SABBATH ANNOUNCEMENTS & REMINDERS 

 

United Church of God, an International Association

North Canton & Youngstown, OH; Pittsburgh, PA; Wheeling, WV Congregations

 

SABBATH, MAY 11, 2019

 

Youngstown – 11:00 a.m.                   North Canton – 2:00 p.m.       

Wheeling – 11:00 a.m.                                    Pittsburgh – 2:30 p.m.

Dear brethren,

Thank you all for your prayers for God’s direction of and blessing upon the 2019 General Conference of Elders! The spirit of the conference was good. Overall the elders and wives had good discussions amongst themselves about conditions in their congregations, sat in on some valuable lectures and did the business of the Church by balloting on issues and Council of Elders members. The business meeting for the latter was on last Sunday.

As per the short announcement I sent late in the week, I was elected to a term of three years on the Council of Elders. That will entail attending quarterly meetings that are usually held at the Home Office in Cincinnati. At the Council meeting following the GCE each of the Council members signed up to serve on several Council oversight committees that focus on certain topics or parts of the work of the Church and then bring reports to the Council. The three I was able to sign-up for are: the Education Committee, the Media Committee and the Roles and Rules Committee. 

The Council provides leadership within the ministry and oversees the administration of the Church and our part of God’s Work that UCG is able to do. But one thing is certain, God’s ministers do need your heartfelt and thoughtful prayers for God’s wisdom, inspiration, health and encouragement to energetically do what Jesus Christ as Head of the Church has given us to do.

Keep the true faith—and spread it,

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Randy Stiver, Pastor 

Pastor’s contact information:  PO Box 1474, Massillon, OH  44648.  Home phone: 330-809-0566, cell phone: 740-739-7248. Email addresses: randy_stiver@ucg.org  or rpstiver@gmail.com (both come to the same location). For emails regarding scheduling (church events, visits or counseling), please copy my wife Linda ldstiver@gmail.com. Announcements should be sent to my email and copied to our daughter Amanda at anstiver@gmail.com as she helps process them each week.

1.    Church Circuit Calendar :  (please note three Youngstown time changes underlined)

May 11	Sabbath service	Youngstown – 11:00;  North Canton – 2:00;  Wheeling – 11;  Pittsburgh – 2:30
May 18	Sabbath service	Youngstown – 1:00;  North Canton – 2:00;  Wheeling – 2:30;  Pittsburgh – 10:00
May 24	Bible Study webcast	7:30 p.m. EST  –  Title to be announced  https://www.ucg.org/congregations/north-canton-oh/webcast
May 25	Sabbath service	Youngstown – 11:00;  North Canton – 2:00;  Pittsburgh – 2:30;  Wheeling – 11:00
June 1	Sabbath service	Wheeling – 10:00; Pittsburgh – 2:30; Youngstown – 2:00; North Canton – 2:00
June 7	Bible Study	7:30 p.m. EST  –  Title to be announced  https://www.ucg.org/congregations/north-canton-oh/webcast
June 8	Sabbath Service	Youngstown – 11:00; North Canton – 2:00; Wheeling – 11:00; Pittsburgh – 2:30
June 9	Pentecost	North Canton-Youngstown combine with Cleveland at Fairlawn; Pittsburgh-Wheeling combined at the Ramada Inn in Washington

 

2.    LOCAL PRAYER REQUESTS: (*new or updated) – additional updates may be given during announcements at Sabbath services.

·        Victoria Banit – (North Canton): Has been back at hospital for a time to deal with another bout of severe MS symptoms.

·        Dick Walters – (North Canton):  Continuing to heal from heart condition and related ailments. 

·        Regina Segeti – (North Canton):  At home with home nurse visits, sends her greetings and thanks for your continued prayers.

·        Elizabeth Dezso – (North Canton) Still recuperating at home after the long bout with flu, double pneumonia, ulcers and a flu virus. Your continued prayers are much appreciated! 

·        Neal Warner – (North Canton) Ongoing, extreme pain in his neck and legs.  

·        Roland Armann – At age 89, living in Powhatten Point, OH and recovering from a stroke. Hopes to be healthy enough soon to begin attending in Wheeling.

·        *Dale Harman – (North Canton):  In addition to his other ailments, Dale has been recovering from some severe heart atrial fibrillation, skin cancer and other ailments and also this week extreme neck pain. Thankfully, after being anointed Friday the neck pain lessened considerably. He sends his greeting to all, especially in the North Canton church.

·        Jenny Luchitz – (North Canton):  Severe bursitis and healing of a severe, open-sore bruise on her leg.

·        *Mitch Showers – (North Canton) As announced last week, his prostate surgery was successful. This week he got word from the doctors that his scans are clear, the pain has subsided, he’s up and around and feeling well! And he and Anita thank you for your prayers!

·        Greyson Parkhill – the 11 year old grandson of Jim Parkhill in New Mexico (who tunes in to all our Bible Study webcasts). Greyson has a congenital and now life-threating digestive condition. Please add him to your prayer list.

3.    KINGDOM OF GOD SEMINARS 

We hope to have the seminar Sabbaths selected for each area by next Sabbath. They will be strung out over the rest of this year.

4.    SPOKESMAN CLUB – May 19

We need five club members to volunteer to give speeches at the next club meeting in Steubenville, OH. Those who are club graduates from the past would give one of the Graduate Club speeches. New club members who volunteer would be giving a full-length (6 ½ minutes) Icebreaker speeches. Volunteers, please contact Jim Kocher, Keith Wilson or Randy Stiver, the Club directors.

