Posts by Michael Nelson

Weekly Update – December 4th, 2025  The Christmas offering that we as Southern Baptists participate in every year is named in honor of a woman named Lottie Moon.  On July 7, 1873, the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) of the Southern Baptist Convention appointed her a missionary to China. Lottie spent most of her missionary years in Tengchow and P’ingtu, China where she taught at mission schools and ministered to women. Through having immersed herself in Chinese culture,…

Weekly Update – November 20th, 2025  First Corinthians 1:4 says, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.”  Paul in a similar way opens up his letter to the Colossians by saying, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all…

Weekly Update – November 20th, 2025  By God’s grace, we have new faces walk through our doors on a regular basis. Some are repeat guests, and others try for a Sunday and then we may see them again in the future, but either way, our church always has a number of new people come through its doors.  In the New Testament we see a command given to Christians to show hospitality towards others.  Hospitality literally means “welcoming strangers.”  It is…

Weekly Update – November 13th, 2025  In Luke 11:1, one of his disciples come to Jesus and says, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Perhaps there was some confusion over what prayer was meant to accomplish or look like. That is not too uncommon among Christians presently either. The common trend is either we don’t pray, or we try to pray for everything we can think of in 3 or 4 minutes. What results then is the feeling of praying the same…

Weekly Update – November 6th, 2025  Last week we had the privilege of singing “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”  This hymn, written by Martin Luther, was likely a testimony of his own life as he wrote, “the ancient foe who doth seek to work us woe, with his craft and power are great, (while) armed with cruel hate.” This hymn, as well as the many others that Luther wrote, not only communicate the reality of spiritual warfare present in…

Weekly Update – October 30th, 2025  As always, we had a wonderful time this past Sunday night with our fall festival.  It was a bit slower this year with the rain and the cold weather, but we still had a great evening with plenty of volunteers. Our fall festival provides a good marker to highlight the change in seasons as well as an opportunity for further connections within our community.  At the same time, it is around this time of…

Weekly Update – October 23rd, 2025  It was great to have Daniel Good back with us last Sunday. He preached from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21.  It was a good bookend for what we had been looking at the previous two weeks in Luke 10:1-24 and our being sent into the harvest. This week we will be back in the gospel of Luke looking at the parable of the Good Samaritan. As the parable begins, we have a lawyer who comes up…

Weekly Update – October 16th, 2025  In 2019, First Baptist Church began a partnership with Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MBTS) to host interns through their Timothy Track program.  This program is designed for first year master’s level students to have “in-the-field” ministry training in the context of the local church. Since that first year, we have had 4 men who have completed the program with our fifth who started back in August. The internship is left open to the specific…

Weekly Update – October 9th, 2025  Many times, the worship service may seem like a sort of break for tired and weary parents.  This time could provide an hour for parents to refresh, listen and fellowship with others while their children are being cared for and taught by a loving teacher.  That is why on the outset, the idea of having children in the worship service may not always seem that appealing.  Some may think that it is an inconvenience to parents and…

Weekly Update – October 2nd, 2025  Over the last four weeks, we have been looking into the significance of our place. As we kicked off our remodel, we wanted our fundraiser to be more than just the raising of money for a building, but an investment in a place. As many of you know, our goal at First Baptist Church is to raise $600,000.  That is no small amount, yet it is not insurmountable either. There have been pledge cards…

Weekly Update – September 25th, 2025  After the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, many are wondering if revival will break out in America. Kirk’s memorial service was likely the largest in recorded history, with over 90,000 people in attendance, and more than 100 million who watched it via livestream. If you watched the service, you could attest to the gospel being preached with great clarity. In fact, it was proclaimed many times. Additionally, there was this…

Weekly Update – September 18th, 2025  At 2:40pm on September 10, 2025, it was announced that Charlie Kirk had died. In many ways, the world went silent. I had never seen him speak in person, nor had I ever been to one of his debates, but like so many, I had watched YouTube videos, interviews and had watched his career from afar. In the last week, you have likely seen a thousand different comments or read numerous articles about Kirk’s…