Expansion Committee Report

I would like to thank the Expansion Committee for their report on Sunday Night. This committee has been working hard to move things forward, and I am grateful for their positive spirit and determination. Sunday Night, the committee shared three commitments with the church that they would follow:

1. A Monthly Report to be delivered at the Business meeting informing us on all of the progress. 
2. An invitation to approach any of the members of the committee with questions or concerns about the expansion of the property. Also, the committee will receive open questions after the committee report at the monthly business meeting. 
3. The committee has committed to meet each week until a master plan for the expansion is in place. 

Join me in praying for this committee that God would help them through the meetings and background work that needs to be done. While they have their work cut out for them, we have many things as a church that we need to do to prepare for what is coming. 

1. We need to pray! While I know many have been praying for our church and for our expansion team, we need to meet together to lift our prayers corporately. 

1. Sunday Night, September 11, we will be joining together to pray for our nation and for our church. There will be some time that evening where we will specifically pray for the expansion of our church.
2. 21 Days of Fasting and Prayer for our Church. Between the dates of September 11 and October 16, I want to challenge the members of our church to fast from something significant (like television, coffee, or candy) and pray for our church. 
3. Prayerwalk on the new property. While the details for this are still to be announced, we are scheduling a prayerwalk on our property to ask for God’s guidance and blessing. 

1. We need vision! The question of what we should do with this property brings up clear questions about where we are going as a church. Vision comes from God, and we need a unifying vision for the future that will incorporate three things:

1. Who God has made us. By my estimate, we are a generous church, a missions minded church, and an outreach oriented church. 
2. Where God has placed us. He has placed us in Rose Hill, within a 5 mile radius of more than 5,600 people. 
3. What God has commanded of us. He has commanded that we love Him with with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. 

1. We need revival! While the momentum in our church feels to many to have slowed down, we need God to revive us with a fresh excitement for His plans and for lost souls. 

1. The next three Sunday Mornings we will be looking at key texts in the Bible to refresh our commitments to King Jesus. 
2. Pray for God to revive you as we seek a renewal of our mission. 
3. Pray for God to stir up his people for action in a community that desperately needs Jesus. 

With God’s leading, I cannot wait to see what great things He has in store! May God bless us as we step forward. 

• Bro. Dave

Spurgeon On Daniel 5

Here is another devotional by Charles Spurgeon on Sunday Morning’s text:


“Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.” 
— Daniel 5:27


It is well frequently to weigh ourselves in the scale of God’s Word. You will find it a holy exercise to read some psalm of David, and, as you meditate upon each verse, to ask yourself, “Can I say this? Have I felt as David felt? Has my heart ever been broken on account of sin, as his was when he penned his penitential psalms? Has my soul been full of true confidence in the hour of difficulty as his was when he sang of God’s mercies in the cave of Adullam, or in the holds of Engedi? Do I take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord?” Then turn to the life of Christ, and as you read, ask yourselves how far you are conformed to his likeness. Endeavour to discover whether you have the meekness, the humility, the lovely spirit which he constantly inculcated and displayed. Take, then, the epistles, and see whether you can go with the apostle in what he said of his experience. Have you ever cried out as he did—“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Have you ever felt his self-abasement? Have you seemed to yourself the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints? Have you known anything of his devotion? Could you join with him and say, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”? If we thus read God’s Word as a test of our spiritual condition, we shall have good reason to stop many a time and say, “Lord, I feel I have never yet been here, O bring me here! give me true penitence, such as this I read of. Give me real faith; give me warmer zeal; inflame me with more fervent love; grant me the grace of meekness; make me more like Jesus. Let me no longer be ‘found wanting,’ when weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, lest I be found wanting in the scales of judgment.” “Judge yourselves that ye be not judged.”


Praise God that Christ stands on the scales on our behalf - and that He fulfilled the requirements to assure salvation to us!


- Bro. Dave

Spurgeon on Pride

This past Sunday morning we looked at the Pride of Nebuchudnezzar and God’s humbling work in his life. For this week’s chimes article, I would like to post an excerpt from Charles Spurgeon’s devotional where he addresses the sin of pride within the Christian: 

“Before destruction the heart of man is haughty.” 

