This is a last minute announcement – just decided to do this last night.
New Years Eve
Watchnight Service
Sunday, Dec 31
8:00 til ???
We will eat, play games, watch a movie, and whatever else sounds good.
To close out the night, we’ll pray together to ring in 2007.
Impacting Eternity at the Cross Road of Life
Would the world be a better place if you made these promises?
I am Resolved to:
1. Read the Bible everyday.
2. Increase my giving to my church.
3. Study my Sunday School lesson before Sunday morning.
4. Thank my Sunday School teacher for their hard work.
5. Sing more joyfully than ever before.
6. Make a better friend of someone in the church.
7. Help with Vacation Bible School.
8. Invite at least one person to church who doesn’t normally come.
9. Share my faith at least once a week.
10. Encourage someone every day.
11. Be physically, emotionally, and spiritually fit.
12. Love my spouse according to Ephesians 5.
13. Raise Godly children or grandchildren.
14. Avoid the appearance of evil.
15. Be financially responsible.
16. Study one of the names for God in the Bible.
17. Read one book a month written by a Christian author.
18. Keep up on current events.
19. Drive the speed limit.
20. Smile more.
I hope you were here on Christmas Eve morning. We had a wonderful service with great singing, a good spirit of fellowship, wonderful Bible study. But to top it all, two people were saved! Not only will life on earth be affected by this decision, but their names are written in Heaven – and that will never change.
God is good. The baby in the manger proves it. And today’s service proves it, too.
Impacting Eternity at the Cross Road of Life
After reading the title of this posting you might think I have a “business” I want to tell you about! Well, I do. It’s God’s business of saving the lost!
Sunday is Christmas Eve – newsflash. Often, this is one of the few times people who do not follow Christ will come to church. Please invite your family, friends, and neighbors to attend one or all of the services Sunday. You may think, “there’s no way they’ll come,” but they might since it’s Christmas Eve.
My promise to you is that I’ll present the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a straightforward, inviting way. We’ll trust God’s Spirit to be at work. What a great Christmas gift it would be for your loved one or friend to receive the Greatest Gift this Christmas. And wouldn’t that person coming to Christ outshine any gift under your tree? Take advantage of this outstanding opportunity!
Impacting Eternity at the Cross Road of Life
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Jesus gave us a command to be his witness all over the planet. Churches and Christians should develop a strategy to fulfill this command – which is the Great Commission (Mt 28:18-20). Let me quickly outline the ACTS 1:8 command so we can begin building our strategy to fulfill it. I’ll preach a message on this passage of scripture early in January to further explain the principles of an ACTS 1:8 strategy.
· “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem” This is where you are – your local community and daily traffic pattern.
· “and in all Judea” This is where you go – the area in which you travel for business or personal reasons.
· “and Samaria” This is where you don’t want to go – we are to witness to people we may have a prejudice toward.
· “and the to the ends of the earth” This is where you’ve never been.
So we at Cross Road need to be intentional in our planning in order to complete the Lord’s command. This is not a sequential order by which we must complete local missions before moving outward. Nor is it a “pick and choose” menu whereby we can choose which piece of the charge in which to be involved. ACTS 1:8 (all of it) applies to all of us at all times. Our strategy must be to involve every person in our church family in missions on each level.
We already do this in many ways. What I see is a coordination of all mission groups and efforts so that we can involve more people and celebrate each mission activity as a church. This will take shape over the next few weeks so be watching and praying.
The key to our success in becoming an ACTS 1:8 church is that “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” Brothers and sisters, as a Christian the Holy Spirit has come on you to empower you to be his witnesses everywhere to everybody.
Impacting Eternity at the Cross Road of Life
At the end of each post is a link for you to send me your thoughts about the information posted. Do you see the “# comments” down there? You can click on that and enter you comments. I’ll receive an email right away with your comments. Feel free to respond.
Impacting Eternity at the Cross Road of Life
Now that we’ve turned the corner into the last week before Christmas, the excitement has ratcheted up a few notches at our house. While we love the excitement of the Christmas season we cannot lose sight of the Advent of Christ. Deana has pictured this perfectly with our nativity set at home.
Atop the entertainment center (is that what these things are still called?) to the left is the stable scene with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus surrounded by the shepherds. Behind them is a lamp that shines on the scene like the Bethlehem star would have shone. To the right – way to the right – are the magi. We place them away from the rest of the scene because the Bible indicates they weren’t at the stable but at a house. Since they were still on their way, we place them away from the manger scene.
There is greenery around all of this to provide depth and beauty. In addition to this, Deana has placed one other item in the scene: a cross. Not giving her the credit I should have, I asked if she placed it there on purpose. She said she thought about moving it (it is part of the non-seasonal decorations atop the entertainment center) but felt like it belonged with the nativity. And it does!