Gentlemen, we have one volunteer so far (thank you, Tom Franks). We need four more of you to step up to the plate this weekend!

5.    THE SECOND PASSOVER 

God made provision for the second Passover in Numbers 9:1-12. The instance there involved men who were unavoidably not able to take the regular Passover that year. God provided for they to take the Passover exactly one month later. This has, therefore, long been the practice in God’s true Church.  If as a baptized member of the Church you were unable for an unavoidable reason (sickness, injury, emergency, etc.) to take the Passover last month at the appointed time, then you should take the 2nd Passover. The date for the second Passover is Saturday night (after sundown), May 18th. If you have any questions regarding this, please ask your pastor or one of the elders.

6.    Church Garage Sale – North Canton

Mark and Amanda Miller will be holding a garage sale in June and would like to extend it into a local church activity. If you would like to donate items, you are welcome to receive your asking price or donate that sum to one of the church’s Good Works programs or the Festival Assistance Fund. 

Please drop off the items at Mark and Amanda’s by June 1st (address below) or if it is feasible, they can stop by and pick up your item(s). Whatever goes unsold will be donated to Goodwill. 

Contact information for Mark and Amanda Miller (address in the member listing is out of date):

Phone: 234-244-7491   Address: 4790 Amherst Ave NW, Massillon, OH 44646   Amanda’s email:amandamiller52216@gmail.com

7.    NEW BIBLE READING PROGRAM:  PENTECOST—ANTICIPATION & AFTERMATH

Our new congregational, Bible reading program builds on the interest, participation and benefit of the “Read the Psalms by Passover” project. The two books of the Bible that provide a logical lead-up to Pentecost are the books of Luke and Acts (technically, The Acts of the Apostles). The project is voluntary, but it will provide points of very interesting and beneficial fellowship discussion on the Sabbath.

Luke, a gentile physician, traveled extensively with the apostle Paul. God used him to record one of the four gospel accounts of Christ’s life, ministry and death for our sins. He also inspired Luke to write the Book of Acts.  This makes the two books of Scripture a logical study of the life and ministry of our Lord and Savior that led to the beginning of God’s Church on Pentecost, followed by the growth of God’s Church in tha first century.

Here is the schedule:

Luke 1 to 8          April 28 to May 4   

Luke 9 to 17        May 5 – 11          

Luke 18 to 24  May 12 – 18     (reading for the coming week)

Acts 1 to 10         May 19 – 25

Acts 11 to 19       May 26 to June 1

Acts 20 to 28       June 2 - 8

SABBATH FOCUS COLUMN

PROPHETIC GEOGRAPHY – NORTH, SOUTH, EAST & WEST

By Randy Stiver

O, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat…

(from: The Ballad of East and West, by Rudyard Kipling)

Although there is no North or South in the poet’s quote, they each play a pivotal, prophetic role on the actual road to God’s great judgment seat, the destination of all endtime prophecy in the Bible. Take a short lesson in biblical geography to better visualize those prophecies.

Locations of the great non-Israelite powers

All prophetic directions in the Bible are oriented from Jerusalem, the capital of ancient Israel. 

Let’s start with this dramatic, endtime prophecy:  “At the time of the end the king of the South shall attack him; and the king of the North shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter the countries, overwhelm them, and pass through“ (Daniel 11:40).

The King of the North in the endtime (our time today) must thus be Europe, especially central Europe. The King of the South by contrast is the Middle Eastern and North African nations. 

“But news from the east and the north will trouble him [the King of the North]; therefore he shall go out with great fury to destroy and annihilate many” (Daniel 11:44).

The east would then be a confederation of the nations of Asia, likely dominated by Russia or China, who will move to attack the forces of the King of the North who has crushed the King of the South.

Locations of modern Israelite nations

God inspired His prophet Isaiah to write of a time when He would “…bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel is gathered to Him” (Isa. 49:5). Jacob, or by his other name Israel, in modern times are the nations that descended from his sons who engendered the Twelve Tribes of Israel. But which way from Jerusalem did the Israelites migrate to form their modern, national homelands? 

 Isaiah answers that in Isaiah 12:49.  

“Surely these shall come from afar;
Look! Those from the north and the west,
And these from the land of Sinim.”

 The bulk of the nations descended from the 12 Tribes of Israel anciently migrated north and west from the Promised Land!  That would mean the northern and western nations of Europe—England, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Benelux nations and the Scandinavian nations. Going further west, it includes the USA and Canada. The same verse also indicates that some will come from “Sinim” (the south), as in Australia, New Zealand and a few from modern, Israelite populations in southern Africa.

 Present prophetic dynamics

 Today we live in the earlier stages of the “time of the end” that is coming closer and closer. Through His true Church, God is proclaiming a warning witness to the nations, especially those of Israelite ancestry. This follows the precedent of when He commissioned the prophets of old to warn ancient Israel and Judah of their captivity and punishment if they did not repent of their sins. And that warning message is also a message of hope as the true gospel of the Kingdom!

 East is east, west is west and north and south are where they are. But the nations from all directions of the compass will finally converge in Jerusalem when the truly great and all-powerful Jesus Christ returns to earth. That great event will be a “time of trouble” that will lead directly to much better times:  the wonderful, world tomorrow of God’s Kingdom on earth!

End