Every three  years, we cover the five basic skills that every Christian needs to perfect to live a pleasing and rewarding life in God. One of those five skills is the ability to read the Bible and learn from it yourself. This is the first message in a series titled "A Summer in the Good Book". The series goes through the Book of Galatians and covers the basic skills needed to do personal inductive Bible Study. This first message also looks at the True Gospel of Jesus Christ and the ways people try to change it.

Pastor Rick tried some new and innovative ideas in this message...including interaction with the congregation, allowing them also to talk to each other. Because of this, half of the message could not be recorded. But we have the essential aspect of it on this recording.

We begin the summer of study into how you can learn the Bible for yourself with effectiveness and joy. Before looking at "how" to do it, we will look this morning on how the Bible can benefit your life when you learn to learn from it properly.

This is the first of two pre-messages in our summer series "A Summer with the Good Book". Pastor Larry Yurk kicks this off with his message and Pastor Mike Phillips will continue next Sunday in getting us ready for the Book of Galatians.

Every two years, the Christian and Missionary Alliance (the Movement our church is part of) meets for vision, strategy and spiritual refreshing. This past week, we met in Louisville, KY for 6 days. I was honored to give the Thursday night message to Council. The theme for the week was "Jesus Only" and my message focuses on Intercessory Prayer.