen to God's Word and as God's Spirit uses it in our lives that it will do the work for which God gave it to us - that of salvation and sanctification. Our prayer is that we all might become avid students of the Word - and not just hearers of it but doers also!

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Nothing you can do to be saved?

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:20:00 +0000

Check out our evening sermon on May 15th at 6 PM: "I won't come to Christ because... There's nothing I can do to be saved."
Some people, when exposed to the doctrine of God's Sovereignty in salvation, turn this into an excuse for continued unbelief. They say to themselves, "If I am meant to become a Christian, God will make me one. There is nothing I can do about it!" Therefore, they do nothing, but continue in a path of disobedience and unbelief. We will see that such an approach is highly presumptuous and effectively puts God to the test. While it is certainly true that God alone decides whom He will save and whom He will leave to receive the just punishment for their sin, we must not overlook all the commands of Scripture that tell us we are to strive to enter God's Kingdom, we are to ask, to seek, to knock, we are not to give up until God grants us admission to the company of His people. Inactivity on our part will most effectively seal our eternal fate.
Come and join us or watch our live broadcast!

The panel below features a short clip from a recent message in this series:

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Featured Ministry Contents - May 2011

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Wed, 04 May 2011 05:44:00 +0000

Digging down into our website, we found the following tools and teaching content related to prayer. We hope you will find them useful!

Prayer Matters. A very practical look at prayer, including what makes it so important and how God's people can begin to pray truly effectively.
Reasons to Pray. 52 reasons believers should pray together, in a blog format.
Essentials of Prayer. A series of lessons focusing on the basics of prayer and the Lord's Prayer.

The Gospel in 2 Minutes: watch a clip from a recent message preached at Grace:

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Featured Website Contents - April 2011

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 19:49:00 +0000

Easter is approaching, when we take extra time to remember the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have several sermons and teaching materials on our website that we hope you will find useful as you meditate on these things.

Search for messages on Christ's resurrection, Easter, or other related topics in our Topic Index.
See how Christ's death and resurrection were revealed in the Old Testament
Use our Catechism for Young Children teaching materials to teach children about the Covenant of Grace and why Jesus died and was raised again.

The Gospel in 2 Minutes: watch a clip from a recent message preached at Grace:

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What's in Your Way?

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:33:00 +0000

Check out our evening sermon on March 20th at 6 PM: "I Won't Come to Christ Because... There's Something I Don't Want to Give Up."
In this new series, we are examining some of the justifications people give for not coming to Christ and receiving Him as Savior and Lord.
The message will focus on the Rich Young Ruler (Matt 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, Luke 18:18-30), who went away from Jesus sad because he was not willing to give up his great wealth on earth in order to have treasure in heaven (eternal life). We will see that it will not profit us to gain the whole world if, as a result, we forfeit our souls.
Come and join us or watch our live broadcast!

The panel below features a short clip from a recent message in this series:

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Featured Ministry Contents - March 2011

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 03:08:00 +0000

We produce several devotional tools which we hope you will find useful!

"Puritweets." Every day we send out a short (but powerful) quote from one of the Puritans.
Reasons to Pray. Each week, we consider a different Biblical reason why believers should pray together.
Daily Reflections. A daily reminder of points and applications from our Lord's Day ministry.

The Gospel in 2 Minutes: watch a clip from a recent message preached at Grace:

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No Time For Christ Right Now?

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:33:00 +0000

Check out our evening sermon on February 20th at 6 PM: "I Won't Come to Christ Because... I Just Don't Have Time Right Now."
We will look at Paul's encounter with Felix in the Acts of the Apostles, where Paul spoke on righteousness, self-control and the judgment and Felix (who became afraid) dismissed Paul until a more "convenient time". We will examine the elements of Paul's message and see that Felix was right to be afraid but completely wrong not to come to Christ on the pretext that it was not convenient or timely at that moment. We will see that it is both dangerous and foolish to react to the Gospel as Felix did.
Come and join us or watch our live broadcast!

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Featured Website Contents - February 2011

noreply@blogger.com (GraceChurch Modesto) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:14:00 +0000

Digging down into our website, we found the following tools and teaching content related to teaching children. We hope you will find them useful!

Catechism for Young Children. A newly completed set of teaching notes, student pamphlets and other materials for teaching the catechism to younger children.
Catechism memory. A tool to help children (and adults!) memorize the Catechism for Young Children questions and answers. We also have memory tools for Scripture verses and the Shorter Catechism.

The Gospel in 2 Minutes: watch a clip from a recent message preached at Grace:

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