SO MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR

This month has been a month filled with reflections of what people are thankful for. We continued the tradition of "putting thanks back into thanksgiving" for the month of November. Each year it is a blessing to hear from the church family the many things that they are thankful for.
At a time when our economy is in such bad shape, many people have lost so much financially, we must take the time to remember all the blessing we have and the fact that we still have our health and each other.
Each Sunday we have have ask the family to write out a card with what they are thankful for and it has been inspiring to see so many take their eyes off them selves and focus on God and the many blessing He gives us.
We heard from the woman's ministry as they shared there commitment to serving others by serving God. They delivered baskets of treats to the first responders in the city as well as the hospital to tell them how much we appreciate what they do for us. We heard from the Food Bank the fact that not only have they served over 100 families on a weekly bases but they were prepared to give out over 150 turkeys for the holiday.
Sam Ramos shared his family history of how he was raised in a Christian home as a result of his father committing himself to God as he lay trapped in a deep, dark mine in New Mexico and was the only survivor of 120 men trapped. Sam also gave us a thanksgiving message using titles from songs we all recognized. You can read about them on our website.
And November saw 8 people come to the baptism waters after making life changing commitments to our Lord.
So during this Thanksgiving time I praise God for all he has done for me and through me and look forward to the continue blessing of serving him as we begin our 9th year in his service at FBC.

PASSION FOR GOD IS REIGNITED AT FBC

Coming back from vacation, God put on my heart a question. What can I do to overcome the complacency and apathy found in our church?. The dog days of summer effect many people different ways. But one thing I have found, we easily get distracted from our journey with God. As I continue to pray and look to others for prayer and suggestions, it became clear that we all needed to reignite our passion for God.
Many in our church are new believers, evidenced by the 8 baptisms last week. So as I considered the body as a whole, and seeing the new found excitement in our new believers, I could not help but ask "Has there ever been a time in your life that you were closer to God than you are right now?" And why? A question I first heard ask by Rick Warren.
As I spent time with the new believers in our church, preparing them for baptism, it became clear that what they had was the fresh passion that comes with the understanding of how exciting the decision they had made was.
Life change had taken place and they wanted to let everyone know. As I meet with them in our new believers class, I am constantly refreshed and reminded of the passion they have.
So last Sunday, I began a new series to look at what we can do to reignite our passion for the one who created us. God blessed us with a message that began with Rick Warren and was passed down and made available to all of us. We studied the 7 passion killers and found that for many of us there were things that had taken the passion from us.
As we will continue to look at what it means to have passion for God and what we can do to make a difference in the world, I am excited to see the passion coming back to so many at FBC.

Thank you Jesus, for awaking the passion in us by allowing us to see the true passion that you displayed by going to a cross.

To Find Solitude and Beauty, Thank the Sheep?

Vic and I just returned from a week in the mountains of Utah, and we were blessed to be in some of the most beautiful country of God's glorious creation. We left on Saturday fully intending to stay a day or two at different locations though out the Northern Utah area. However, we set up camp at Fishlake in the Fishlake National Forest and stayed for the entire week. The Lake offers a number of great camp sites and we choose the Mackinaw camp site as it offered the best locations at the edge of the Aspen trees. (And showers!)

We set up camp on Saturday evening and were treated to a mother deer and her baby right at the back of our camp site. That was just the beginning as we were able to see many, many deer while staying in the area.

We spent 6 nights in the same camp site as each day we explored around the Fishlake area; Johnson Reservoir, Fremont Creek, and Mill Meadow. We found wonderful fishing spots along the Fremont River and meadows in the high country. We fished creeks as high as 11,000 feet and I caught the largest fish of my life. I caught a 36 inch Tiger Muskie, a hybrid cross between muskellunge and northern pike, and Vic tried to help me bring it out of the creek, but it had teeth! When she saw the number and size of teeth, she lost interest quickly. We did manage to get a couple of pictures while in the water. I had never heard of this kind of fish and was caught off guard, catching such a large fish in a mountain stream.

Most of our trip was spent exploring new areas and taking great pictures. Vic loves her new Canon and the telephoto lens came in so handy. If you would like to see some of the pictures (click here.)

Ok so what about the title; "Thank the Sheep?" The area that we visited was made possible by the protection of the National Forest Service under the direction of President Roosevelt in 1907 in response to the local citizens. Over grazing of the mountains by transient bands of sheep was crowding out the domestic stock belonging to valley residents. Over grazing damaged watersheds, resulting in flash floods that damaged the communities and affected the irrigation lands. So if it had not been for the sheep, we would not have the 1,461,228-acre Fishlake National Forest that we have today. And, we would not have had the fun and refreshing we had as a result of the "sheep".