If we gaze into the manger and see only the baby Jesus we have missed the point of Christmas. If there had been no need for the cross of Christ there would have been no babe in a manger. The songs of Christmas are beautiful and capture the essence very well, but maybe we should sing this list of songs back-to-back during the season:
Silent Night
The Old Rugged Cross
Up From the Grave He Arose
The King is Coming
The cross casts a shadow across the nativity scene. And, these days, can’t you see a shadow of Jesus cast across the world as he prepares to descend from Heaven? He’s coming a second time in power and glory! He’s coming soon.
Impacting Eternity at the Cross Road of Life
I want to share with you something that has become a passion of mine. Please join me in this specific prayer.
A “people group” is a homogenous culture that can be located in one area or spread over a larger area that may include different countries. Mission agencies began to focus on people groups rather than regions several years ago because a particular region may have many people groups resulting in the necessity of more than one strategy to reach the geographical region. And if the people group was scattered across geographical regions, the strategies were being duplicated from region to region. Now the focus is on people groups. The result is a streamlined approach to reaching as many people as possible to fulfill the Great Commission.
As people groups are identified the mission agencies (the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, for example) allocate missionaries and resources to reach them. Unfortunately, many people groups are yet to be reached due to limits on resources, funding, and missionary availability.
These limits are only limits to us; God will not be limited by them. That’s where prayer comes in; after all, prayer is our petition to God to act according to his will. I believe God’s will is to reach every person on the planet with the gospel message and I believe he will do it. I also believe he will use Christians as the primary vehicle to transport that message to them. There may be limits to what we can do as human beings, but God can do great things even through limited vessels like us. We must pray that he will.
Part of the missional strategy for our church is to reach people for Christ all over the world: here at home, across our state and nation, and throughout the world. This prayer emphasis is about reaching people throughout the world. Let’s join together and lift our prayers to Heaven on behalf of an unreached people group.
First, we will pray that God will reveal to us a specific unreached people group for which to pray. We will adopt them as a central part of our “ends of the earth” mission strategy. Once identified, we will pray for missionaries to be assigned to work with them. Based on Matthew 9:38 we will “ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field.” I believe God will answer our prayers.
We will learn about these people and pray for specific needs they may have. The group may be poverty- or disease-stricken. We will pray for their deliverance from this. They may be absorbed by a false religion; we will pray for the gospel to penetrate the darkness. They may be in the grip of animism; we’ll pray for the true Spirit of God to release them. As we learn about them we will develop prayer strategies.
When God raises up a missionary we will pray for that person and support him or her in various ways. We will not only adopt the people group but the missionary, too. Every day of the year we will pray for the missionary. We will stay in contact if possible. Cross Road will be at the center of the support network for him/her.
Part of my prayer is that we will someday be able to take a group of volunteers from our church to the land of this people and work along side the missionary.
Acts 1:8 challenges me to take God’s message of salvation and hope everywhere to everybody! Won’t you join me in praying for this?
This is part of what I mean by
Impacting Eternity at the Cross Road of Life
Are you ready for Christmas? I visited in a home last week and the tree had all the presents under it. They were wrapped in shiny paper with pretty bows. The outside of the home looked like a winter wonderland! My children have supplied their wish lists. Deana and I have done our best to fill our home with Christmas cheer. We’ve been reading an Advent activity book and calendar with Riley this year. There is so much meaning in the Christmas season. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” right? It really is.
Christmas Eve is on a Sunday this year. We’ll follow the normal schedule for Sunday morning: Sunday School at 9:45 and Worship at 11:00. Then we’ll have one Evening Worship service at 5:00. I want all of you to come and enjoy this special time together. I also understand that some will have other obligations on the night of Christmas Eve. If you can bring your family to church at 5:00 – come on! If not, enjoy your family time. Please don’t feel pressured in any way to come. But for those of you who can attend, we’ll worship the Newborn Baby who became the Suffering Servant who became the Risen Lord and is now the Soon Coming King!
If you aren’t taking part of the Wednesday night fare you are missing out! We have supper at 6:00. It’s free to visitors; members are asked to make a donation to defray the cost.
At 7:00 I lead in a Bible study and time of prayer. Currently, the Bible study is on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. We’ve just started so you haven’t missed much. The Sermon is Jesus’ practical application of God’s Law, among other things. You’ll find this practical study to be interactive, engaging, in depth, and beneficial.
The prayer time is a time to focus on how God has, does, and will act in our lives. If Christians are to see God’s will gloriously unfold in their lives and churches, it will be because of prayer. We talk about and pray for missions. Then we talk about and pray for physical needs like sickness. Then we pray for spiritual needs like salvation, reconciliation, restoration, and forgiveness. I believe anything great that is to happen at Cross Road will begin in these prayer meetings. I know it’s old-fashioned to think prayer makes a difference, but you know what? I’m just old-fashioned enough to believe it! Come with me to the altar; we’ll approach the throne of grace with confidence.
