Good morning on this Saturday, September 8th. Today's blog is a potpourri of items I'd like to discuss.

(1) Please be sure to sign up as soon as possible for my 44th Anniversary/Retirement dinner on Thursday, November 8th. There is a limited number of seats at the Davenport Fairgrounds facility and seating is on a first come-first served sign-up basis. It promises to be a wonderful evening of great food, fellowship and fun. I would hate for you to miss this very special occasion.

(2) We are in a countdown to the weekend of September 22nd, 23rd in a special effort to bring our unsaved/unchurched relatives, friends and neighbors to Edgewood's services to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. After hearing the fate of those who will be left behind during our prophecy series, it behooves all of us to go all out to reach those who don't know Christ before our Lord returns. These outreach services coming up in just two short weeks will provide an excellent opportunity to bring them to church and win them to Christ.

(3) Canada is closing its embassy in Iran and urging their citizens to return home, ostensibly because of Iran's failure to protect other country's embassies, but the undercurrent is that they expect Israel to strike Iran's nuclear sites sometime before the end of the year. Many analysts are opining that a strike against Iran is highly likely before our presidential elections. Syria, Hezbollah, and others have vowed if Iran's nuclear sites are attacked they will retaliate against both the United States and Israel. Clearly such a strike grows more likely every day.

(4) Aren't you sick and tired of all of the political ads flooding the airwaves. Usually we have to endure a bevy of them in the months immediately before the election but this year they started many months ago and have aired everywhere ad nauseam, and my phone has been ringing off the hook with repeated political calls. I will be glad when the election is over and the constant barrage of ads finally will come to an end. But we still have two months to go and it undoubtedly will get worse before it gets better.

I hope to see you in church tomorrow to hear my sermon entitled, A Life-Changing Encounter With Christ.
Mel Brown