Music Is In The Air!

OUR NEW MINISTER OF MUSIC IS ON THE JOB:
Adam Stich has accepted the position of Minister of Music for our church, and will be starting immediately. Adam and his wife Ashley will be sharing in our ministry and we are very happy to have them come here to serve.
Adam is a graduate of Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, and has a Masters of Music degree from USC. He will be teaching music at the Pelion Middle School this year.
Ashley is a student at USC majoring in elementary education. They live in Lexington, SC, and will be commuting back and forth to work with us. Adam’s family lives in Georgia, where his father is a Baptist minister. Adam most recently completed serving the St. David Lutheran Church as coordinator of music ministries for three years. Please join the church family in welcoming Adam and Ashley to our church.
NOTE: Adam pronounces his last name as “Steek.”

Many thanks to our Personnel Committee as they have worked so hard in searching for the right person for this job. We now have a full staff of ministers and are praying that the Lord will allow us to grow a greater work here in North.

The church family is involved in listening to the Old Testament these days. We have a large group who have committed to listening to the OT for 20 minutes each day until Christmas day. I have had many good comments from folks who say, "I didn't know that was in the Bible!" What a joy to listen to God's Word, read by someone with perfect diction and proper pronunciation of the names and places. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Try it. If you need cassette tapes of the OT, I have some available for you to use. Just let me know.

Speaking of cassette tapes, I am sure that many of you are aware of the ministry we have in our church of taking cassette tapes to our homebound and shut-in members, or to those who miss Sunday School from time to time. We are blessed to have Mrs. Iris Cade and Mrs. Nellie Lu Reed to pick-up and deliver the tapes each week. They usually deliver about 30 or so tapes, of the TEL Sunday School Class, the Sunday morning and evening services, and other special tapes that we make from time to time. We have a cassette duplicator that has worked very well for a long time, but last week it gave out, so we had to order a replacement copier. We are now back in business with a brand new machine. If you need copies, please let me know and I will try to get them for you. We save the master tapes for about six months, so if you want to find a particular sermon, we probably will have it.

Pastor Donny has really been doing things with our Youth and Children these days. What with a trip to Atlanta to a Bible Conference, to the Braves baseball game, to the Six Flags Over Georgia park, and just yesterday, a large group went to Carowinds park for the day. And what a hot day it was! We have a place for everyone and invite all the Children and Youth of the community to come and enjoy the fellowship and fun. The Youth Building is also open each weekend for games and such, so check it out!

That's all for now, please pray for me as I continue to fight the anemia which the doctor's say that I have. What we called "tired blood" years ago. I do feel it too!

Summer is here and is it HOT!

Hello to the FBC family and our friends. Summer is here, and wow, is it hot!! Just a few posts ago, I was writing about how cold it was, or how rainy, and now, is it hot! Are we ever satisfied with the weather? No. But the only thing we can be satisfied with is Jesus, or Lord and Savior. And how He is working these days in our church. Of course, we are in the summer slump, with lots of vacationing members, in the mountains and at the lakes and the beach. But, we are still having exciting worship services and good attendance to the activities of our church. It is good to have faithful church members who continue to come and support the ministry of our church.

Our pastor brought two outstanding messages to us last Sunday. We are privileged to have such a good preacher and pastor to lead us. Please continue to pray for Larry and Brenda as they lead us during these days. We are blessed!

Pastor Donny has taken over the Sunday Morning Seminary Class which I started several years ago. This is a great discussion class, and he is a capable leader. If you are not involved in Sunday School, or just looking for a change of pace, visit the Fellowship Hall classroom next Sunday morning at 9:45 AM and check it out. We want you to be involved in Sunday School, and if you would like to change classes, you are welcome to do so. We just want everyone to be where they want to be.

And speaking of Sunday School, Michael Ann Bolin will be the new Sunday School director for the coming church year. Please pray for Michael Ann, and support her with your attendance each week. One of her desires is for each class to have an active outreach program, to seek out new members and involve them in the life of our church. Invite your friends and neighbors to come to Sunday School with you. I believe they will enjoy it, and have a good time with us.