Farewell to Matthew

Our summer missionary, Matthew Lust, spent his last Sunday with us and spoke to the congregation to remind them to continue focusing on the "main thing". Matthew has been serving at FBC during the summer and was very active in our Vacation Bible School.
Matt came from Minnesota State University where he received his Masters in Sociology. He will be moving to Las Vegas to attend UNLV where he will work on his doctorate.
Be sure an pray for Matt as he moves to his next assignment in serving our Lord.

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Efforts

Many people are not aware of the efforts of Southern Baptists in times of disaster in our nation. Did you know that the Salvation Army and the Red Cross call the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams every time there is a disaster in our nation? The most recent is the floods in Iowa. As of July the 25th the report from the SBDR tells us that there have been:

Meals served 329,989
Mudouts 496
Chainsaw 489
Showers 4,886
Laundry Loads 2,557
Chaplain Contacts 2,032
Professions of Faith 29
Ministry Contacts 2,787

If you are part of a SBC church that gives to the North American Mission Board, you now know where some of your money goes.
I am proud to be a Southern Baptist...

Day of Celebration.

What a fabulous weekend, Saturday we spent time as a church family throwing water balloons at the pastor, then Sunday we came back to the baptism waters for two more baptisms. The Picnic was held under overcast sky's (thank you Lord). We had a good turnout and the kids (and adults) had a great time playing with water guns and water balloons. Our traveling chefs, Bruce and Roger prepared the meal for us and everyone enjoyed the hamburger and Hot dogs. We have to thank Rick for his commitment to making sure we have everything we need as he pulled up with at trailer full of supplies, as well as a 55 gallon barrel of water! Only Rick would bring his on water for the games including a pump to run a hose with a sprayer on the end! Come on Rick, a hose against a water pistol?
Sunday saw two more come to the baptism waters both from our VBS. It was exciting for all to see a mother of three come to be baptized because she gave her life to Christ during the VBS. She was attending one of the programs to watch her children, when during an alter call for the children she prayed the prayer to receive the Lord as her Savior. God works in such wonderful ways.
Next Sunday we will be going back to the baptism pool as one more came to me last night as said she was ready to be baptized.

Thank you for your prayers

I want to thank everyone for their prayers and concern as I a struggled with the food poisoning this week. I have never had anything more draining than those three days of dealing with getting rid of what I believe was the meat I had for dinner Saturday night. The final remedy came from our resident nurse when she instructed me to boil rice and drink the water, as well as boil a potato and drink the water. I did both and it truly made a difference.

Now, for the good stuff, Sunday nights family meeting without me went great, I'm told. The time was spent to recognize and hear from our latest Admin Council member, Roger. I was told that Roger and his wife were introduced and given time to speak to the family and questions were ask. Charlie shared these words about the evening:
"We introduced Roger and Cathy and had Roger give a bit of his personal testimony, then gave the congregation a chance to ask questions. They asked questions for about 10 minutes (or more) almost entirely about the building campaign. It was interesting, some of the questions mirrored the committee’s questions about this being the right building for growth, other potential properties in Mesquite etc. We then had Rodger and Cathy leave and asked if there were any other questions of the council. There really weren’t any. Billy spoke in his favor as did Ernie and Glenda. The vote was unanimous.

So please welcome Roger as the latest member of our Admin Council. Stop him when you see him and thank him for his committment to your church.

Doug and Pat Alger

I talked with Doug and Pat Alger today and they are loving the weather in Missouri. She told me they attended First Baptist Church of Mountain Grove. Pat said that they felt very welcome and that though they have other churches they will visit, they felt very welcome. We need to pray that God will guide them to the church where He wants them to serve. If you would like their new address, please contact Becky at church.
Pastor

RAN OUT OF BUNS!

What a wonderful night of fellowship and bible study. We had 49 people come for fellowship and we ran out of hamburger buns! Praise God. Rick showed us how to put a burger on a hot dog bun. What a great time we have sharing food together and meeting new people. Kim took the small children, 10 and Matt took the older kids, 8. Charley once again did a great job on the bible study, finishing the 5th chapter of Matthew. The group had good questions and the interaction heard some great stories of God working in peoples lives. The focus of the Bible study was learning that we even have to love the unlovable.

