Rick and Kathy prepare brats, burgers, and hot dogs at the 2009 Yard Sale & Fair
Ordination – Dr. Samuel Obeng-Appau will be ordained at 3:00 PM on Sunday, August 1st, at Memorial Baptist Church. We encourage everyone to come and participate in this special service! Light refreshments will be served after the service.
Men’s Lunch – Noon Wednesday, August 4th and 18th, at Buttermilk Creek Park. Bring your own bag lunch. In case of inclement weather, meet at the Hastings’ (191 East 9th Street).
Discipleship Groups – 7:00 PM every Wednesday. Meet at the church for a short worship time, then break out into small groups that meet at the church, in homes, at the park or at a coffee shop. Key question: “What does it mean to be an active disciple of Jesus?”
Punch Fellowship – After worship Sunday, August 8th, in the Fellowship Hall. Sign up on the bulletin board in the entryway if you would like to host.
Loaves & Fishes – Monday, August 9th. Sign up on the bulletin board in the entryway if you would like to make a pan of lasagna or if you would like to help butter bread, register guests, serve the meal and/or clean up. Talk to Hallie Stollenwerk if you would like to bake a batch of cookies; a group will meet at the church at 9:00 AM on Tuesday, August 3rd, to pack the cookies. For more details about Loaves & Fishes, contact Barb Frimark.
Youth Camping/Service Retreat – August 11th-14th. Talk to Pastor Brian for more details.
Yard Sale and Brat Fry – 8:00 AM-2:00 PM Saturday, August 21st, at church. This is a great opportunity to clean out your closets, attic, basement and garage. We invite members, friends and neighbors to donate items to the sale or to bring your own yard sale to our yard. Please price all donated items before you drop them off! Help us get the word out – invite your friends and neighbors! Proceeds will go to the Diaconate Fund, which provides emergency assistance to people in need in the community.
Worship in the Park – 10:00 AM Sunday, August 22nd, at Taylor Park (corner of Hickory and Emma Streets). Handicapped parking is located adjacent to the shelter (use the park entrance on Emma Street); other parking is on the street. Seating will be available on picnic benches, but please feel free to bring your own lawn chair. After worship, we invite everyone to stay for a potluck picnic lunch; bring a dish to share and your own beverage and table service. In case of inclement weather, meet at the church.
Coming Soon: Sunday School – Sunday School classes for all ages begin on September 12th; if you are interested in helping out with the kids’ class or in facilitating an adult class, contact Caroline Overzet or Pastor Brian.
New Carpet – Many thanks to everyone who helped get the basement ready for carpet to be installed during the last week of July! Please bear with us as we get furniture and supplies put back in their proper places and ventilate the building to eliminate the smell of adhesive.
“When the days drew near for Him to be taken up, He set his face to go to Jerusalem. And He sent messengers ahead of Him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for Him; but they did not receive Him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.”
I have to confess, I’ve always kind of skimmed over this passage to get to the rather interesting exchange that follows between Jesus and his disciples: When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But [Jesus] turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.
That’s just an interesting story on so many levels – not the least of which being that James and John felt that they had the authority to call down fire from heaven on people that rejected Jesus; talk about a temptation to abuse power! But seriously, although the center of the story is about Jesus’ rejection of that kind of petty retribution, there’s more going on here than I first realized. I’d failed to pay attention to why the Samaritans rejected Jesus, because that in itself is a little unusual.
See, in the Gospels, one of the things we tend to find over and over is that it’s the outsiders who are much more likely to be open to Jesus’ message and ministry. John’s story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 is a prime example. But here, we find that although Jesus’ purpose is to enter a Samaritan village as part of His ministry, they reject Him. Why? Because His face was set toward Jerusalem.
You see, the Samaritans and the Jewish people didn’t get along well; there were hundreds of years of bad blood between them, and one of the sore spots was where God should be worshipped: in Jerusalem or on Mt. Gerizim. Who is right? Who is closer to God? The text gives us a clue that the reason the Samaritans of this village rejected Jesus is because He continued to see His mission in terms that included the enemies of the Samaritans (which is, ironically, one of the problems that the Pharisees had with Jesus: that He continued to spend time with sinners and tax collectors and Gentiles).