— Proverbs 18:12

“It is an old and common saying, that “coming events cast their shadows before them;” the wise man teaches us that a haughty heart is the prophetic prelude of evil. Pride is as safely the sign of destruction as the change of mercury in the weather-glass is the sign of rain; and far more infallibly so than that. When men have ridden the high horse, destruction has always overtaken them. Let David’s aching heart show that there is an eclipse of a man’s glory when he dotes upon his own greatness. 2 Sam. 24:10. See Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty builder of Babylon, creeping on the earth, devouring grass like oxen, until his nails had grown like bird’s claws, and his hair like eagle’s feathers. Dan. 4:33. Pride made the boaster a beast, as once before it made an angel a devil. 

God hates high looks, and never fails to bring them down. All the arrows of God are aimed at proud hearts. O Christian, is thine heart haughty this evening? For pride can get into the Christian’s heart as well as into the sinner’s; it can delude him into dreaming that he is “rich and increased in goods, and hath need of nothing.” Art thou glorying in thy graces or thy talents? Art thou proud of thyself, that thou hast had holy frames and sweet experiences? Mark thee, reader, there is a destruction coming to thee also. Thy flaunting poppies of self-conceit will be pulled up by the roots, thy mushroom graces will wither in the burning heat, and thy self-sufficiency shall become as straw for the dunghill. If we forget to live at the foot of the cross in deepest lowliness of spirit, God will not forget to make us smart under his rod. A destruction will come to thee, O unduly exalted believer, the destruction of thy joys and of thy comforts, though there can be no destruction of thy soul. Wherefore, “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”

May God bless rid us of our pride, that we may become more useful for His kingdom!

- Bro. Dave

Standing Firm for Jesus

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego took a bold stand when they refused to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. When I look at their example I wonder how I would do in a similar situation.  Looking back over the chapter, I see three things (of course there are 3 things!) that they had that helped them to stand firm that can help us also to stand firm today as Christians. 

1) They had each other. 

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12: Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were able to stand firm because they had the support of each other. This is why attending church and being involved in a Sunday School Class is so important. We stand firm when we join together. To get out of the habit of coming to church is the fast path to become easily entangled in the idolatry of this world. 

2) They had biblical convictions.

17 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

They had resolved in verse 18 not to bow because they had been commanded in Scripture 

In the 10 Commandments passage in Exodus 20 we read, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God…

We need to read our Bibles and develop convictions so that we also will stand against the sins of this world. 

3) They had Jesus.  

Though they were thrown into the fire, bound, the king looked and saw that they were standing in the fire with a fourth man. I believe that this 4th man was clearly Jesus. Jesus helps us to stand when we go through the fires of life. Jesus promised us in His Great Commission that He would be with us always, even to the ends of the earth. Since we have Jesus, let us live bold lives of faith and shine as lights in this dark world. 

May God bless us with boldness to stand firm for Jesus in this wicked generation!

- Bro. Dave

BBQ Fellowship Results

I would like to thank everyone who came out and participated in our BBQ Fellowship. Thanks to everyone who prepared meats and sides, and to the kitchen crew who worked hard to make this fellowship a success. The following were our winners for the night:

Best Chicken Award - Lyric Brown
Best Pork Award - Rudy Burgess
Best Sauce Award - Rudy Burgess
2nd Runner Up - David Crowe
1st Runner Up - Dwain Hahn
Grand Prize Winner - Rudy Burgess

I am writing this from our mission trip at Mountain Community Fellowship in Paintsville. The need here is incredible! We are going to work hard this week and make a good dent here but there will be so much left to do!

Pray for our team as we will be pretty tired coming home this weekend:
Lyric Brown
Taylor Grey
Kayla Moeller
Avery Edwards
Ginny Crowe
David Crowe
Elijah Crowe
Jonah Crowe
Alan Britton
James Moeller

May God bless our fellowship and our service!

- Bro. Dave