I announced that next week I will teach the New Believers class starting at 6:30 on Wednesday. We have so many new believers and the questions we are getting tell us its time to start going deeper with some new believers. I can't wait, I love the journey of taking someone through the seven beginning steps. Next week we will begin with "Be sure of Your Salvation". God continues to bless us and the praises tonight were more than the prayer requests. We prayed for our country, our military, our snow birds and our immediate family needs.
TO GOD BE THE GLORY,

God is not a four season God.

I was reminded this last Sunday that God is not a snowbird and does not stop working because its summer. Sunday in our 2nd service we had to bring in folding chairs. God is so good and right in the middle of summer, with temperatures around 112, He fills his house. We all had a good laugh last night at our evening Bible Study talking about the things people say about summer in Mesquite and how some of the churches cancel everything do to the fact that some leave for the summer. We have a number of people traveling and 6 or 7 snowbird couples but God continues to bring new people to the community and therefore we are meeting new couples nearly every weekend. Sunday we Baptized 4 children, two from our VBS and two were grandchildren of a member who lost her husband last week. The children wanted to be baptized where she could be there. It made for an emotional time and a wonderful service. We observed the Lord's supper at both services. I never "tag" the Lord's supper on the beginning or end of a service and this time was no exception. I devoted the entire service to explanation of what it means and how to prepare to observe it. At the end of the service, a 93 year old woman who has been attending with her daughter came to me at the back door and said "In all my years of going to church I have never had the Lord's Supper explained to me like you did today, thank you and she gave me a kiss on the cheek" What a great feeling. Words of encouragement come sometimes at the most unexpected times.

Spiritual warfare

Spiritual Warfare: We as a church have experienced Spiritual Warfare on many occasions, but the most recent was the organizing and putting on the Vacation Bible School program to reach the children of our community. For the first time we had 3 leaders step up to take part in the wonderful outreach event. Each leader, in the first few days of planning and participating in this event received bad news regarding members of their immediate or extended families. If you have been following our prayer requests, you are aware of each one. But once again, God prevailed. Each one of the leaders, in spite of the distractions, was able to step up and present VBS to the community and God was honored. Please say a special thanks to all those that stepped up to make this such a great event. The leadership team of Pastor Charlie, Kim A, Melinda W. are to be commended and I would ask you to let them know how much you appreciate their sacrifice.

God Glorified at Vacation Bible School

This week was a wonderful week. We saw 83 children participate in our VBS, 41 adults and youth volunteered to make a complete success. This has been the most successful VBS in the last few years at FBC. 25 children prayed the prayer on Thursday to accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, (including two of my grandchildren!).
Friday night we invited the parents to come and see what the children had been doing for the week and we fed over 130 that evening in a wonderful time of fellowship.
This program could not have happened without the leadership of Pastor Charlie, Melinda Woodworth and Kim Abbott. What a team, they transformed the church into a beautiful Island for the celebration theme of Outrigger Island.
My thanks goes out to all of the wonderful volunteers who made this a tremendous success.
God was truly Glorified in the selfless sharing from all.

June 11th, 2008
I attended the luncheon at the Mental Health facility to hear the news that more money has been cut from the state budget as it relates to helping those who need mental help. In the FY 08, 8 positions frozen, residential support payments, psychological testing materials and over 80% of One Shots eliminated, for a total of $695,070. This will effect the Rural Clinics in a negative way as they are already stretched beyond capacity with people waiting months for clinical help . I believe that this is continuing to open the doors for the local churches as we look at the P.E.A.C.E. program proposed by Rick Warren.
It is time that we put the hands and feet back on the local churches. Local churches need to use this time to reach out to more people in the community by being a beacon of light to the community. I realize that we are not or do we have qualified therapists, but I do know that we can offer a place of comfort, security, fellowship and hope for those who are waiting on the lists to see a therapist. We do offer a Christ Centered 12 step program that has impacted lives and have brought people to the saving grace of Christ.
I plan to meet with the pastors in the community and talk to them about what more can be done to help the most affected of our community. I would like to know your thoughts on what could be done by the local church that is not being done now.

I venture into the new world of blogs this day. I look forward to seeing how GOD can use a tool like this to further my ministry and spread the good news of the gospel. I welcome your comments, and your questions.
God has been faithful in this small town, I have seen lives changed by His grace, marriages healed by His love, and bodies made whole again by his healing.