The Blessings Keep Comming (Jan 17, 2012)
The Lord blessed our church with several good decisions this past Sunday. 2012 appears to be off to a fantastic start, and we are thrilled that once again we can share with you the blessings of this ministry.
Bus attendance jumped about 15% this week. Ten first-time riders came to Sunday School, and four precious bus kids trusted Christ as personal in the counseling center. We praise the Lord for these decisions.
Our Fort Benning Bible studies started back up for the new year. Brother Ingram reports that we ministered to 210 soldiers this week. 46 of these servicemen prayed to receive Christ as Savior. Amen! Pray for us as we continue to gain momentum through the year. We are in the process of putting together an internship at the Freedom House for ministerial students who may be interested in working with the military.
Our Opelika chapel reported a good number of visitors this week. Pray for Pastor Allison as he follows up on these.
We are happy to announce that we had ten visiting families on church this past Sunday. Pray that the Lord will help us to be of spiritual assistance to them as we follow up.
Vivian Pikett, daughter of Jon and Angela Pikett, followed the Lord in believer's baptism this past week. We are thankful for her step of obedience. What a great joy to see the children of our members receive Christ as their own personal Savior.
We were also thankful to welcome Lauren Mills into membership Sunday. Lauren invited her family up from Bay Minette, Alabama for the occasion. What a great joy to extend the right hand of fellowship to this lady!
We were also privileged to ordain Seth Acree to the Gospel ministry Sunday night. Seth and his lovely wife Melissa are on their way to Ghana, West Africa as church planters. Dr. Norman Johnston, missions chairman at Ambassador Baptist College, came and assisted in the service by preaching the charge to the candidate. It was a great message! A light reception followed the "laying on of the hands." We are thankful to witness the continuation of Grace being a "preacher producing institution."
Don't forget that Sanctity of Life Sunday is coming up this week. Our annual baby dedication features seven infants that were born to church families in 2011. You won't want to miss it.
Missions conference will be here before we know it. Missionaries to Chile, France, Japan, Singapore, Uganda, and the United States (Montana) will be with us. Dr. David Snyder, president of BIMI, will be our keynote speaker. The dates are February 16-19. You won't want to miss a single session.
On the school front, homecoming festivities will take place next week. The homecoming game will be played against Trinity on January 27. On the 28th, the annual alumni games will take place, and Stephen Henderson will be inducted into the Jo Bowers Hall of Fame as the 2011-12 alumnus of the year. Pastor Henderson, a 1992 graduate now pastoring in Manhattan, Kansas, will be preaching in the Sunday evening service on the 29th. Plan to be attendance!
We have a verbal agreement from a commercial contractor to do the necessary rennovations on the new youth house for the cost of materials. Praise the Lord. I appreciate the work of John Rogers and Ray Kingsbury who helped this become reality. Pray that we will be able to get the work done in a timely fashion.
Lord willing, we will be adding a new van to our fleet this week. Pray for Anthony Morrison and Pastor Bert Arrowood as they travel to Atlanta to make the purchase.
Your prayers do mean much to us. Keep them up.