FBC Carthage E-News for December 14, 2009

FBC Carthage E-News
December 14, 2009

Good morning,

It’s only 11 days until Christmas and only 6 days until our big Christmas Service on December 20 at the Smith County High School Auditorium. Help us get the word out for this special service held at 10:00 AM. We will not have any morning services or Sunday School at First Baptist Church buildings next Sunday. Our one combined service will be at the High School Auditorium at 10:00 AM. Invite family, friends, neighbors and anyone you meet this week to join us for the Christmas service. The choir will present a special Christmas program and we will have Christmas carols and a Christmas message. It will be a great day of celebration, worship and excitement. Did I mention it would be at the Smith County High School Auditorium on Sunday, December 20 at 10:00 AM? Pass the word. Share the excitement!

We will be setting up the High School auditorium on Friday, December 18 at 4:00 PM. If you can come and help with this transformation meet at the school and we will use you from there. There is much to do in preparation for the special Christmas service on Sunday, December 20 at 10:00 AM at the Smith County High School Auditorium.

On Sunday night, December 20, we will be having a special evening service at 5:30 PM followed by a Youth Fellowship/Christmas Party at Mark and Gina Dillon’s home at 102 Morris Drive.

The special Christmas services continue with a Christmas Eve service on December 24 at 5:30 PM. We will have Christmas carols, communion and a candle lighting service. Bring your family and come as you are to this special service remembering the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Several special prayer requests for you to be praying for this week:
· Alyne Bridgewater, our oldest member at 104, passed away last Friday and her graveside service is today at 1 PM at the Dixon Springs Cemetery.
· Cliffodean Thompson is having surgery today at Southern Hills Hospital in Nashville.
· Michael, Selicia and Case Collins have been in the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital over the weekend.

I would like to say a personal “Thank-You” to all who came to visit us for our Christmas Open House on Sunday. It is an honor and privilege serving FBC Carthage as your Pastor. From me and my family, we wish you a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Have a WONDER-full week glorifying and praising God for all you have heard, seen and experienced in Christ.

Bro. Tim


Here’s the news for the week:
1. We welcome Becky Mitchell as our newest member. Becky joins on transfer of letter from the Stevens Street Baptist Church in Cookeville, Tennessee.

2. We will have regularly scheduled services and activities on Wednesday nights, December 23 and 30.

3. You are invited to be a part of a Christmas Mission Team to the Baptist Children’s Home in Franklin, Tennessee, December 27-28. We will leave each morning at 7:00 AM from the Family Life Center. There will be several painting jobs and some other minor renovations done to two of the cottages on campus. Please sign-up by calling the church office at 735-1929 or noting your willingness to serve on the attendance registers. You can serve both days or only one depending on your schedule.

4. On Sunday, December 27 we will join in a special Missions Commissioning service at 6:00 PM at the New Middleton Baptist Church. Tony and Karen Stinnett will be going to Waimea, Hawaii to pastor a small church on the Big Island. This Commissioning service will be a spiritual send-off for this couple as they leave the familiar culture of Tennessee where Mark has served for many years as Pastor and go to a new place to do God’s work.

5. Be making your New Year’s Eve plans to join us for a fun-filled evening of games and refreshments in the Family Life Center, followed by a service of worship and prayer as we welcome in the year 2010. The activities begin at 9:00 PM and will conclude just after midnight. Bring finger-food, games and a hearty anticipation of a good beginning of the greatest year of our lives.

6. Sunday, December 20 during the 10 AM Christmas Service at the High School Auditorium, we will be receiving a special offering for missions. The entire amount of the offering will be divided 75/25% between the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and the Smith County Help Center. May this be the largest offering we receive all year as we give our best to the Lord Jesus Christ in honor of His birthday!

7. Here are some informative e-mails I received last week. The first has big news from Joey and Lauren Pratt, missionaries in Papua, New Guinea.

