Fun from our Fellowship

The 2012 Chili Cookoff was a huge success! I want to thank all 16 chili makers, judges, kitchen crew, and youth group who helped make this year’s fellowship one to remember. The winners of the 2012 Chili Cookoff are:

1st Place - Margaret Lowe

2nd Place - Lyric Brown and Traci Rice

3rd Place - Julie Honnaker

Hottest Chili - Margaret Lowe

Sweetest Chili - Scottie Newby

I think I’m Gonna Die Award (Heat and lots of Beans) - Lyric Brown and Traci Rice

Meatiest Chili - Julie Honnaker

What is in this? Award - Laura Britton

Happy Heart Award (Most Beans) - Wanda Peavler

We also played some great game shows and had a lot of fun. The following game show winners were:

Wheel of Wisdom (Wheel of Fortune) Abi Camic

Shepherdy (Jeopardy) John Gibson

Who Wants to Win a Dollar Bill (Who Wants to be a Millionairre?) Terry Honnaker

Terry walked away from the night with a crisp dollar bill to spend! (Wow!) 

I enjoyed seeing everyone talk and laugh and believe that this is one of our most successful fellowships yet. We have some more planned for this year and I can’t wait to see what great things lie ahead. 

May God continue to bless our fellowship!

- Bro. Dave

The Clarity of Scripture

Several OT passages affirm an expectation that the words of Scripture are able to be clearly understood. For example, our text from Sunday morning:

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deut 6:6–7)

The command to teach children assumes an ability to summarize and make plain, at some level, “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) regarding many different topics.

Other passages in the OT also assume that God’s words are able to be understood by his people:

For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. (Deut 30:11–14)

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. (Ps 19:7)

The idea here seems to be that God’s testimonies make even simple people to be wise, and if they make wise the simple, then surely they make everyone else wise as well. A similar idea is found in Ps 119:130: “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” Elsewhere in the same Psalm, the metaphor of a lamp conveys the idea of imparting understanding, namely, how to live in the ordinary events on the “path” of life: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 119:105). The apostle Peter expressed a similar view of the OT writings: “And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet 1:19).

May God grow us in Christian maturity as we read and obey His Word!

- Bro. Dave

Mission Trip Opportunities for 2012

There are a number of mission opportunities that are coming up this year that I would like to call your attention to. If you have any interest in the following mission projects, please call our church office this week, or my cell number at 859-325-0528 to let us know. You will also find some sign-up sheets on the church bulletin board.

Mercer County –

1)      Kentucky Changers, Harrodsburg, KY. June 9-16, 2012 – More than 300 students from around the state are coming to Harrodsburg to help fix homes and share the gospel. Volunteers are needed to drive food to work sites, prepare food, be a “runner” for a team (go get materials), or to serve as a site construction crew chief for a team. Can you help us?

2)      Summer Backpack Program, Harrodsburg, KY. – Mike and Amy Riley are working on a summer project for us to help our county students with the backpack program throughout the summer. We would be working with other churches to get food to more than 80 families that need assistance. Volunteers will be needed to assemble the backpacks and to deliver the backpacks. Could you lend a helping hand for this needed ministry? Be in prayer for this outreach as it is in the planning stage.

Kentucky –

1)      Summit Community Church, Hazzard, KY. Dates T.B.A. – Summit Community Church, with pastor Mark Combs, is one of the state’s fastest church plants. This new church has been reaching out in innovative ways to the people of Hazard and has seen incredible fruit. Pastor Mark has asked me to help bring in teams of people who can help with evangelism and outreach. Can you help us? We are planning the dates and will have them available soon.   

World –

1)      Malta, May 28-June 8.  – Earl and Robin Pinkston are seeing some incredible growth in their 11^th year of ministry on the Mediterranean Island of Malta. They are asking for some help this summer to do some bible distribution and evangelism. With only 0.4 % of the people of Malta being involved in a Gospel preaching church, the Pinkston’s depend heavily on volunteer teams to help get out the message of Christ. Will you pray about helping? Note - this trip is open to and is safe for children who have completed the 8^th grade.

