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I love my church!  Well, its actually God’s church but I love His church and especially the part of His church called Church at the Grove, or as we affectionately refer to it, CATGrove, CATG, or The Grove!

God continues to blow me away with how he is moving in so many ways!  I am exciting out of my mind that we are training around 100 adult leaders this Saturday night at Leadership Community!  We will have training for our SundayServe teams on how to create an environment to WOW guests.  We will also have training for our Children’s ministry.  Oh yeah!

Easter is coming April 24!  Who are you praying for and preparing to invite to come with you?

This past Sunday we addressed our second Question of our “Questions Uncensored” series:  What does God say about homosexuality? Whoaa!

Here are some thoughts from Sunday:

The cultural issue of homosexuality is a hot issue politically, socially and morally and it is not going away.

If you’re like me, more than once you find yourself reading an article or listening to a story, and you think, “How am I supposed to feel about these things? Do we have the right to set boundaries around human behavior and relationships? If so, where do we draw those boundaries? And how do we respond civilly and Christian-ly to people who live outside those boundaries?”

We must approach this issue in humility!
Luke 18:9–14 (ESV)

First, we must look at what God says about marriage from the beginning!
Check out Genesis 2:18-25

In marriage, he brings a man and woman back together to reclaim the fullness of the divine image— masculinity and femininity.

Jesus confirms God’s plan in marriage.
Matthew 19:3–6 (ESV)

God’s design for sexuality is that it is to be a procreative and intimate celebration of love within the context of marriage.

There are 2 primary purposes for marriage:

1. Procreation – Genesis 1:28

2. Illustration – Ephesians 5:25-28

God does give us some specific prohibitions concerning sexuality:

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19

Leviticus 18 & 20

Romans 1:24–25 (ESV)

Romans 1:26–27 (ESV)

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (ESV)

Regardless of our beliefs concerning this tough issue, our response should be the same as that of Jesus as He encountered people:

Matthew 9:36–38 (ESV)
³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸ therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

At CATGrove we will stand for truth but we will model Jesus’ example concerning GRACE & TRUTH.  John 1:14

As we stand for TRUTH we will also create an environment and atmosphere where:

• Everybody’s welcome
• Nobody’s perfect
• Anything’s possible through Jesus!