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I am writing to invite you to attend a class I am teaching this fall in several locations around central Maine. The class is called, "Preparing for THE Advent." The description, times and locations are listed below. This class is completely relevant to everything happening around us every day. Please consider attending. If you can't make all six of them, come to the ones you can! Also, please spread the word and invite others! Praying for you...Don
THE Preparing for ^ Advent Every Sunday we declare our belief in the return our our Lord and every year there is the short season in the Liturgical calendar to remind us to be prepared for this momentous event. Almost every New Testament book refers to it and the Bible’s last book ends with the story of his return and the manifestation of His kingdom. But do we really know what it means to be prepared for His return? Do we have any idea what events are going to happen prior to his arrival? Does it have anything to do with our culture and society right now? And more importantly, does it have anything to do me and my daily struggles? This is not a bible prophecy class! We will not be revealing the meaning of the number 666, the identity of the antichrist or any other such nonsense! We will be reflecting on the words of Jesus, the teaching found in scriptures and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, with a heavy emphasis on practical applications to be prepared. Lisbon Falls Sunday evenings at 6:30 at Holy Trinity Church hall Winthrop Tuesday Evenings at 6:30 at St. Francis Church Waterville Wednesdays at 1:00 PM and again at 6:00PM at the Notre Dame church hall Gardiner Thursday evenings at 6:30 at the Knights of Columbus Hall at 109 Spring St. Starting the week of October 13 for Six Sessions Please feel free to attend even if you cannot attend all of them!
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ENTERING THE ABUNDANT LIFE
"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly." - John 10:10 Jesus has offered to lead us into peace, joy and abundant life, yet so few of us seem to have peace and joy these days. ARE His promises true? Even in this crazy, modern age that we live in? Are they true for you? We want to invite you to come, and perhaps learn how better to focus on God's presence in your life, and to discover more truth about who God is, and about who you are to Him. These are the truths that God can use to lead us into greater peace and joy in our lives. St. Michael Parish Tuesdays 6:30pm at St. Francis Hall, 130 Route 133, Winthrop, Starting on 10/10 Thursdays 6:30pm at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 109 Spring Street, Gardiner, Starting on 10/12 Corpus Christi Parish Wednesdays 6:00 PM at Notre Dame Church, Waterville Starting 10/11 Topics Covered: God Has a Plan God Loves You If God Loves Me, Why Does My Life Stink? Renewing Your MindSurrendering to the Plan The Most Powerful Prayer Presented by Don Smith Don Smith presents a new monthly series:
“Simple Commands” Scripture abounds with many short, simple commands. And because of their brevity, it seems like they should be easy to do. And yet, they end up being quite difficult: “Be perfect. Be content. Give thanks in everything. Give freely. Be anxious for nothing. Forgive.” In fact, the impossibility of consistently living these out leads many of us, if not most of us, to dismiss them as unattainable ideals. But… what if they are not? What if we could actually be content, and free from fear, and overwhelmingly generous? It sounds like it would be a wonderful life, perhaps even the abundant life that Jesus promised. In this new monthly series, we will explore each of these in turn, and in depth, and we will explore the profound truths that undergird them. This will enable us to grow in our ability to live them out. During the month of October, we will explore the apostle’s instruction in Hebrews 13:5, to‘be content’. Is it really possible for us to be content with that which we have? When we live in this consumeristic, materialistic culture where we are bombarded with hundreds of advertisements every day that are designed to make us discontent? Is it possible to be content with our appearance, abilities (or lack thereof), possessions, jobs, churches, spouses, etc? Come explore the scriptural foundations of contentedness, and discover the perspectives and practices that can help you to grow in your own ability to be content. First Sunday of the month: October 1st in Auburn 3:00 pm at St Philip Church 6:00 pm at the Village Inn Restaurant 2nd Sunday of the month: October 8th, Vassalboro 6:00 pm at the St. Bridget Center (Wine and accompanying snacks provided!) Hi!