I covet your continued prayers as I have been having some very difficult health problems lately. It seems that, even though I am as big as a house, and healthly looking for a man who is coming up on 73 years in August, that I am anemic! Can you imagine? With all the red meat that I consume, I still am not getting enough iron in my system. I take heavy doses of iron each day, but my body does not absorb it, so all the blood tests show that I am anemic. Thank you for your prayers; that the Lord will give me an infusion of spiritual iron and I can get back to doing the work that He has called me to do.

What a Great Time to Be ALIVE!

Here it is, the middle of July, and it is hot, and humid and rainy all this week, but what a great day to be alive and serving the Lord! I trust that you are doing well and all your problems are small and insignificant these days. I pray for you, and for your health problems, and also for the other areas of our lives that press us so hard.
our church family is doing well, most of our sick are home from the hospital, and the biggest problem we are having now is in the summer slump! Vacation, beach, mountains, golf, travel, all sorts of interruptions and our attendance really shows it. But we realize that we all need to get away from time to time for recreation;re-creation.Check that word out, it means a re--creation...a renewal, and that is what recreation is supposed to do for us. But you know, I feel re-created each time I enter the house of the Lord for worship and fellowship. There is something special about being with my church family.
Had a nice interview with a young man and his wife that we are asking to be our new minister of music. He is much in prayer now about this part-time position, and is actively seeking God's will in this matter. Please join the personnel committee in prayer about this need. When we fill that space, we will have a full staff, with senior pastor, min. of education, min. of youth and students, and a minister of music and worship. Surely the Lord is blessing our church and getting us ready for something exciting to happen! I cannot wait to see what the Lord is doing each day here in North. We have so much to offer the North community, with in-depth Bible preaching and teaching,worship services filled with God's music; great buildings and facilities, outstanding leadership, all sorts and types of activities for all ages. And, we have a church family that is eager to see God work here in our place of service. Talk up our church. Invite folks to come and see. Be a witness for our Lord and urge them to come and visit with us.
Don't hestitate to call on anyone in the church family or on the staff for any need that you might have. We care for you, and want only to help you. Please pray faithfully for each member of your church staff that we will be able to do the work that God would have us to do.
And for those who are away and read these words, remember that our thoughts and prayers are with you and know that each time you check into this Web Blog you will be reaching out and touching us in a special way. God loves you, and so do we!

CELEBRATION OF INDEPENDENCE

WOW! Is it really the weekend of July 4th already? What happened to the spring? Now we are here in the hot summer days and anxiously looking ahead to the cooler days of fall. Are we ever satisfied with the weather?

Well, we finished VBS with a good turnout, and now we are looking into the summer activities for our youth and children, and a continuing program for our church family. As I mentioned in the last post, we are in the process of interviewing a prospective minister of music, and are praying that the Lord will send us the right person soon.

We have been having some great discussions in both the Sunday Morning Seminary class which I lead during the Sunday School hour, and also in the Adult Discipleship Training Class which we have on Sunday nights at 6:00PM. Both classes are discussion type programs, and we really teach one another. We have covered all areas such as other denominational beliefs, what we believe as Southern Baptists, the end time prophecies, the rapture, Spiritual Warfare, and on and on. We are especially interested now in the creation account in the Bible, as opposed to the worldly view of evolution. I have been praying that the Lord will lead some of our church members who are not coming to Sunday School of Discipleship Training to come in and join with us, and perhaps we will see some new folks coming in from time to time.

We are living in exciting days! There seems to me to be a sense of impending activity in the spiritual realm, an excitement that the day of the Lord is drawing closer and closer. We can study the Scriptures and make a pretty good case that the Lord is coming soon. I am waiting for the rapture of the church with great anticipation. Looking for that "Blessed Hope." How about you? Are you Ready??

The proof copy of the Church Pictorial Directory is in, and I am asking several of our church family to come, take a look at it, and help correct the inevitable errors and typos that are there. Come by the church office and either Joan or I will show you the book and let you eyeball it. As soon as we finish the corrections and mail it back, the finished directory will be sent to us.I believe that it will be a real treasure and keepsake for our church members, and a historical document as well. The directory is in a loose-leaf notebook format, and we will be adding pages from time to time in order to keep it fairly current.