Notes From the Pastor
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Out of Control
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As I sit down to write this, I am in the process of recovering from surgery. The surgery was not that big of a deal but I must admit the recovery process has been a bit of a hassle. What is the problem you might ask? The problem I am having is not being in control. Ever since Shelly drove me home I have not been able to do much on my own. I have to rely on her to bring me something to eat, to help me get out of bed, to make sure I am alright. Now I face another five weeks of not being able to pick anything up that weighs over 15 pounds. IF you haven’t noticed, anything that moves at my house is over 15 pounds!!!!! I could not drive for a week. The list goes on and on of things I am not able to do that I take for granted every day. It has been a real struggle for me to not be in control. However, it has made me very thankful for many things.
The most obvious person I am thankful for is Shelly. She has been fantastic. We were able to have our open house for the holidays because of her hard work. Not to mention her taking care of the kids and me while I have been down. She is truly a blessing to me. I am also thankful for so many wonderful friends who have called to check on me, sent me get well cards, and who have taken care of Cameron and Easton when we needed help. In times like this you realize how blessed we are to have the staff we have at First Baptist. Everyone on staff has picked up the slack for me over the past week and I so appreciate them. Not for a minute have I worried about things being taken care of. It is still difficult for me to not be around to make sure everything is done the way it needs to be. Thanks to all of you for being in control, when I cannot!
But speaking of being out of control, I was reminded that is exactly the way God wants us to be. We are so guilty of wanting to be in control of everything in our lives. This has been a good reminder to me that when we give our lives to Christ it is precisely what we are to do. GIVE OUR LIVES TO HIM! Translated that means we should no longer be in control! Just as my surgery has been an inconvenience at times, when we are obedient to Christ it means there will be times of inconvenience and lack of understanding in the things God will call us to do. The rubber meets the road as we decide how we will respond when God calls us out of our comfort zone. Will we whine and complain or will we willing be obedient to His call with an attitude of thanksgiving? I do know this…I would much rather put my life in the hands of the Creator of the world than in the hands of any doctor. We put our lives in the hands of human physicians on a daily basis. Why not put our lives in the hands of the Creator daily as well?
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! Don’t forget . . . in January we will begin our new service format with our traditional service at 8:30 am and the contemporary service at 11:00 am. Hope to see you then! ¶ 7:53 PM 0 comments
As I sit down to write this, I am in the process of recovering from surgery. The surgery was not that big of a deal but I must admit the recovery process has been a bit of a hassle. What is the problem you might ask? The problem I am having is not being in control. Ever since Shelly drove me home I have not been able to do much on my own. I have to rely on her to bring me something to eat, to help me get out of bed, to make sure I am alright. Now I face another five weeks of not being able to pick anything up that weighs over 15 pounds. IF you haven’t noticed, anything that moves at my house is over 15 pounds!!!!! I could not drive for a week. The list goes on and on of things I am not able to do that I take for granted every day. It has been a real struggle for me to not be in control. However, it has made me very thankful for many things.
The most obvious person I am thankful for is Shelly. She has been fantastic. We were able to have our open house for the holidays because of her hard work. Not to mention her taking care of the kids and me while I have been down. She is truly a blessing to me. I am also thankful for so many wonderful friends who have called to check on me, sent me get well cards, and who have taken care of Cameron and Easton when we needed help. In times like this you realize how blessed we are to have the staff we have at First Baptist. Everyone on staff has picked up the slack for me over the past week and I so appreciate them. Not for a minute have I worried about things being taken care of. It is still difficult for me to not be around to make sure everything is done the way it needs to be. Thanks to all of you for being in control, when I cannot!
But speaking of being out of control, I was reminded that is exactly the way God wants us to be. We are so guilty of wanting to be in control of everything in our lives. This has been a good reminder to me that when we give our lives to Christ it is precisely what we are to do. GIVE OUR LIVES TO HIM! Translated that means we should no longer be in control! Just as my surgery has been an inconvenience at times, when we are obedient to Christ it means there will be times of inconvenience and lack of understanding in the things God will call us to do. The rubber meets the road as we decide how we will respond when God calls us out of our comfort zone. Will we whine and complain or will we willing be obedient to His call with an attitude of thanksgiving? I do know this…I would much rather put my life in the hands of the Creator of the world than in the hands of any doctor. We put our lives in the hands of human physicians on a daily basis. Why not put our lives in the hands of the Creator daily as well?
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! Don’t forget . . . in January we will begin our new service format with our traditional service at 8:30 am and the contemporary service at 11:00 am. Hope to see you then! ¶ 7:53 PM 0 comments
Monday, December 10, 2007
"Mary, Did You Know?"
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One of my favorite Christmas songs is "Mary, Did You Know?" sung by the group 4Him. I love the words to the song. They ask the question to Mary, "Did you know that you son would walk on water? Did you know that your baby boy would one day heal that blind man? Did you know that your baby boy was Heaven's perfect plan?" I love those questions, because we do not know if Mary knew. What we do know is that Mary was faithful to what God had called her to do!
