Posts by Michael Nelson (Page 7)

Weekly Update – September 7th, 2023 This week we will have a responsive reading in the middle of our service.  In fact, it is placed right after our prayer of confession and will serve as our reminder of the pardon we have received through Jesus Christ.  In terms of responsive readings, over the last several years, we have done everything from reading scripture together, reciting catechisms to even reading our statement of faith.  We don’t do this because we are…

Weekly Update – August 31st, 2023 Last Sunday, we celebrated our 175th anniversary as a church.  The Lord has done many things through us over the years as we have sought to not only impact Grandview, but Kansas City, Missouri and the world beyond us.  Even though the Lord has been faithful to work through us in the past, we as the people of God here at First Baptist Church, ought to long to grow in pressing forward together as…

Weekly Update – August 24th, 2023 On Monday, July 10th, 1848, with 12 charter members, First Baptist Church (United Baptist Church of Jesus Christ – then) was constituted.  Through the desire to two preachers and two deacons from West Fork Baptist Church (Connection Point Church – now) Grandview now had a Baptist Church.  Within a year, James J. Robinson became the first official pastor in 1849.  The church initially met in a one-room log school/meeting building, owned by the community,…

Weekly Update – August 17th, 2023 Last week, I wrote about a new Biblical Counseling course that we are offering on Wednesday nights, starting on September 13th. The course will run for about 30 weeks (with a few nights off here and there) from September to April. The course will be video led with discussion to follow concerning the material that was taught. In that post I also explained what Biblical Counseling is. You can find that HERE. What I…

Weekly Update – August 10th, 2023 On Sunday, I announced that we will be starting a new training series for those interested in biblical counseling.  We will meet on Wednesday nights, starting September 13th at 6:30pm.  The series will run for 30 weeks over the course of the fall and spring.  Our times will include a mixture of video teaching, discussion and quizzes.  For anyone who is interested, come and talk with me and I can give you some more…

Weekly Update – August 3rd, 2023 Last Sunday, we had an opportunity to witness the baptism of Mark Petty.  Mark has been coming to First Baptist Church since around March, came to Christ, and then approached me in May about going public with that decision in baptism.  Since then, his wife Kirsten started coming with him and they are about to enter the membership process.  Aside from this, there were four significant things that were going on during this baptism…

Weekly Update – July 27th, 2023 Over the last 7 months, we have been slowly walking through our newly adopted statement on Biblical Sexuality.  There are nine points to this statement.  This week we will look at point five.  Point one can before found HERE.  Point two, HERE.  Point three, HERE.  Point four HERE.  Point 5 is as follows: God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity to one’s spouse within marriage.  No affection, desire or commitment ever…

Weekly Update – July 20th, 2023 The Biblical command issued by Jesus throughout the gospels to those who would be his disciples is, “Follow Me.”  Every passage in the New Testament in some way or another gives us this command too.  Hopefully this has been clear the last several weeks as we have been walking through Paul’s letter to the Philippians.  But, for the sake of even greater clarity, lets take an overview look at what the command from Jesus…

Weekly Update – July 13th, This week, we have had the opportunity to host our annual Vacation Bible School.  The theme for this year is, Twists and Turns: Following Jesus Changes the Game. Every day children from our church and all over our community have come to learn about how big our God is and how much he cares for them.  This has been shown through the different memory verses that we have had, as well as through our teaching…

Weekly Update – July 6th, 2023 In your life, there may be many kinds of communities to be involved with, but none will rival the true community you are redeemed to.  You can join a gym, play a team sport, interact with your neighbors, and form all sorts of good relationships, but there is still something different about the true community.  The reason I say this is because, ultimately, a true community is the only type of community that is…

Weekly Update – June 29th, 2023 At Sunday’s Members’ Meeting we announced some updates to our staff and deacons. To our staff, we added Daniel Holsten and Matthew Klika. Then, Bob Berning, Jake Norman and Kamto Eze will join Nate Johnson and Alex Martin as deacons. Let me explain exactly what that means for us now. For our staff, the addition of Daniel Holsten and Matthew Klika brings some intentionality to a few needed areas. Daniel will come on as…

Weekly Update – June 22nd, 2023 Every year, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) meets in June for its annual meeting.  The convention contains just over 47,000 churches with anywhere from 8-12,000 messengers attending this annual meeting on behalf of member churches.  The SBC was formed in 1845 with the singular purpose of, “eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the Baptist denomination of Christians, for the propagation of the Gospel.”  First Baptist Church is an active member of the SBC…