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Operation Christmas Child
Weekly Update – October 17th, 2024 As was announced on Sunday, we as a church will be participating in Operation Christmas Child (OCC) this year. OCC is an effort organized by Samaritan’s Purse and it involves a simple concept – providing boxes of Christmas presents to needy children. On a grand scale, OCC will bring gift-filled shoeboxes to an estimated 220 million children in 170 countries on six continents this year. The idea behind OCC is for volunteers to fill…
Natural Disasters
Weekly Update – October 10th, 2024 No one ever expects their town to be the one hit when the storm warnings appear. The storm’s path may be predicted, the weather sirens may go off, the skies may be black and a tornado may even appear, but hope is always held out until the last minute that disaster may somehow be averted. This was not the case for many in Florida this week. As residents packed up and left under mandatory…
Why Attend Worship
Weekly Update – October 3rd, 2024 It’s Sunday morning and it is raining. One of the easiest things to say is, “I’ll just watch the service from home today, I won’t be missed this one Sunday.” Or, it is Sunday morning and you are tired, “I’m going to catch up on some sleep today, I’ll catch up on the service later online, it is almost the same thing as being in person anyway.” Perhaps you are having a conversation with…
Fallen Ministry Leaders
Weekly Update – September 26th, 2024 Within the last week, I became aware of two ministry leaders who fell into “ministry disqualifying” sins. One was very public, and his ministry is well known around the world. The other was local and served in a supporting role at a church just south of us. I won’t list the sins, nor will I give you the names, though you could likely figure it out. Instead, I want to process with you how…
Local Association
Weekly Update – September 19th, 2024 As a Baptist church, one of our distinctives is that we are autonomous. Essentially what that means is that we govern ourselves and do not take directives from anybody outside of our own assembly. In other words, we are independent. We see this principle of autonomy first come up in Matthew 18:16 when Jesus tells the church to remove an unrepentant person from their midst. The call here is not to go to a…
The Value of Pre-Born Life
Weekly Update – September 12th, 2024 The topic of abortion seems to have grown even more contentious than normal over the last several months. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, our political cycle has jumped headlong into the perceived positives and negatives of this outcome as each presidential candidate seeks to make use of this decision to their own advantage. Now, my point here is not to highlight the position of each political party, but…
The Virgin Birth
Weekly Update – September 5th, 2024 Last week, in our series through the gospel of Luke, we came to Luke 1:26-38 with the announcement of Jesus. With the way being prepared for the Messiah, through the miraculous birth of John being announced (Luke 1:5-25), it only then follows that the birth of Jesus would be announced next. There are many unique factors that go into this announcement, such as who God chose to deliver his Son into the world (Mary),…
Biblical Sexuality Pt. 9
Weekly Update – August 29th, 2024 Over the last year, 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 the final point. Point one can before found HERE. Point two, HERE. Point three, HERE. Point four, HERE. Point five, HERE. Point six, HERE. Point seven, HERE. Point eight, HERE. Point nine is as follows: Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, forgiveness…
The Gospel of Luke
Weekly Update – August 22nd, 2024 Last Sunday we began an in-depth study into the gospel of Luke. I preached through the entirety of the gospel of Mark back in 2015, but I think it is necessary for us to return to the gospels once again and simply soak in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. My hope through this series is that we would not only gain a deeper appreciation for Christ and his work for us,…
Sunday Night Service
Weekly Update – August 15th, 2024 I have said on several occasions that everything we strive to do at First Baptist Church is deliberate. We are not looking to merely fill your time, nor are we looking for additional meetings to take up nights of your week. Instead, we want to use the time that we have together as a church to its fullest as we seek to fulfill our mission to proclaim and display the truth of the gospel…
Two Ways to Live
Weekly Update – August 8th, 2024 On Sunday morning for the last two weeks, we have been talking about evangelism. Two weeks ago, we saw the apostle Paul’s desire for his fellow countrymen to be saved (Rom. 10:1). This desire flows out of the agony that he has in his heart because of their separation from God (Rom. 9:3). Though they have a zeal for God, Paul says that their zeal does not come with a knowledge of the truth…
Non Attending Members
Weekly Update – August 1st, 2024 During our members’ meeting last Sunday, there was a lot of discussion about what it looks like to remove non-attending members from membership. Ten years ago, we had 2200 members connected to our church. Since then, we have removed those who have passed away and those who we are unable to contact. That amounted to around 1400 members. Now we are in the process of removing members we have contact information for but who…