2)      Moslem Country (Edited for Protection), Dates T.B.A. – Our recent friend from [censored] shared with us an opportunity to go and meet with the underground church of the [censored] country in the world. This trip would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to meet with persecuted Christians and offer support and encouragement. It will also involve some light service project work. Note - any youth that would like to go on this trip need to have completed 12^th grade.

The opportunities to serve Christ this year are unprecedented. Will you pray about joining with your brothers and sisters in Christ to help see the Kingdom of God grow!

-         -  Bro. Dave

The Nearness of God

“For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?”

Moses preached this to the Children of Israel right before they were to enter the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 4:7. We studied this passage this past Sunday, and I would like to reflect on it today.

One of the things I love most about being a Christian is the nearness of God. There are three major ways in which God is near to us:

1)   God the Father is near to us through God the Son, Jesus Christ. When Jesus showed up as a baby, Matthew quoted the prophecy in Isaiah that tells us his name was to be called Immanuel – God with us. While other religions present a distant and unknowable deity, our faith presents to us a personal relationship with God through His son Jesus Christ. That makes true Christianity all about a relationship and not religion.

2)    God the Father is near to us through God the Spirit. When we accept Christ, God the Holy Spirit comes to live within us. Our bodies become a temple of the Holy Spirit and we are sealed with him until the day of redemption – when God brings us to heaven. The Holy Spirit is our guide who comes alongside us and teaches us the truth. When we reflect on the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we must ask the question Moses asks – is there anyone who “has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us?”

3)    God the Father is near to us through His Word the Bible. When we read the Bible, we get to have communion and fellowship with our creator. The one who designed us is able to instruct us audibly as we hear the Word of God. Through prayer and Bible reading, we have 24 hours a day 7 days a week access to God. What joyful excitement flows from spending time with God!

As we are still in the beginning month of this year, let’s commit ourselves to getting the right priorities in place and draw near unto God as he promises to draw near unto us!

-          Bro. Dave

Welcome to a New Year!

I would like to thank the Chapel Hill Quartet for their hard work and amazing concert with which they began our new year! This past Sunday was a special service and an incredible blessing to be a part of. Due to an car wreck on Mackville road this past Monday, the cable broadcast of this concert will run on television next Monday night, January 9 at 6PM on channel 6.

We have had reports of technical difficulties of our broadcast containing only the audio and not the video of our services. Sadly, this problem led to our recent Christmas cantata recording to contain only the audio. We have investigated this problem and have fixed what was causing it. I would like to thank Mark Edwards for his investigative work and have been told by him that it should not happen again.

As we begin the New Year, I will be launching a new series this Sunday morning called “Text Messeges.” I will be delivering some practical sermons on how we can better understand, read, trust, and apply the Bible. If you struggle to read, understand, or apply the Bible, you need to come and be a part of these services. In the process of this series, we will be looking at some of the Baptist beliefs that concern the Bible and how we can better grow in our love to spend time with God in His Word.

We must labor to read God’s word, and seek to study it in a way that is not a burden but a blessing. While it takes discipline to pick up the book and apply our minds to what we read in it – it yields an incredible blessing of sweet communion with Jesus. As Charles Spurgeon correctly observes:

“True Bible-readers and Bible-searchers never find it wearisome. They like it least who know it least, and they love it most who read it most. They find it newest who have known it longest, and they find the pasture to be the richest whose souls have been the longest fed upon it. When one of our missionaries had to read a certain Book of the Old Testament through a hundred times while he was translating it, he said that he certainly enjoyed the hundredth time of reading it more than he did the first, for he understood it better, and it seemed to him to be fuller and fresher the more familiar he became with it.”

May God bless our year with a great love for His Word, His Church, His Kingdom, and His Glory!

-       Bro. Dave