AWANA Awards Night

Tonight at 6:00 we will host our seventeenth AWANA Awards Night. This is an important night for a number of reasons...

-- It gives us a chance to honor a whole bunch of kids, many of whom have done a remarkable job learning Bible verses in this last year.

-- It gives us a chance to meet and thank the parents who have supported their kids in a this endeavor this year.

-- It gives us a chance to say thanks for the dozens and dozens of AWANA workers who have faithfully served week by week.

-- It serves as a reminder that our church does not exist just to make those of us who have been around a while feel comfortable. No! We exist to reach children, and youth, and unreached families in our community. That is the best way we can please the Lord and show His love. May our church never loose sight of our purpose!

If you're free, join us tonight at 6:00... It will be a good night.

Pastor Noel

Location:AWANA Awards Night

Upcoming Messages

Today is a study day. As I do most Wednesdays, I will spend my time today studying and preparing for upcoming messages. Other concerns and issues can wait until Thursday. On Wednesdays I hunker down in an office I built in my basement and just study. I have counseling appointments on Wednesday evenings, usually several. Today I have only two, with AWANA Awards night in between.

My upcoming Sunday morning message, a Mother's Day message, will focus primarily from Genesis 41 as we look at the dream Joseph interpreted for the Pharoah. I'll blog more on this later.

I'm also working on our next Sunday night Bible Study Series. The working title is "You Have Never Read The Bible: A Surprising Approach To How To Study Your Bible." Obviously the title needs some work. This series will last three weeks and it will begin Sunday evening, May 23. I would love to have the notebooks written by the end of the day so Carla could begin to put them together, but I doubt I'll get that far.

Well, time to begin...

Glad I Belong To Him,
Pastor Noel

Date Night

Tap dance practice was canceled tonight and my kid's Ohio 'grandparents' asked last night if they could have the girls overnight, so a free night with the wife!

We just finished up chores, piano lessons, and church work... About to fire up the grill...

Noel

Attention Men

Below is an email I sent to the men in our church and community today. if you would like to be a part of this or any other Connect Group this summer, you can register online at www.FirstBaptistHeath.com.

----------

Dear Men,

This Summer semester, I will be leading a Men's Connect Group on Tuesday mornings at 7:00 a.m. focusing on the life of Joseph in the Old Testament.

As men, we can learn much from Joseph. He faced many of the same issues we face. As leaders in our families, our careers, and our church, we need to know what Joseph has to say. Take a look at a list of some of the things Joseph faced in his life...

Rejection by his peers...
Sexual temptation...
Career failures...
Career successes...
Poverty...
Wealth...
Oportunities to get revenge...
Family issues...

So we will take 15 weeks this Summer beginning on Tuesday, May 25. We will immerse ourselves as deeply into Joseph's life as we can. We will help each other see how the lessons we learn can make a real difference in our lives. It's going to be a great study.

I know many of you will be traveling some through the summer and you know today that you will not be able to make all fifteen Tuesdays. That's OK. If you have an interest, still sign up. Let's help each other find the help we need from the Lord and His Word this summer.

To register for this group you can go to our website (www.firstbaptistheath.com), register at church by completing a registration card, or by simply replying to this email.

I look forward to having many of you in my group.

Pastor Noel



P.S.

~~ Pass this email around. The class is open to any men who are interested in coming.

Early Morning Meeting

I'm looking forward to an early morning meeting today with a couple of men in our church.

Matt Parker owner of Front Door Strategies, a company that helps conservative political candidates around the country get their message out, has agreed to lead our First Impressions and Greeters ministries.

Brian Haught, who is responsible for the print and online publicity for a chain of jewelry stores, has agreed to help us with brochures and other print publicity.

It is encouraging to see godly men like these find ways to leverage their professional skills for the Kingdom of God!

Glad I belong to Him,
Pastor Noel

Interesting Day

There have been no shortages of interesting days lately. Frankly, I wouldn't mind a good, long, boring, uneventful day. Well, the Lord is in control... No doubt.

One of the biggest things going on around the church this week is preparation for the next semester or small groups (Connect Ministry). Sign-ups are coming along, but we are still looking for a number of new people to sign-up in the next two weeks.

Last Sunday Ken and Denise Tobin pulled me aside. (They are one of the middle aged couples we've recently baptized.) They told me that it was our new semester strategy for Connect Ministry that finally got them to transition from worship attenders to being involved in small groups. It was only a few weeks after being in a small group (they were in Greg Burns' group) that they came to see me about their salvation. I had the wonderful privilege of leading them to the Lord.

There are more stories like that to tell about each Connect Ministry semester we've had so far. I'm praying for more and more of our worship attenders to take the step this semester.

----------

On another note, didn't Julia George do a great job leading us in special music this past Sunday. It was neat seeing her sing while her dad played the drums and her brother played the guitar. We have some talented people in our church.

----------

Also thanks for the calls, emails, and words of encouragement many of you shared Sunday afternoon and Sunday night. It means more than you know.

Glad to belong to the Lord,
Pastor Noel

Securing Future Disciples Update II

Update... More information has come in since yesterday...

Here are the latest Securing Future Disciples numbers: (This is going to be reason to cheer!)

• $181,094 -- Total of One Year Pledges & Initial Offering
• $ 14,000 -- Total Savings from Not Borrowing the Needed Funds
• $195,094 -- Total Available (Assuming 100% of Pledges are Given)

When the savings are included this puts us at 102.7% of our high goal! Even better news is this... After only four weeks, we have collected $95,406.13! That is 52.7% of our new one year pledge total.

We are still praying for a few more commitments to be made and of course for the faithfulness of those who have made commitments, but it is apparent that the Lord has certainly blessed us in this endeavor!