As a church we are on the threshold of another year to serve our Lord. I shared with the congregation this past Sunday our vision for 2008 and beyond. It is a vision filled with a lot of questions for which God has the answers. For over a year now we have been discussing and praying about the question of whether or not now is the time for us to go to two different worship services. After much discussion the staff and deacon body feel it is. As we continue to seek to make Christ famous in our community as well as maturing believers, I am excited about the opportunity that awaits us in 2008.
Beginning the first Sunday of January we will be having two services on Sunday morning. At 8:30 we will have our traditional service (what we have been doing at 10:50) and at 11:00 we will be led in worship by Ryan Hurt, Rainey Penix, Brody White, Shawna Ringling, and Nic Morphew. This is going to be a great opportunity for us to reach out to our community in a whole new way. Please know I also realize change is something we all do not handle well. Someone once said that the only people who like change are babies. What a true statement in many cases. With change comes opportunities to be stretched and with stretch comes growth. I hope you will be in prayer for our church as we begin this new venture with the goal being to reach new people.
One of the concerns I have going to two services is what I call the "get to know you factor". There will be new people joining in both services and it will be difficult to get to know everyone without a little effort. We will make sure to keep the new member board up to date, but to me this makes our Sunday School time even more important. If you are not plugged into a Sunday School class, you need to be. This is one area where you get to know people and find out who is who.
Many new things will be coming our way in the next year. There will be many questions waiting to be answered. The main thing in my opinion is to keep the I's and me's to a minimum and keep the He's and Him's to a maximum. In other words we need to keep our eyes on Jesus!
I want to remind you about a couple of holiday traditions our church has during the month of December. On December 2nd we will have our traditional Hanging of the Greens Service at 6:00pm. On December 9th we will be having our church family holiday meal. This is an opportunity for us as a staff to say thank you for the privilege of getting to serve you and for all the ways you bless us throughout the year. Then on the 16th we will have our churchwide Christmas song service at 6:00pm followed by our annual church Christmas party in the fellowship hall. On December 24th we will have our Candlelight Lord's Supper service at 6:00 pm in the Sanctuary. I hope you make every effort to be a part of these exciting events as we celebrate the birth of our Savior as a church family!
Merry Christmas! ¶ 6:20 PM 0 comments
One of my favorite Christmas songs is "Mary, Did You Know?" sung by the group 4Him. I love the words to the song. They ask the question to Mary, "Did you know that you son would walk on water? Did you know that your baby boy would one day heal that blind man? Did you know that your baby boy was Heaven's perfect plan?" I love those questions, because we do not know if Mary knew. What we do know is that Mary was faithful to what God had called her to do!
As a church we are on the threshold of another year to serve our Lord. I shared with the congregation this past Sunday our vision for 2008 and beyond. It is a vision filled with a lot of questions for which God has the answers. For over a year now we have been discussing and praying about the question of whether or not now is the time for us to go to two different worship services. After much discussion the staff and deacon body feel it is. As we continue to seek to make Christ famous in our community as well as maturing believers, I am excited about the opportunity that awaits us in 2008.
Beginning the first Sunday of January we will be having two services on Sunday morning. At 8:30 we will have our traditional service (what we have been doing at 10:50) and at 11:00 we will be led in worship by Ryan Hurt, Rainey Penix, Brody White, Shawna Ringling, and Nic Morphew. This is going to be a great opportunity for us to reach out to our community in a whole new way. Please know I also realize change is something we all do not handle well. Someone once said that the only people who like change are babies. What a true statement in many cases. With change comes opportunities to be stretched and with stretch comes growth. I hope you will be in prayer for our church as we begin this new venture with the goal being to reach new people.
One of the concerns I have going to two services is what I call the "get to know you factor". There will be new people joining in both services and it will be difficult to get to know everyone without a little effort. We will make sure to keep the new member board up to date, but to me this makes our Sunday School time even more important. If you are not plugged into a Sunday School class, you need to be. This is one area where you get to know people and find out who is who.
Many new things will be coming our way in the next year. There will be many questions waiting to be answered. The main thing in my opinion is to keep the I's and me's to a minimum and keep the He's and Him's to a maximum. In other words we need to keep our eyes on Jesus!
I want to remind you about a couple of holiday traditions our church has during the month of December. On December 2nd we will have our traditional Hanging of the Greens Service at 6:00pm. On December 9th we will be having our church family holiday meal. This is an opportunity for us as a staff to say thank you for the privilege of getting to serve you and for all the ways you bless us throughout the year. Then on the 16th we will have our churchwide Christmas song service at 6:00pm followed by our annual church Christmas party in the fellowship hall. On December 24th we will have our Candlelight Lord's Supper service at 6:00 pm in the Sanctuary. I hope you make every effort to be a part of these exciting events as we celebrate the birth of our Savior as a church family!
Merry Christmas! ¶ 6:20 PM 0 comments
