FRIDAY UPDATE

Friday in North, cold, windy, threats of rain or possibly sleet and ice for the weekend. What better place could we be to celebrate the winter season, than here in this beautiful little town in western wrongfully county, in the lovely state of South Carolina.
We are sad around the community today, as the Lord has called another of His dear saints home to be with him. Bro. John Jeffcoat, faithful member of our church for many years, died last night in the Orangeburg Hospital, after a difficult illness. We will miss John and his humor and quick wit, and will be much in prayer for his wife and children and other family members. Funeral services are planned here in the church for Sunday at 3:00 PM, and burial in the Sardis Baptist Church cemetery in Swansea. Our pastor, Rev. Larry Shull, will lead in the funeral service.

Our next emphasis is on the "Faith Cometh by Hearing" commitments that many of our church members have made as we commit to listen to the audio New Testament for 28 minutes each day for the 40 day period starting on Valentine's Day, February 14, and extending through Easter Sunday, March 27. A number of our listeners purchased special audio versions of the New Testament, and others already have them. Some of us plan on listening through the computer each day, and have discovered that there are many web sites that provide not only the audio reading of the Bible, but sermons also. Oh, the wonders of the cyberworld around us!

As already mentioned in previous posts, we are also emphasizing the Church Directory photo sessions that we have scheduled for Sunday - Tuesday, Feb. 27-Mar 1. So far we have Sunday and Monday completely filled, and are working on Tuesday. We hope to have a good response and have the new directories before Mother's Day.
An update of the search for the Minister of Music and Youth states that we had another prospect that had just taken a church in central Illinois. At the moment, we are dealing by e-mail with a young man on the staff of the North Greenville College. We have other feelers out, and ask that you continue to pray for God's man to show up and minister to our church family.

Keep looking up!! God loves you and so do I!!

COMING EVENTS AT FBC

Some of our activities are included here for your consideration. These items are from the weekly bulletin which will be presented on Sunday, Jan 16th.

WELCOME TO OUR GUEST SPEAKER: It is our pleasure to have Mr. Justin Mcguire as our guest speaker today. Justin is from Irmo, SC, was an all star high school football player, and played for the USC Gamecocks from 1999 to 2003. We welcome this young man to our services today.
------

WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND OUR CHURCH
We are busy these days with lots of activities, and trust that you will participate in those that will bless you. Here is a listing of some of the events which are before us:

TIME CHANGE FOR EVENING SERVICES: We voted last Sunday in church conference to change the time for Discipleship Training and Evening Worship. So, starting tonight, the schedule will be: 5:00 PM Discipleship Training
6:00 PM Evening Worship
This will be our schedule during the winter months, until the time changes back to Daylight Savings time on April 3rd.

SOUPER BOWL SUNDAY: Looking ahead to Sunday, February 6th which is the day of the football Super Bowl, we will be asking you to contribute one dollar as you leave the church that morning to the Soup bowl which will be at the door. This is a great way to show our support for local missions, as all the monies received will go to our local Cooperative Ministries here in North.

FROM THE BUILDING/GROUNDS COMMITTEE:
The committee recently purchased a new Kirby vacuum cleaner for the church and reports that a great price was given to the church by Mr. Steve Schmidt, of the Kirby Co., 1712 Neeses Highway, Orangeburg. We do certainly thank Mr. Schmidt for his generosity, and pray that our Lord will bless him in many ways as he seeks to help people in their housework. If you are interested, Mr. Schmidt will come and demonstrate the Kirby in your home and will vacuum one room for you as a demonstration of the capabilities of this machine. If you are thinking about the purchase of a new machine, please contact him at 803-535-4335. He may be working the North area in the near future.

REPORT ON CHURCH DIRECTORY: We got off to a good start by totally filling up the Sunday reservations page, and then we began to work on Monday. Due to a misunderstanding, we started scheduling on Monday too early and must rearrange the list. Instead of starting at 9 AM, the photographers will start at 2:00 PM. Our registration will continue this morning and we ask you to stop by and help straighten out the list. If you haven’t registered, please do so. We want all our church family, friends, neighbors, just anyone who would like to be in the directory to participate. There will be no charge for your directory picture. If you decide to order a packages of pictures, there are various packages and prices, which you will be given when you view the pictures.
Also, as a matter of information, the pictures will be taken and you will be able to view them immediately afterwards, so there will not be any need to return to view the pictures.
We pray that this will be a rich blessing to our church, and to the history of our church in the days to come.
Thank you for participating in this worthy effort.

LOOKING FOR SNAPSHOTS FOR THE DIRECTORY:
Let us use your pictures for the color pages.
Also, the shut-ins who cannot come to church need to have their picture taken by someone and we can include them in the black and white page of the directory.

MAMMOGRAM VAN HERE AT OUR CHURCH: Attention ladies, the Palmetto Baptist Hospital Mammogram unit will be at our church on February 7, 2005 starting at 8:00 AM to offer this important medical examination. If you or anyone you know is interested please pick up a registration form and choose an appointment time as soon as possible. The forms are at the front of the church. For details, please see Brenda Shull.

MINISTRY LEADERS NEEDED: If you are looking for a ministry that is exciting and filled with lots of youthful exuberance, please consider helping in being a leader of the Jr. Kid’s Church from time to time. These are the preschoolers who leave the church and go to their own church each Sunday morning.
See Michael Ann Bolin to signup for this important job. The possibilities are endless.

