FBC Carthage E-News for August 15, 2011

FBC Carthage E-News

August 15, 2011

Good Morning,

Is it my imagination or does it really feel cooler this morning? It may be the thoughts of school being back in session, summer vacations being past, and the first home football game this Friday night. There is something about this time of year that I love. It is a reminder to slow down a minute, take a breath, and thank the Lord for the day.


With a home football game this week, our 5th Quarter student fellowships will start as well. I am looking forward to seeing the students and hearing the great speakers. Pharris Garcia will be the speaker this Friday night. He was the guest speaker this year for ReFuel and the spring youth retreat connected to the Youth Evangelism Conference. To all those who are helping with this great community outreach I want to say a special word of thanks.


This week, several of our college students are headed to school. Let’s be praying for all our students as they prepare for a great year of studies.


AWANA had a great start for the year last night. There is something special about a room full of children praising the Lord Jesus Christ in singing. Pray for the AWANA workers this week and for the new year of study, witness, and fun. AWANA is a fun-filled, Bible learning ministry on Sunday nights from 5:30 – 7:00 PM for children, ages 3-6th grade. Laying a strong biblical foundation in children’s lives is crucial as they grow to be men and women of God. In all the activities of childhood, do not neglect the most important aspect of your child’s development, his spiritual development. AWANA and its emphasis on Bible memory is a strong help in that development.


Speaking of spiritual development, I also want to encourage everyone, not only children, to be active in one of our Sunday School classes each Sunday morning at 9:30 AM. Sunday School provides bible study for all age groups, as well as, fellowship and ministry. Sunday School is the place to learn God’s word and get to know people at FBC Carthage.


Have a great week as we serve this community as ambassadors for Christ,
Bro. Tim



Here’s the news for the week:
1. Ladies and Young Ladies,
The Beth Moore Simulcast is less than a month away! You'll receive a letter this week from the planning team asking you to commit to attend, bring your friends, and volunteer to help in any way you feel the Lord's leading. Help us promote the simulcast by stopping by the Connection Point (new area back of the sanctuary) and picking up posters, business cards, fliers, and/or table top triangular advertisements. Use this as an opportunity to reach out to someone who's been missing from your Sunday School class or from a pew near you in worship services. Maybe you can mail a business card-sized reminder with a short note saying, "We miss you and hope you'll join us for this event. Go to lunch with me that day." Deborah can help with addresses if you will call or email her at 735-1929 or fbcarthage@comcast.net.

Please be praying about this event. We don't know the conference topic yet, but we should soon. Whatever God leads Beth to share, the Bible study will surely serve to bring us closer to our Heavenly Father and His Will for our lives. God must be so looking forward to September 10th - thousands of His daughters taking a day to meet with Him, to talk to Him, and to hear from Him. You do NOT want to miss this day!


2. Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames will be presented at the Ag Center on August 28-30 at 7:00 PM each evening. This dramatic presentation depicts the joys and blessings of heaven for those who have trusted Jesus as Savior and Lord. It also portrays the horrors of hell for those who have rejected the message of salvation. This is a presentation for you to experience and to invite your friends and family to join you. We are praying that many people will see their desperate need for salvation and turn to Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. I encourage everyone to be at the first night’s presentation.


3. The church council will meet this Sunday, August 21 at 3:30 PM to begin working on the 2011-12 Church Calendar. If your class or organization has dates for the calendar, please contact the church office to include those in the calendar planning.


4. The final celebration of summer will be the Labor Day Picnic on Sunday, September 4 at 5:30 PM. We will meet at the Picnic Pavilion at Defeated Creek Park, next to the basketball courts. Bring a covered dish and join your church family at the park.


5. Here is an excerpt from a newsletter from Pastor Vance and Cathy Thomas in Poplar, Montana in which they reference the good job done by our mission team. Continue to pray for the work in Poplar, Kenya, Hawaii, and other places we have ministered this summer:


Good evening prayer warriors!!! I have lots of good news this evening. First of all, the water is almost completely dried up in the basement at church!!!!!! Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!! Praise the Lord!!!!!!!!!!!! There is just one area in the 5th-6th grade classroom that is still coming in. Vance is only getting about a quart when he vacuums there and he is only doing it once a day. We are so thankful. The sump pumps are still putting water out though so the water table has not gone down as much as we had hoped. It really needs to drop a lot more before winter sets in. We still have not been able to get back into the kitchen. Things are just totally out of sync with us not having the children’s ministry. We will be having a meeting of all SS teachers on the 23rd to see if we can come up with some other way to reach the kids. We already have a couple of ideas but are wanting everyone else’s input.

Secondly, Kenneth and Debbie Carver did join the church on July 10th! That was a very fitting day for them to join as one of our long time mission teams, FBC Carthage TN, was here at the time!! Bro. Tim Frank has been coming up here for about 15 years and the teams do not always get to witness any of the fruit of their efforts. I think it was especially nice for them to see a family join the church while they were here. So, please keep them in prayer as they are trying to get the youth going again.


Thirdly, neither Bill and Kathy Hess or Pearl Hopkins, had ANY water in their house!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had asked for you to pray specifically for that and the Lord answered our prayers. He is so good to us!!! The engineers at Ft. Peck are slowly cutting back on the release amounts at the dam.


Fourth, the team from Carthage TN put us on a new roof. We have had 3-4 hard rains since then and there have been NO leaks!!!!! Praise God!!!!!!! They also repaired the foyer and removed all of the paneling in the basement-again! That paneling was only 2 years old.  We had just been waiting to see what would happen, so now we will finish the foyer and get it painted.