Take a few minutes and thank the Lord in prayer for his gracious provision.

Pastor Noel

Securing Future Disciples Update

What a great time we had in worship yesterday! A good crowd in the 8:00 service and a packed crowd in the 10:45 service... One profession of faith in the early service... Choir did a great job... We got to meet so many new people...

I love Easter Sunday!

On another subject... Here are the latest Securing Future Disciples numbers: (This is going to be reason to cheer!)

• $181,094 -- Total of One Year Pledges & Initial Offering
• $ 14,000 -- Total Savings from Not Borrowing the Needed Funds
• $195,094 -- Total Available (Assuming 100% of Pledges are Given)

When the savings are included this puts us at 102.7% of our high goal! Even better news is this... After only four weeks, we have collected $93,006.13! That is 51.4% of our new one year pledge total.

We are still praying for a few more commitments to be made and of course for the faithfulness of those who have made commitments, but it is apparent that the Lord has certainly blessed us in this endeavor!

Take a few minutes and thank the Lord in prayer for his gracious provision.

Pastor Noel

Securing Future Disciples

So the question everyone has been asking me today... "How did we do in our Securing Future Disciples campaign?"

In case you did not know, yesterday was commitment day for our campaign to rebuild our preschool ministry facilities. Our church families streamed forward and placed their commitments and their offerings on the altar. It was the culmination of many weeks of hard work by dozens of people in our church. It was the culmination of much fasting and praying and seeking the Lord.

So how did we do?

Well... You don't really think I would break an announcement like that on my blog do you?

No. We're still working. A few more commitment cards came in today. That will likely continue this week as people who were out of town yesterday are able to make it by the church office. I'm sure we will receive a few more on Sunday from others who weren't in our service yesterday.

We are working on a tally....

The plan right now is to share the totals on Sunday, March 28 in our 10:45 service.

Can I at least give a hint?

:) -- Just don't miss the 3/28 service!

(and get those cards in if you were out of town... I'm anxious to see the final numbers...)

Pastor Noel

Have you Struggled in Prayer?

Quick note from something I learned in my quiet time this morning...

Have you struggled in prayer? I don't mean, 'have you struggled to pray' or 'have you struggled to remember to pray' or even 'have you struggled to make time to pray'. I mean have you struggled for someone or something in prayer?

This morning I was reading in Colossians and I came across this verse...

Colossians 2:1 (NLT)
I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea, and for many other believers who have never met me personally.

I thought, 'Agonized how?'. When you continue to read and study, you learn that the chief way he agonized for them was in prayer.

Later in the same book, I read this verse...

Colossians 4:12 (NKJV)
12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

So in these verses, we see Paul agonizing for the Colossians in prayer, and we see Epaphras laboring fervently for them in prayer.

The questions then are... When was the last time I agonized or labored fervently for someone one in prayer? Are my prayers simply reciting a list of concerns? Are there new things I need to learn about prayer?

Pastor Noel

New Facebook Trend...

As a pastor, I have counseled with a number of couples in the last year with troubled marriages. It is stunning how many of those marriage difficulties have something to do with Facebook or some other social networking site.

Sometimes the trouble has come because friendships gradually crossed the line of appropriate communications. Other times there was just suspicion and distrust.

Thankfully, Donna and I have not faced these difficulties, but every time I sit down with another couple in counseling, I am reminded that the potential is there.

So Donna and I decided to combine our accounts. I simply changed the account name and email on my account by going to the 'account settings' page. And we are in process of getting all her friends to be on my list (or our list).

Once this is done. We will just make her old account inactive.

We've also share our email passwords with each other. We have no secrets in our marriage and I don't want anything to creep in and cause distrust.

I know this won't be something everyone will want to do. That's fine. In fact, just because you take steps to have openness and integrity in your marriage in this area doesn't mean you can't have problems in other areas. But if you think combining your accounts would provide more trust, less possibility of friendships going in wrong directions, or even just a good witness and encouragement to others... then give it a try.

Noel

Kenya Update...

Here is a part of an email I received from our pastor in Kenya about a meeting with the Muslim guardians of the orphans we feed and sponsor in our Christian School...

Yesterday we had a good time with the guardians to lift you, pastor Noel and all the donors in prayer. I wish you could see how wonderful and amazing it was for the community to see Muslim women dressed with their full Muslim dressing praying the Lord Jesus in this matter.

Isn't it great to hear how the Lord is using us to minister to even Muslim families on the other side of the world!

Pastor Noel

Inclement Weather II

Everything is a go this morning!

I drove around the area early this morning and conditions were much better than I expected. I was amazed at the difference in snow accumulation from one area to the next and obviously some roads have been cleared better than others, but all in all I didn't have any problems. Of course everyone should use their own judgment.

The church parking lot is in good shape. The worship center is warm :)...

See you for Connect Groups at 9:30 and worship at 10:45!

Pastor Noel

Inclement Weather

The $64,000 question... will we have church services tomorrow?

The 99 cent answer... sure!

The plan right now at 6:45 p.m. on Saturday is that all morning services will take place as scheduled. I don't anticipate that to change. The parking lots at the church have been cleared. The city is working on the roads. Of course, if you can't safely get out then stay home.

If there is a change, I will post that change here.

By the way, here is our official inclement weather notification plan:

If it becomes necessary to cancel Sunday or mid-week services/meetings due to inclement weather, a cancellation notice will be recorded on our answering machine and will appear on our website at least one hour in advance of the service time. In most cases, a notice will also be aired on our local radio stations WHTH/WNKO and WCLT and posted on their website.

I look forward to seeing you in worship on Sunday! It is going to be a great day!

Pastor Noel

Brit Hume