I invite you to join me in making a real change during Lent. Most of the time, we give up chocolate or alcohol, maybe add some extra prayers. But Lent is an invitation to make real change, to repent - turn away - from that which does us harm. We find ourselves wondering, how do we do that? When Paul is writing to the Romans, he makes the startling claim that you can be transformed, "by the renewing of your mind..." By aligning our thinking with the profound truths and realities of the Kingdom of God, we can literally and profoundly change our lives. Looking at Paul's advice to "take captive every thought," to "think on these things," to "have the same mind...", etc., I will help participants learn to recognize the lies that they unconsciously believe, and see how to begin replacing them with truth. This an important spiritual battle. For those who are struggling with temptation, or addiction, to heal from past abuse, or other such issues, this is the Lent for you! Instead of giving up chocolate, let's give up negative thinking, shame, and fear, and embrace the freedom Jesus has won for us. Sundays 3:00 at St Philip, Auburn 6:00 Village Inn, Auburn Wednesdays 6:15 St. Rose of Lima Room, Holy Family Church Hall, Lewiston And on the Evangelize Me Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTKTU9Jv31d9gNvkuHGEuDght It is Finished.With these words, Jesus declared that he had accomplished the Father's plan to bring salvation to all of creation, and especially his human creation, made in his image, his children, through the sacrificial gift of himself on the cross.
Several months ago this scripture came to me in a time of prayer. I received it as a word of encouragement that the cruxifixction experience I had been going through was somehow going to come to an end. As many of you, know the last couple of years have been just plain awful and I was ready to move on to the resurrection life and power. Alas, there was a bit more to endure. I am both happy and heartbroken to share the news that our beautiful home in Monmouth sold. God provided us a wonderful buyer, and a good price. We endured the incredible stress of packing and storing or getting rid of everything we own and saying goodbye. Right before the closing a friend came to help and as soon as she got out of the car, I saw that her T-shirt had, "It is finished" on it. Naturally she had no idea that the Lord had given me that verse as an encouragement months before, so she was pretty surprised when I started crying. That is just one of the many little ways the Lord has sustained and encouraged us in these last few months. And so, the first phase of our grand plan of disentangling us from everything that hinders us from being available to the Lord for full time ministry is complete. We are living in a camper in our daughter's backyard. It has only been a week so we are still getting settled. We are going to take a few weeks to rest and to catch up with friends and family while we pray for direction and provision. Our hearts are full and we are looking forward to writing and teaching as the Lord leads. Our plan is to buy or build a small home or camp in a quiet corner somewhere, but we will see what the Lord has in mind and what he provides as we follow Him down this path. We want to thank so many of you who have reached out to us with words of encouragement, prayers and support for Evangelize Me. We are blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives. Hopefully we will be seeing many of you soon, one way or another. You are in ours hearts and prayers.Don and Hollis Way past time for an update
Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and greetings for all the other holy days, birthdays, etc. for the last few months! Sorry to be out of touch for so long but it has been a difficult season and couldn’t be helped. The past two years have been, in many ways, the most difficult we have ever experienced, and also, in practically every aspect of our lives. It has been a time of sharing in Christ’s suffering and death, and so we expect we shall have a new share in his resurrected life, as well. We know, trust, and believe that “God uses all things for good…” and we look forward to the fruit born of this time. We hope there has been a stripping away of flesh, ego, and worldliness, and a renewing of our missionary passion that began our journey with Jesus 40 years ago The conclusion we have come to, is that all we want to do is be in relationship with the people we love and to make ourselves available to the Holy Spirit to be able encourage and teach his people in these crazy days. God’s people need encouragement in order to be the light we are called to be in this ever darkening world. We believe that God has gifted us to do that in some small way and are excited to see what he has in store for us. The tricky part of being free to follow the Spirit is disentangling ourselves from this world as much as we are able to. To facilitate that, we have decided to put our house on the market this spring. Beyond that, we’re not sure where we are going or what our lives will look like. Our goal is to live as simply and inexpensively as possible, and be freed up to do more of what is important to us. We are trusting the Lord to find us a place that will meet our needs in this regard. We’ll see. Exciting and scary at the same time, but we know that He will take care of us. So, I will try to keep you all posted as things move along. Know that Hollis and I are greatly looking forward to seeing each of you and getting to spend time with you again. Praying for you, Don and Hollis Hello Everyone! And Happy New Year!
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AuthorDon Smith is a "revert" to the Catholic Church. After being a Protestant minister for over 20 years he is happy to be "home." Archives
September 2023
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