We tell ourselves that we would never reject Jesus if He reached out to people that were different than us. We would never turn our backs on Christ for loving people of another race, for spending time with “sinners” or outsiders. Yet how often do we condemn our brothers and sisters in Christ who reach out to people whose opinions, politics, culture or lifestyle are different than ours? There’s no room for self-righteousness on the right, left or center here; it’s a question of whether we’re really able to believe that God loves the world that He gave us His only begotten Son, not just the people we approve of or agree with.
I’ve got a friend from college who has a ministry with people in positions of power and influence in our government. Our politics are miles apart, but I agree with him wholeheartedly when he spoke about the need that our leaders have for spiritual care. Let us not throw stones when others are called to minister in areas we have a difficult time embracing, lest we find ourselves turning our backs on the mission of God that is always bigger than our vision can encompass.
Pastor Brian
Bill and Marion Thomas served with International Ministries as missionaries to Europe from 1972 to 1979. Since that time, they have continued to serve the mission of Christ in Europe and beyond, while based in Strasbourg, France. Bill is an evangelist who has called people to follow Christ in some 50 countries around the world. In 2007, International Ministries accepted an invitation from the Federation of Evangelical Baptist Churches of France to re-appoint Bill for service training Federation pastors and lay leaders to do evangelism more effectively. Bill is jointly appointed by IM and the Bill Thomas Evangelistic Association, and is able to accept invitations to do evangelism and leadership training also with groups beyond the French Federation. Bill writes:
The French Baptist Federation is faced with an acute shortage of pastors. One such church is the Baptist church in Annecy, a beautiful town near the Swiss border. This church was started several years ago but today it has only 30 members. They don’t have a building of their own, but are allowed to use the facilities of the Seventh Day Adventists two days a week.
The previous pastor who had some personal, unsolved issues stayed less than two years.
I spent a recent weekend there, sharing some of my experiences and preaching at the Sunday service. I am planning to return for some teaching seminars next year. I thought that it would be just the young people who would want me to come back for these seminars. But as I discussed it with the other church members, they ALL want to be in on it. Hopefully by then they will have a new pastor.
There is more: There are seven other protestant churches in the town. It may be that when I return there the first week in January, I will meet with the other pastors and discuss plans for an evangelistic campaign. Our main concern will be for the follow-up.
This fits in well with another event I have just been part of this week, namely a consultation in Paris on church planting. This was organized by the National Council of Evangelicals in France (CNEF). It is made up, not of individual churches but of “Unions” (denominations). The French Baptist Federation is a member. The goal is to plant one church for every ten thousand inhabitants! When I first heard this, I had to ask for a repeat to make sure I had heard correctly. With a severe shortage of pastors and pastoral candidates, it is going to be a long, up hill struggle. There is a great need for missionaries.
- Pray for me as I continue to serve in this needy field.
- Also, please be aware that with the declining US dollar we are all facing some very tough times. Pray for God to supply every need.
- Pray for God’s Spirit to move upon the people of France and draw them to Christ as believers reach out to them.
As missionaries with International Ministries, ABC-USA, Dave and Betsy Perkins have visited us on several occasions to share about their work in India. They have recently made the difficult decision to resign as IM missionaries. Their letter reads, in part:
“This has been our repeated prayer over the last several months, as changes in our family and ministry situation have required us to reconsider where God is directing us. The Lord is trustworthy when we commit our ways to Him; this has been confirmed to us yet again in this time of discernment when we have repeatedly been placed exactly where we needed to be and given exactly what we needed at each moment. Family love and responsibility have played a significant part of our decision. We will be relocating to Arizona for a time to help David’s parents. We were hoping to find ministry-related work in that area, and are excited that David has been offered a job at Rainbow Acres, a residential community for developmental disabled adults that is related to American Baptist Churches. This has been an answer to prayer for we have been very aware of the gloomy job market in the USA and the need to provide for our daughters, Lisa and Kara, in college, as well as for Betsy’s continued seminary study. We ask for your continued prayers as we make the necessary transitions.”
[Note: Dave has now accepted the position at Rainbow Acres.]
The Mission Ministry Team and the Diaconate are exploring how to use the funds allocated to support of the ministry of Dave and Betsy in India. Some ideas were discussed at the congregational meeting on Sunday, June 20. You will be updated as plans and ideas progress.
Please continue to keep the Perkins family in your prayers. Thank you!
Caroline Overzet, Mission Ministry Team Chair
