Fresh News from Friendly Street

Week of September 17th, 2023
Please join us this Sunday, as Pastor Jenny returns from California to share a special message.

        If you have any Prayer Requests, Praises, or Updates you'd like added to the newsletter, please email us at officemanager@friendlystreetchurch.org
so we can add them. Or you can call the church phone 541.345.6553 to contact staff.  
  Thank you!

Special Gifts of Friendly Street
Friendly Street Church is blessed to have members with great gifts. This week, we got to hear Dan N. share a message on Romans chapters 5 & 12. The video isn’t available to post online yet, but I will get it uploaded as soon as possible, for anyone who missed seeing it in person. It is always interesting to hear a different perspective, even on a text we’ve heard about multiple times. So, we thank Dan for sharing his gifts with us this Sunday. I know I learned something new
Another gift is prayer. I lost my glasses on Saturday— new prescription bifocals with the line-free lenses. I’d only had them for a couple of weeks, and they fell out of my backpack when I went to meet my sister. I searched my bag, my car, and my apartment multiple times. I even checked the recycling bin, with no success. So when I got to church, I asked Carol Z. and Sally M. For help. Carol led a prayer, and Sally said she would look for the glasses and ask around to see if anyone has spotted them. Sally is my sister’s roommate.
After church, Carol and I went to lunch, and not long after we sat down, I got a text from Sally that she had found my glasses. We all praised God.
This might seems like a small thing. I did have my glasses from last year that worked just fine, but it was a big thing to me. Carol could have laughed at me when I asked her to pray. She might have, just a little bit. But she called several people together and they prayed with me, and that prayer was answered.
We shouldn’t be ashamed to ask for prayer— in small things and big things. I prayed on my own, but it felt different when my church family joined me in that prayer. I felt comforted and loved. So let’s remember that, and share our prayers with each other, so we can lift each other up. This is another gift God has given to Friendly Street Church.

Small Group: Weekly on Wednesdays at 10 am: At the Church Library. They are currently doing a study of Psalms.
Game Night: Tuesday, October 17th. Theme TBD
Leadership Retreat: Sept. 22nd & 23rd-- Please be praying.
Baby Dedication: Steve and Shar's son Dale will have his baby dedication during the service on Sunday, Sept. 24th:  Corporate Communion: Sunday, October 1st.
Men's Breakfast:  Saturday, October 7th, 9 am. All are welcome to attend.
One Church One Day: Sunday, October 9th. Our day to pray for 24 hours.
Game Night: Tuesday, October 17th. Theme TBD
Friendly Street Prayer Walks: We are hoping to add one more Prayer Walk near the Church soon. Stay tuned for an update there.
Service for Jo Bray: There has been an illness in the family, so plans for the service are currently on hold.

Yesterday, I started my day off feeling very sad and depressed. All I wanted to do was go back to bed and hide my head under the covers. But I sat at my computer and I did some journaling. Looking back at what I wrote, I then see, “And then I saw a squirrel walk across my patio. And he had cute little squirrel ears.” That made me smile and suddenly, I felt better.
When I am in a bad mood, I sometimes find myself wallowing in it. I want to be grumpy, or I want to be sad. Sometimes, I want to be angry at the world. I don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing. God created us with a whole range of emotions, and sometimes we need to give ourselves space to experience those emotions.
But what tends to happen is that I want to stop feeling grumpy, or sad, or angry, and I can’t make that shift on my own. This only seems to happen with negative emotions for some reason. Maybe because I never want to stop feeling cheerful or happy. That would be really weird.
The longer I am stuck in that negative emotional loop, the harder it gets to break out of it. And then something happens, like seeing the squirrel yesterday. And suddenly I’m able to regulate my emotions again. And it’s such a relief when that happens.
I don’t think that squirrel crossed my patio by chance. I believe God sent that squirrel to help me out of the sad mood I was stuck in. God does that a lot, I think. Someone will call me just at the right time, or I’ll get an email with a praise after a prayer request. Sometimes, I get the urge to call or text a friend, and they tell me, “I’m so glad you reached out! I needed that today.”
It goes both ways. So I should be listening for those nudges. I feel really awkward doing things like that, but that’s how I know it’s God, not me.
I know I’m not alone in feeling negative at times. It happens to all of us, at some point. Even King David had moments of feeling lost and alone.
Take Psalm 22, for example. David starts off in verse one with, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?”
That’s definitely not a happy start. But by verse 26, his attitude has shifted. “The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the LORD will praise him—may your hearts live forever!”
David started off whining and complaining, and by the end of the Psalm, he was rejoicing and praising God. God isn’t afraid of our grumbling. He is not intimidated when we question him. He wants us to turn to him, even when we’re angry and accusing Him of causing our problems.
David turned to God, and because he did so, God was able to comfort him. David found peace in his relationship with God, even though his problems hadn’t been miraculously solved.
So, I guess that squirrel is really a reminder that I should turn to God, no matter how negative I’m feeling.
~susan~