We do appreciate all the prayer support which we receive through the news distribution in this blog. Always say a prayer for the entire church family each time you think of the church or see the blogs on your computer screen.

SUNDAY BULLETIN INSERT

EDUCATION/ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT

MINISTER OF MUSIC /YOUTH DECIDES NOT TO COME
It is my sorrow to announce that Stephen Sims called Thursday and said that he after much prayer and consideration had decided not to come to North FBC. So we are back to the beginning of our search for a music and youth minister. I do appreciate all the preparations and plans that were made to welcome Stephen to our church today, and ask that you will continue to pray that the Lord will direct someone to us who really feels led to come to North.

CHURCH DIRECTORY:
It’s that time! We are starting today to take reservations so that you can be included in this historical document. The Sunday Morning Seminary Sunday School Class has taken this on as a class project, and invites everyone to participate. This time we will schedule the appointments for a Sunday and Monday. Today you can sign up as you leave the church services by stopping at the table in the vestibule and filling in the time you desire. More details as time goes by.
WE NEED PICTURES. If you have snapshots of our church, can we use them? We will have 5 color pages to fill, so we need your input.

NEXT SUNDAY IS BAPTIST MEN’S DAY!
Our annual Baptist Men’s Day will be held next Sunday, January 16th, starting with breakfast for the men and boys, at 8:00 AM. The guest speaker will be Mr. Justin McGuire, former member the USC football team in 2000. He will also be our guest speaker for the church services Sunday morning.

MEN’S CHOIR NEXT SUNDAY
OUR MEN ARE REMINDED THAT THEY WILL FILL THE CHOIR AND ARE URGED TO REMAIN AFTER THE BREAKFAST TO PRACTICE A SPECIAL HYMN TO SING.

YOUTH TO PIZZA NEXT SUNDAY NIGHT JAN 16TH AFTER CHURCH

CHURCH CONFERENCE THIS MORNING
Today we conduct the business of the church. You are urged to pray for the activities of you church, the financial affairs, and the various concerns which we face in doing God’s Business each day. He has truly blessed FBC and we need to praise and thank Him every time we pray for His Son, Our Salvation, and His Church, of which we are a vital part as we serve, work, give, pray, and go.

“SOUPER” BOWL SUNDAY: You will be asked to participate in the annual ‘souper” bowl fund-raising drive on Sunday, February 6, 2005. Each person is asked to drop at least one dollar into the soup bowls as you leave the church on that Sunday. This money is collected and distributed to local needs, in our case, the Cooperative Ministries. This is one special offering where ALL the money stays in the community.

PRAYER LIST
We are grateful for the privilege of prayer, and have all seen evidence of God’s answers to our prayers in these past months. As we pray, we need to remember that when God answers prayers for those names on our prayer list, we should remove them and claim the victory of healing and blessing. We need your help in keeping the Prayer List up-to-date, so if you know of those on the prayer list that are doing well, please let the office know so that we can remove their names.

BULLETINS AND NEWSLETTERS
It is the privilege of the office staff to prepare and distribute the weekly bulletins and the monthly Messenger newsletters. We feel that it is a great ministry of the written word about our church ministries. We do appreciate comments, critiques, and suggestions on improving the product. We want to do the best job for you that we can do, but you must realize that changes are made from time to time, and errors happen. Please be patient with us as Jesus is.
Love to you all, In Christ, Bro. Don

NOTE: In the church conference, the church voted to:
1. change the evening activities schedule time from 6 PM for Discipleship Training and 7 PM for evening worship to 5 PM for Discipleship Training and 6 PM for evening worship services.

2.To purchase an interface for the new digital copier for the office to allow the church computers to connect directly to the copier, in a sense making it a hard drive and a printer.

3. Approve the plans for the new church directory, with photographs to be taken on Sunday and Monday, February 26 and 27.

Your prayers are encouraged for our church and the ministry for Christ that we have in the North community. Remember, we are the church that really loves....and the church that really prays.... and, for those who read these blogs from time to time that are some distance from our church, we do want you to know that we do love and appreciate you and all that you are doing in His ministry, wherever you are, so is He.

CHURCH ACTIVITIES BOOMING!

The new year is here, and we are excited around FBC. Everyone seemed to have a great Christmas season, with lots of family members coming and sharing around the tables and in the fellowship of the church. Our biggest concern was that the true meaning of Christmas not be overshadowed by the 'holiday sales' and such. We appreciate our pastor for sharing a number of great messages that reminded us of the birth of our Savior and what He means to us. Now if we can really get excited about Jesus in this new year of 2005, we might see great things happen here in our church and community.
We are especially excited about he visit we are having this weekend from a prospective minister of music and youth/children. Bro. Stephen Sims will be traveling from near Louisville, KY and will arrive on Friday evening. We have a full weekend planned for him as he will meet with the Personnel Committee, the leaders of the church, and will lead in the worship hour on Sunday. Stephen is a Dec. 2003 graduate with a Master of Church Music degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has worked as choir director and youth director in his first years of ministry. His undergraduate work was at Campbellsville College, Campbellsville, KY. He is unmarried, and is in his late 20's. We pray for God's leadership in this important matter of calling a full-time minister of music and youth. This is a giant step for our church, and one that we have looked forward to for a long time. This church truly is an exciting church!