The Real Tree Church August 2022 Newsletter

If this newsletter doesn't have two columns or either column doesn't go completely down to the gray banner at the bottom, click on "View this email in your browser" above to access the newsletter in its entirety.

Don't miss any of the information enclosed!

Hello Saints!

As our tenth-anniversary approaches, this month I am going to share with you some of our history as we were getting started and up and running as a church.

In 2009 God called me to begin the process of planting this church. Part of that process was to go back to school, so I enrolled at Northwestern Bible College (now University of Northwestern, St. Paul) in the biblical studies/theology program, and at the same time began putting together small groups. Becky and I ran and developed small groups from the fall of 2009 until we launched weekly public services.

In January of 2012, we began having launch team meetings once a month to build a team for the sole purpose of launching this church. We had the first meeting in our home with 32 people in attendance. It was apparent that our space was too small, so the rest of the monthly launch team meetings were held at the Eureka Town Hall.

In the summer of 2012, we rented the Eureka Town Hall for four Sundays. One Sunday in May, June, July, and August respectively. Between those Sundays, we also had a few services at my home in the yard. It became apparent as fall approached that the town hall was not going to fit our needs, so in August we began to search for another place to meet.

As you surely know, it takes stuff and money to make a church work, and we had very little of both, but God provided. A church associated with the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches from Ohio contacted me and offered to give us a trailer full of equipment. And, they also had it painted with our logo on the side. So we went from having virtually nothing to having a church in a box so to speak. Everything that we needed to have a public service and more was in that trailer, with the exception of a sound system. The church in a box did not come with a sound system, but God was not finished yet. Sometime before our preview services began (I can’t remember exactly when), God provided us with a sound system. The River Church in Farmington was closing its doors, and we were called to go pick up the equipment that was left behind, including a sound system! Once again God provided exactly what we needed when we needed it.

There were of course a lot of attacks and setbacks as the date approached for our public launch, but by the grace of God, we prevailed. God has provided and protected this church from its inception. He is indeed a great God! More to come next month.

Forever In His Grip,
Pastor Shon

First Launch Team Meeting

First Preview Service

Name: John Owen

Birth-Death: 1616 - August 24, 1683

Spouse: Mary Rooke (died 1675); Dorothy D'Oyley

Children: 11 children, ten of whom died in infancy; one daughter lived to adulthood, married, and shortly thereafter died of tuberculosis

Nationality:  English

A Puritan by upbringing, Owen was driven out of Oxford where he got his B.A. and M.A. by Bishop Laud's new religious reforms under King Charles I (Laud was later arrested by Parliament and executed). He became a chaplain and tutor for two different noblemen's families. Because he sided with parliament and not King Charles I, he lost out on inheriting his uncle's fortune because his uncle sided with King Charles. He eventually was given a parish of his own in Essex. He became friends with Oliver Cromwell after a sermon pleading for the sincerity of religion in high places. He traveled with Cromwell to both Ireland and Scotland, and afterward, Cromwell made him Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. Owen became an incessant writer publishing many spirited works. Because of this, he was invited by the Congregational churches in Boston, Massachusetts, to become their minister, but he declined. He was also invited by Harvard College to be their president. Other Dutch universities extended him the same position. He declined them all. He became respected by many of the nobility and both King Charles II and his brother King James II assured Owen of their good wishes to the dissenters. Owen was able to procure the release of John Bunyan (author of Pilgrim's Progress) whose preaching he admired. Owen occupied his time with continual writing, disturbed only by suffering from kidney stones and asthma.

Occupations/Professional Experience:

Chaplain
Tutor
Pastor
Political Activist
Author

Books: As of 2007, most of Owen's many works are still in print. Many have been combined or abridged to make them more readable. This list is just a few of them:

Communion with God
Commentary on Hebrews in 7 Volumes
The Mortification of Sin
The Glory of Christ: His Office and His Grace
A Dissertation on Divine Justice
Sin & Temptation: The Challenge to Personal Godliness
The Divine Power of the Gospel

Deadline for the September 2022 newsletter is August 21st. Email information to Jodi Hansen at news@therealtreechurch.org.

At The Real Tree Church, we are a family of believers who hold a very high view of God and Scripture. Worship with us as we give praise and worship through both hymns and contemporary music and receive strong, expository, biblical preaching.

It is our privilege to pray for each other. If you have a need for prayer, please tear-off the sheet in the Sunday bulletin and put it in the offering plate, speak with Pastor Shon, or email:
prayerandcare@therealtreechurch.org

If your need is immediate, please contact:
Pastor Shon at 651-428-0439.

Follow Steve Olson on his CaringBridge website:

www.caringbridge.org/visit/steveolson16

Giants appeared on earth sometime before Noah's flood. Genesis 6:4 says, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

The word Nephilim means "Fallen Ones," but some translations use the word giants instead. This is because the Bible says the Nephilim were giant-sized and strong. The spies who scouted out Canaan told Moses, "All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there" (Numbers 13:32-33).

When we hear the word "giant," we often conjure up a giant such as the one in Jack and the Beanstalk. In fairy tales, giants are usually ugly and have scowls, deep-set eyes, huge noses, messy beards, and are in desperate need of a bath.

According to Josephus, that may not be far off. Although the Bible doesn't tell us what they looked like, Josephus (a Jewish scholar who lived in Jesus' day) said, "The race of giants ... had bodies so large, and countenances [faces] so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing."  They must have been shocking to look at and probably had deep voices and shouted like fog horns.

Many Christians believe that the "sons of God" who married "the daughters of men" were evil angels who fell to earth with Satan and that their children were Frankenstein-type beings called giants. The scripture verse they quote is 2 Peter 2:4 which states: "God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons." This is a guess, and it's important to remember that it's only a guess. The Bible doesn't give a lot of details about how giants originated, so we really don't know.

What we do know is that before the Flood, Genesis 6:5 tells us that the wickedness of man was great. So these giants were wicked. We also know that only eight people from the pre-flood earth survived: Noah and his wife, his three sons, and their wives. No other humans survived the Flood--and that means no giants survived, either.

Little Ana Rosa Rodriguez was born into a world gone mad. In 1991, her mother, then 7 1/2 months pregnant, decided to have an abortion. Dr. Abu Hay, a reputed New York abortionist, agreed to perform the abortion. However, Dr. Hay failed. A few days later Ana was born missing her right arm. It had been severed by Dr. Hay in his botched abortion. The papers now dub him, “The Butcher,” and the state of New York convicted him on assault charges. Each time Ana looks at her right side she will know she was unwanted. She will see the work of Dr. Hay and her mother. What is so incredulous about this sad story is that people are outraged that he botched the abortion. Had Dr. Hay been successful in ending Ana’s life, this story never would have made the papers. Dr. Hay would have been heralded, along with hundreds of other abortion doctors, as a champion of a “woman’s right to choose.” Why are people not outraged that this abortion was attempted?

In this month's newsletter you will find:

From the Pastor's Study

Trustworthy Teachers, Preachers, and Authors

WORSHIP

Prayer Concerns

TRUTHS
& TRIVIA

Bible Giants

A World Gone Mad