The children and youth participate in missions studies where they learn about missionaries and the work they do in places all around the world. Adult Christians are much more likely to be mission-minded when they received the missions foundation at a younger age. Who knows but that God will call one of these children or teenagers to go into inner-city USA or unreached Africa? How cool would that be?
Many churches have little going on on Wednesday nights. Here at Cross Road, we want to leverage our time together to enhance the Kingdom of God. Join us!
I’ll be preaching a series of sermons on Sunday mornings through Christmas Eve called “The Promises of Christmas.” Please come and invite a friend or family member to come with you. You can expect a clear gospel presentation and call for salvation in each sermon. You can also expect to get some practical ideas for achieving two attributes that are sometimes hard to come by even at this time of year: Peace and Joy. I look forward to seeing you each Sunday…especially at this time of year!
December 10 “The Promise of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6-7)
December 17 “The Promise of Joy” (Luke 2:8-11)
December 24 “The Promise of Salvation” (Matthew 1:21)
IMPACTING ETERNITY AT THE CROSS ROAD OF LIFE
AUGUST MOODY will reign as “Champion Chili Chef” for the next year. I’ll not mention how my entry fared; let’s just say I wasn’t mentioned in the top 3.
Our judges were Ronnie, Joseph, and Greg from the fire department. I had not met them before Wednesday and I guess I should have introduced myself as “number 5.” Maybe that would have given me a boost in the judging!
But I took my crock pot home EMPTY! That makes me feel good.
What makes me feel even better is that the event is a fund raiser for the annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. Our church gave over $4,000 last year at the urging of the former pastor, John Savage. John passed away just a few days after making the challenge to reach $4,000 for the offering. The church honored him and our Lord by meeting the challenge. This year the goal is $4,000 and I think we’ll make it. We are off to a good start and the Chili Cookoff is part of the reason.
I want you to pray about your support of the offering. God will lead you to give what is appropriate for you, so just ask him. Here are some tips to help you for this year and next year.
The Southern Baptist Convention has a powerful tool for financing mission work around the world. It’s called the Cooperative Program. Our church currently gives 7% of all undesignated receipts to CP. Out of every dollar you give, 7 cents goes to CP. Some of the money stays in Arkansas for missions at home. The rest of it goes to SBC entities that serve Southern Baptists and the world in many ways. The three missions offerings supplement the budgets of the missions organizations. In fact, according to Garry Looney, about 50% of the International Mission Board’s budget is met through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. When you give, you are helping missionaries reach people for Jesus.
I like what our state director Emil Turner says: we do what we do so that “more people will go to Heaven and fewer people will go to Hell.”
IMPACTING ETERNITY AT THE CROSS ROAD OF LIFE
We have a bunch of stuff going on! It’s the Christmas season so we shouldn’t be surprised. Please take part in as much as you can.
Wednesday, December 6 at 6:30 pm
Annual Men’s Chili Cookoff
Cast your vote for the best chili with your $!!
All donations go to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions
Friday, December 8
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Pastor’s Open House
Bro. Bob and Deana invite you all to stop by the parsonage and visit.
The recent remodeling is complete and looks fantastic.
We look forward to sharing this time with you.
Tuesday, December 12 at 10:00 am
WMU to minister at Promise House
Promise House is a ministry of the Arkansas Baptist Children’s Homes.
We will provide stocking stuffers and candy; and wrap gifts for the residents of Promise House.
We will leave the church at 9:30 am.
Tuesday, December 12 at 7:00 pm
Women on Mission Annual Christmas Ornament Exchange
Bring a Christmas ornament to exchange during this time of fellowship
Learn more about Women on Mission plans for 2007
Lottie Moon Christmas Offering
for International Missions
We are on our way to reaching the GOAL of $4,000
All donations directly impact the ministry of more than 5,000 missionaries serving around the world through the Southern Baptist’s International Mission Board.
If you have not already memorized this phrase, please do it today. It embodies all we do at Cross Road Baptist Church.
Impacting Eternity at the Cross Road of Life!
It’s that time of year! Christmas is upon us. I want you to think about the real reason for the season. I’ll share more about this Sunday morning in our worship.
Speaking of Sunday morning and Christmas time and music…Color it Christmas is a wonderful Christmas musical our choir will present this Sunday. I’m impressed with our choir’s ability and desire to share this message with you. You’ll hear a unique look at the colors we’ve all come to know as “Christmas colors.” Plan to be here and please bring someone with you. The message in song is effective in reaching many who tend to steer clear of a sermon.
Do you have your radio on today? So much Christmas music. Even the secular stations tell the story of our Savior’s birth. Reach over and crank it up so everyone can hear the message!
Impacting Eternity at the Cross Road of Life
