Death

In the past two days I have learned of two strong, New Jersey Christians who have gone to be with the Lord. In the coming days their lives and service to Christ will be celebrated. Their families and friends will grieve, and rightly so. But the families and friends of these men will also rejoice in knowing that these men are now receiving the reward for their labors done for Christ in this life.

When C.H. Spurgeon died one of the hymns that was sung at a funeral service contained this line: "By death I shall escape from death." That blessed truth gives assurance to believers in Jesus Christ. We are living for more than this life. We are living for eternity. Death out of this life leads us into an eternal life which has no end. This escape from the second death is only provided to followers of Jesus.

Have you made sure that your death from this life will provide you with your escape from eternal death?

Building Update- June 2010

Your Building Committee at Cottrell Corners Community Church has met again and remain active. The current state of our progress is that we are waiting on the engineer to be ready to apply for permits. The engineer had some delays with NJDEP, but we have hopes that he will have everything prepared very soon. Once he presents us with the plans, we can either make changes or proceed by submitting the plans to Old Bridge Township for approval.

We continue to discuss ways to make the new building environmentally friendly. We have gathered information about solar panels and more is on the way.

We will continue to to more research regarding financing. The people of the church have given and are continuing to give. But of course the amount of money that is needed is still quite large. The more money we have available, the better shape we will be in when it comes time to get a loan.

One thing that will help the building project is if more people are part of the church. Ironically, one thing that will help the church gain people is the new building. We all need to do more in order to introduce our friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family to our congregation. Please don't feel that you have to wait until we have a new building to invite people to church. I encourage each of us to invite as many people as we can to come join us as we seek to know God together.

The Next Best Thing to Grace

In reading through Spurgeon's "Lectures to My Students" I came across the following quote. The context of this quote is related to making sure people are able to pay attention to a sermon. In this section of the lecture Spurgeon is talking about the physical room in which people meet. He says:

"The next best thing to the grace of God for a preacher is oxygen. Pray that the windows of heaven may be opened, but begin by opening the windows of your meeting-house."

Later in the same paragraph he lamented that many church buildings were not well designed for ventilation. How do you like his proposed solution to that problem?

"Provided all such chapels were properly insured, I could not pray for their
preservation from fire."

I don't know if churches in England in the 1800 made a lot of insurance claims after that. I trust Spurgeon never had a class action suit filed against him by the insurance companies.

Spurgeon then went on to explain how he had solved the ventilation problem in his congregation.

"In my former chapel in Park Street I mentioned to my deacons several times my
opinion that the upper panes of the iron-framed windows had better be taken
out, as the windows were not made to open. I mentioned this several
times, and nothing came of it; but it providentially happened one Monday that
somebody removed most of those panes in a masterly manner, almost as well as if
they had been taken out by a glazier. There was considerable consternation, and much conjecture as to who had committed the crime, and I proposed that a reward of five pounds should be offered for the discovery of the offender, who when found should receive the amount as a present. The reward was not forthcoming, and therefore I have not felt it to be my duty to inform against the individual. I trust none of you will suspect me, for if you do I shall have to confess that I have walked with the stick which let the oxygen into that stifling structure."