September 5, 2021

Upcoming Events and Notices

We have resumed in-person worship service. Please join us at 11 AM. You can find the order of worship and songs here

Please join us as we read another collection of great books for the year 2021. You can find the list here.

The complementary copies of “Gentle and Lowly” by Dane Ortlund is now available. We encourage you to take a copy or two!

September 12 (Lord’s Day): Please join us for the monthly fellowship lunch after the worship service.

September 16 (Thursday 7PM): We will begin a new mid-week study of Revelation starting in September. We will follow the outlines of “Let’s Study Revelation” by Derek Thomas.

Thank you for your continued support of Grace Fallbrook (PCA). Your loving support makes the proclamation of the gospel and the building up of the saints possible. Please continue to mail in your gifts and offerings to our church treasurer, Bruce Summers. In addition, our church website now features online giving. Please visit the church website and click on "Give" which you will find in the upper left corner of our church's website. When you click on "Give Online Now" button on that page, you will be directed to the PCA Foundation where you can give towards Grace Fallbrook (PCA).

Before We Worship

Starting this Sunday we are once again including the Shorter Catechism during our worship service. For many people today the word "catechism" is not a familiar word. The word "catechism" comes from the Greek word κατηχέω, and it means instruction. For example, Paul writes in 1 Cor 14:19 "Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct (κατηχέω) others, than ten thousand words in a tongue." The word also appears in Galatians 6:6 "Let the one who is taught (κατηχέω) the word share all good things with the one who teaches", as well as Acts 18:25 concerning Apollos, "He had been instructed (κατηχέω) in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John." The Apostles and the early Church well-understood the importance of a serious and well-organized instruction. This has been a concern shared by every church throughout history that understood its sacred duty of faithfully abiding in God's Word and faithfully passing it on to the next generation. Not surprisingly, then, the churches of the Reformation tradition have always put a premium on catechesis, to instruct God's people to become competent students of God's Word.

So we are once again embarking on a new round of catechesis. Along the way, we will discover how faithful the Reformed faith is to the Scriptures, for the Reformed faith is nothing but a faithful summary of the Bible's teachings. More importantly, we will find that a thoughtful study of the Shorter Catechism will make us not only better students of the Bible, but also better worshipers of God.

This week we begin with the famous first question of the Shorter Catechism: "What is the chief end of man?" The answer is just as famous. And justly so! "Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." I encourage you to read over a quick lesson on Shorter Catechism Q.1 here. You can find all Shorter Catechism lessons here.