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Spare Change December 2016

When we started the year our food pantry resources had been depleted.  Our cash was down, our shelves were bare, and we were buying more food than ever.  This was partially due to the large numbers we saw last holiday season and the fact that we lost some of our food sources.  We didn’t know what to do, but we never worried.  We prayed and asked the church for help.  Not only did we receive a huge donation during our Restock in the spring, we also asked for a $10 donation from each family.  We raised $3,000 with that one offering.

We continued through the year, we knew we would be able to serve our community.
Everything was going along fine until we hit the holiday season.  We were worried about providing Thanksgiving and Christmas boxes this year.  In the past, we have tried to do
turkeys for Thanksgiving and hams for Christmas.  We also had committed, in faith, to
provide 25 thanksgiving boxes to help families at AIS 1^st Avenue.

To our surprise, God has prompted a few generous individuals to make cash donations to the food pantry.  We also received food donations from Old National, CFC, a generous
family from the community, and the Salon Professional Academy.  We were able to fulfill our commitment to AIS, serve over 100 families at the food pantry this month, and look forward to the Christmas toy and food giveaway with no worry at all.

I say all this not to brag on our food pantry, but to brag on our God.  He is a great and
generous God.  I am reminded of Matthew 7:7-11, when Jesus talked about asking for things from God:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

This of course does not mean we can ask for anything to fulfill our wants and desires (see James 4), but what it does mean is that God is such a good God that will give generously to us.  He loves to give, especially when we seek to minister to others and bring glory to His name.  I give praise to God for all He has done this year in our food pantry.  Once again I have learned that I don’t need to worry, I just need to lift up my need to God in prayer.  He will hear it and He will answer!

You can participate in the food pantry this December by helping on either Dec. 10^th or 17^th.  We will be giving gifts on the 17^th.  Pick up a tag from the tree by the main stairwell to help provide gifts for children in our community.  Contact Pastor Bryan for more information.

November 2016 Spare Change

This month I wanted to remind you to pray for the Hispanic church plant.  They are called Iglesia Bautista Rios de Agua Viva, which is translated Rivers of the Living Water Baptist Church.  Mid-October they had a kick-off weekend and have started regular services.   Starting a Hispanic church can be a difficult task, so please pray for the church planters who are still very new to the area.   Pray that they can make connections with people in the tristate area that will join them in starting this church.  Also, pray that God would use the church plant to reach people for Christ that an
English-speaking church may not be able to reach.

Church planting is an important part of Baptist history.  In fact, Oakhill Baptist Church was planted by sister churches in the area fifty-three years ago.  This tradition goes all the way back to the Apostles who planted churches to spread the gospel and build the kingdom of God.  It is important for us to carry on this tradition for those same reasons.  In addition to planting, our church has long been a partner in giving to plant churches.  Each year we contribute tens of thousands of dollars to missions.  Last year alone we gave $123,084.00.  Much of this money goes to church planting, so in a way when you give you are a part of church planting.

In an article entitled The Value of Church Planting, Aaron Coe writes:

The church in America is going backwards. You can't explain it any other way. If reaching our country for Christ were a football game, we'd have spent the last century being pushed back toward our own goal line. That can be demoralizing for a football team — and the church, the body of Christ.

In the early 1800s, the United States had one Protestant church for every 875 people in the population. By the beginning of World War I, that ratio was one Christian church for every 430 people in the population. During that 100-year span, church planting efforts significantly outpaced the growth in the population. Yet, after World War I, the
population began to out-pace the planting of new churches.

We're doing better in some places than others. In states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, you'll find one evangelical church for approximately every 750 people. In states like Indiana, Iowa, and Kansas, you'll find one for every 1,500 to 1,800
people. In states like Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York, the ratio is one for every 5,000 to 7,500 people. The people of the Northeast Corridor and Utah could be classified as unreached people groups with less than 2 percent of their population claiming to be born-again Christians. People who study missions would say to effectively penetrate an area with the gospel you need one church for every 1,000 people in the urban areas and one church for every 500 people in the rural areas.

With a passion to penetrate lostness in North America and a desire to do something about the out of balance population-to-church ratios, the North American Mission Board launched Send North America last year. Send North America is a strategy to mobilize and assist churches and individuals in hands-on church planting in 29 of its major cities and elsewhere throughout the U.S. and Canada. To use the football analogy again, we want to push the ball up the field with the goal of giving every man, woman, and child the opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can read the rest of the article at http://www.lifeway.com/Article/pastors-church-planting-missions-strategy-value-gospel.  Please pray for church planters with NAMB, for our own church plant, and for the hearts of the established church to continue to support these endeavors, all for the glory of God!