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Birdwell Lane Church of Christ Big Spring, TX |
Weekly Thoughts - June 2008
| <---- May 2008 | -- | July 2008 ----> |
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01 - ONE WEEK TO GO 08 - MAKE BIG PLANS – EXPECT BIG RESULTS 15 - THE END OF A BUSY WEEK 22 - THE CHURCH AS A TEAM 29 - THE CRIPPLED COMMUNITY |
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ONE WEEK TO GO I don’t know about you but I’m excited about what is fixing to happen around here in just over a week. Our Back to the Bible Campaign is creating a lot of excitement and also a lot of work. So many things are happening that it is hard to keep up with everything. Last Saturday a great group of folks showed up at the building for our work day. The ladies took on the task of getting the menu finished for the meals to be served during the campaign. Then they took on the task of cleaning, organizing, and stocking various rooms. The men were busy moving furniture, rewiring light fixtures, cleaning out class rooms, hauling chairs around, repairing ceilings and walls and doing whatever was needed to get our building ready for June 6th. Monday morning a good group showed up ready to paint two classrooms, repair some broken switches, clean and just enjoy being with one another in service to the King. The group from Lawton are finalizing everything and getting ready to make their way to Big Spring and a week of working with us in this campaign. They are fired up, excited and prepared for the week of the campaign. On top of that they are expecting great things to happen throughout the week. Perhaps we were all brought into the Kingdom for just such a time as this. See ya Sunday, Ralph |
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MAKE BIG PLANS – EXPECT BIG RESULTS For the real happenings in our lives, we make great plans. There are certain things that we know must be done before we will be ready. We try to make sure that nothing is left undone that may affect in an adverse way our plans. Gospel meetings are worthy of much planning. We have invited a capable group and preacher, from Lawton, Ok., that “we may hear all things commanded of God” for our lives here and eternally (Acts 10:33). Each member needs to be involved if it will accomplish as much as it should.
See ya Sunday, Ralph |
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THE END OF A BUSY WEEK Our “Back to the Bible” campaign will be over by the time you read this article. The past five days have been filled with excitement and work but what a great experience. The numbers of folks who have given of their time and energy to make the campaign a success has been unbelievable. We have had eight to twelve members of Birdwell Lane out knocking doors with the Lawton brethren every day. They have been paired with those who went on studies and made visits working to fulfill the Lord’s commands. Others have been responsible for driving the teams to studies or picking up others who came to the building to study. Our ladies and young ladies have served in taking care of the nursery so that their parents could knock doors or go on studies. Classes were prepared and provided for our young kids which kept them involved in one way or another so that their parents could work in so many areas of service during the week. Others have made certain that the coolers were kept full of ice and cold water. Others have taken care of the physical plant so that it stayed presentable for the preaching service each evening. Then there were the ladies who prepared food for and served about one hundred and thirty campaign workers twice a day. The fed us like we were kings. We were served meal which were well planned and deliciously prepared. Then there were those who cleaned the kitchen following each meal and prepared it for the next round. Enough can never be said for the way they took care of keeping us going. Now for the results of that which was the primary focus and reason for all of the above. Starting Saturday morning every door in Big Spring has been knocked. There were 9000 flyers handed to individuals or left on the doors of homes where folks did not answer the door. Over 2000 Spanish flyers were also handed out. An average of 45 studies were set up each day and starting on Sunday 40+ actual studies were held each day. There has at this point three restored and fifteen have been baptized for the remission of their sins and added to the Lord’s church. When the brethren from Lawton finish their work Wednesday night they will leave us with well over a hundred classes to be taught and 200+ call backs and follow up visits to be made. Our work is definitely cut out for the next foreseeable future. To the Birdwell Lane congregation there is nothing that can be said which would truly express how I’m feeling at this time. To the elders, THANK YOU for allowing this to happen. To each and everyone who worked solid for five day to make this campaign a success THANK YOU. To just stand back and witness what has happened thrills and encourages me and must make the angels in heaven rejoice. God has truly been glorified and Christ exalted. To the Highway 80 and 14th and Main churches of Christ THANK YOU for allowing us the use of your vans this past week. I know I have missed some in saying THANK YOU but just know that without all working together our week would have been a failure rather than a success. THANKS! See ya Sunday, Ralph |
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THE CHURCH AS A TEAM At a horse pull in Canada, one horse pulled 9,000 pounds, another 8,000. Together you would expect them to pull 17,000 pounds. Not so! When teamed together, they pulled 30,000 pounds. The principle is called synergism. By definition, the simultaneous action of separate agents working together has a greater total effect than the sum of their individual efforts. More can be done in a team effort than can be accomplished solo. In order for the principle of synergism to work like it should, there has to be teamwork. Everything we do takes team work and trust. Every person in the local church is VALUABLE and NEEDED. The church is a team and together we can build for the Lord. “For we are laborers TOGETHER with GOD” (1 Corinthians 3:9) See ya Sunday, Ralph |
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THE CRIPPLED COMMUNITY Note: The following written by Scott Harris, the pulpit minister at the Concord Road church in Brentwood, Tennessee, is so fine I am repeating it here. In the New Testament, in his book “Reversed Thunder’, SAYS: “The life of faith…in the Biblical narrative is highly personal but never merely individual: always there is a family, a tribe, a nation – church. God’s love and salvation are revealed and experienced in the congregation of the people “who know the festal shout” (Ps. 89:15), not “in the garden alone.” I think Mr. Peterson is on to something here. The gospel of Jesus pulls believers into community. An immediate change we experience as believers is a grammatical one: it’s now “we” instead of “I’; its “our” instead of “my”; it’s “us” instead of “me.” The church is no place for “loner” individualism. Reflect upon the following thoughts from scripture: “It is not good for man to be alone”, “I will make your seed as the sand of the sea”; “forsake not the assembling of yourselves together”; “when you pray, say, “Our Father”; “love your neighbor as yourselves”; “bear one another’s burdens.” What are these passages telling us? That the life of faith is developed under the image of the Trinity in the context of community. Or, in other words, “we’re in this together.” And that’s exactly how God designed it. All you have to do is read the second and third chapters of Revelation to learn that “church” is not a spiritual aristocracy, but simply a geographically indentified assembly of ordinary believers. A church is real people who live in a particular town, who shop in local markets, who speak the same language, who work at jobs in the same geographic region. God makes it. The Holy Spirit creates the people of God, a church. And it is connected to and only has being in relation to Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus, a church would have only location, but no identity. The other thing we learn from “the seven churches” is that NO congregation ever existed in an entirely pure state. The church is made up of sinners. This is why I feel at home in the church. Because there are others who, like myself, may “bring Christ our broken lives, so marred by sin” and expect His loving power to renew and restore us. See ya Sunday, Ralph |
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