An exciting day at Beale Memorial Baptist Church yesterday! During worship in the morning two folks made decisions for their faith. The first was a lady who has attended Beale for some months. She came forward to unite with our church family. She has expressed to me on multiple occasions how excited she is to be a part of this gathering. The second is a fellow who has attended our church for a long time. Yesterday, he made public his decicion to follow Christ in baptism. What a great way to begin our spring revival!
Our friends from Clifford Baptist arrived Sunday afternoon for a dinner. Their bus broke down in Charlottesville, but with thoughts of Lowery's sea food on the menu, the driver quickly repaired the engine!
The choir did an excellent job and we were indeed blessed for their efforts to worship with us. The picture indicates a large group. There were 60+ voices singing last night. But, a fair number of others also drove up from Clifford to join us in worship.
Tonight we are going to get a taste of Mike's guitar ability. When Mike was in high school, he was recruited to play guitar for the Statler Brothers. You will enjoy his mini concert tonight.
Final note, and it is a somber one. Please keep our sister church in Maryville, IL in your prayers. Their pastor was murdered during the worship time yesterday. Fred Winters was 46 years old and the father of two. He had served as pastor of this church for 20+ years. Here is the link to their website: http://www.fbmaryville.org/
Last Sunday (3-1-09) my message was directed to the financial concerns that our nation is currently facing.We checked out the text from Matthew 6 where Jesus challenged us to determine where our treasure is.
All of us are nervous about this economy.News from Citibank, Wachovia, the big 3 auto makers, the mortgage mess and a host of other issues causes us to pause with more than a little trepidation.The issue is, how does our faith come into play with these questions and unpleasant realities looming?
Two weeks ago my message focused on the story of Phillip leading the Ethiopian leader to faith in Christ. During the sermon we looked at reasons we are hesitant to share our faith, when people are most open to hearing the story of Jesus, and the underlying fact that evangelism works best when it is based on compassion and not compulsion.
Many of you know the comedy duo of Penn and Teller. Penn Jillette is the tall fellow who does all of the talking during their routine. You may not know that he is an avowed athiest who is very vocal about his lack of faith. In many of his interviews he elaborates with much disdain those who have faith.
This type of attitude generates much response. But I want you to see out how one fellow responded to Penn. Check out the following video blog that Penn made. Notice the impact, not of the gift, but of the giver. Once again this is a reminder that people don't care what we believe until they know that we actually care.
This past Sunday (3-1) my message focused on the economic crisis that we are in and how our faith teaches us to respond. I was having technical difficulties with my head-set so it was not recorded for our pod-cast. I will share an excerpt from that message later in the week.
However, here is a quick summation of an article by Phillip Yancey from Christianity Today. In it, he summarizes a conversation he had with a Time Magazine reporter who asked him, "How do you pray in an economic crisis?"
Philippians 2:14-16 (NIV) Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life--
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