E-mail #1
Hey Everyone,
We've got great news! We're having baby #2! This means that we'll be coming home to see everyone soon. Since the medical facilities are sub-par here in Papua New Guinea, our U.S. mission doctors and leadership ask that we go "elsewhere" to have our baby. Australia is an option, but most missionaries have found that it costs essentially the same to go home to the U.S. The baby is due on June 5th so our last day of air travel will be the first week of May. However, because our work permits will need to be renewed during the first of the year, and for financial reasons, our leadership team here in Papua New Guinea have asked us to come home sooner. Our plans are to leave on January 29th. We will be arriving in California on January 30th and staying until February 15th, where we will be traveling on to Texas to visit Lauren's parents and their Church and Sunday School. We will then be traveling on to Cookeville, TN where we will be staying until mid-to-late summer, depending on how long it takes to get our paperwork finished and our monthly support increased. We will be also be making some trips to try and see all our supporters and other churches around the country. As many of you know we've seen the Lord do exciting things in our lives and in lives of folks around us, so we would love to find a time where we could share these things with you. We want to be flexible and be a blessing to you all, we'd even love to share a meal with you! We are also open to sharing in Sunday Schools, Small Groups, and Worship Services. If you have some dates in mind that we would be able to fellowship or share with you, please e-mail us and we'll mark it down on the calendar. We are very excited for our chance to get to come and be with you all again! Please pray with us, as we look to the Lord for how He will provide for travel expenses, including airline tickets. We will be thinking of you all this Holiday season! Have a Blessed Christmas!
Joey, Lauren, Ellia and baby too!

E-mail #2 – This e-mail is a reminder for each of us as parents:
I recently found myself asking how it came to be that some of the teensin Carthage dress and act like they do because it's not something thatis indigenous to Smith County. There's a certain level of rebellion insome of them that has made me wonder how teens in Smith County wouldever act like they do. It's not like they grew up in the inner cityprojects in Nashville. Where did they learn this behavior?We started to watch a family movie last week that we had to turn offbecause the foul language used by an actor portraying a father and thenthe foul language that was used by his child. I found myself asking,"who would write a script like this to be spoken by a child actor andwhy?" As I was reading some of the comments left by some filmmakers ona website later, it appeared to me that many filmmakers don't haveChristian values. They have other values that are at odds withChristianity.I read an article yesterday in which the writer quoted from AlbertMolher's blog in which Molher refers to a study indicating "that averagechild in America now spends 45 hours a week immersed in media--amultiple of the hours spent with parents or in the classroom." Inreading the actual blog, Mohler raises some concerns that grow out ofhaving children exposed to media on their own with no parentalsupervision---and that's more likely to occur with the newer technologythan the technology that those of us who are older may be familiar with. http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/12/04/new-study-a-generation-immersed-in-media/ The underlying study raises even more questions about the impact ofmedia on children today.Parents who are considering Christmas gifts of mp3/video players andother media technology, might do well to think about this. If you feelit is worthwhile, perhaps some encouragement can be given to parents toencourage them that time spent with their children is time to be spentwell and to be wary of the media content their children are beingexposed to, even in Smith County.

E-mail #3
I love Christmas lights. They’re a great way to get in the holiday spirit. Richard Holdman has holiday spirit coming out of his ears. Or that’s the impression you’d get from looking at his house. Holdman’s Christmas display is wild. It’s more than 45,000 lights hung with care. All are computer controlled and choreographed to music. Watch his house dance to a remixed version of Amazing Grace.

http://vimeo.com/440842


E-mail #4
Listen to Mary, Did You Know as you read these questions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1oHJR2g7Tw:
Twenty-five Questions for Mary
1. What was it like watching him pray?
2. How did he respond when he saw other kids giggling during the service at the synagogue?
3. When he saw a rainbow, did he ever mention a flood?
4. Did you ever feel awkward teaching him how he created the world?
5. When he saw a lamb being led to the slaughter, did he act differently?
6. Did you ever see him with a distant look on his face as if he were listening to someone you couldn’t hear?
7. How did he act at funerals?
8. Did the thought ever occur to you that the God to whom you were praying was asleep under your own roof?
9. Did you ever try to count the stars with him . . . and succeed?
10. Did he ever come home with a black eye?
11. How did he act when he got his first haircut?
12. Did he have any friends by the name of Judas?
13. Did he do well in school?
14. Did you ever scold him?
15. Did he ever have to ask a question about Scripture?
16. What do you think he thought when he saw a prostitute offering to the highest bidder the body he made?
17. Did he ever get angry when someone was dishonest with him?
18. Did you ever catch him pensively looking at the flesh on his own arm while holding a clod of dirt?
19. Did he ever wake up afraid?
20. Who was his best friend?
21. When someone referred to Satan, how did he act?
22. Did you ever accidentally call him Father?
23. What did he and his cousin John talk about as kids?
24. Did his other brothers and sisters understand what was happening?
25. Did you ever think, That’s God eating my soup?