This month, the quiz team will compete at Calvary Baptist in Simpsonville, SC. Quizzing begins at 2:00 P.M. on Saturday, October 15. Remember our young people in prayer, and if possible, come and support them this coming Saturday.
On Sunday, October 30, the young people are invited to accompany the Erwin family in the weekly nursing home ministry. They will leave directly from the church after the morning service. This ministry is a blessing to the residents as well as to their families (who often visit on weekends), and staff. Please go in prayer asking the Holy Spirit to make you a blessing.
On Sunday night, October 9, the church family is invited to stay after the evening service for a time of food and fellowship to honor Preacher and Mrs. Raynes on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary (October 7). Their children and grandchildren will provide the food, so all you need to bring is a good appetite and your well wishes! Brother and Sister Raynes have been a blessing to the church family at Progress Baptist, and we are thankful for their Godly testimony down through the years.
On Monday, October 10, our Senior Saints and a few friends will make a day trip to Helen, GA, to enjoy the fall color and some good fellowship! We’ll leave the church at 9:00 A.M. and return in the early evening.
Hosea wrote in chapter 4 and verse 6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” and II Timothy 3:16 records, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable…” What a treasure we have in our Bible! Sadly, too few professing believers know very much about it.
At Progress Baptist Church, God has given me the privilege of pastoring a group of folks who love God’s Word, enjoy learning more about it, and are seriously interested in incorporating its truth into their lives and families. I am very thankful! Recently, we completed a series in Romans 12 on the spiritual gifts. God has now directed me to begin a Bible survey that will take us from Genesis to Revelation. In each message, my heart’s desire is to “feed the flock of God.” In addition to providing knowledge about each book, its author, its original recipients, and an overview of the content, my overriding desire will be for us to glean and profit from each book. Far more than a book of Jewish history (OT) and Church history (NT), these things were written for our admonition!
In the early 20s, our country built Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles, the first road in the U.S. Highway System to cross the country. God has given us a treasure in the sixty-six books of Scripture, and we are looking forward to this journey from beginning to end!
Bro. Doug
On Saturday morning, October 1, 2011, we will continue our outreach into the greater Hendersonville area. We will meet at the church at 10:00 A.M. and divide into groups before heading out with the John/Romans/Church Info packets. We had a great turnout a few weeks ago, and we have seen God honor the effort. Let’s pray and ask God to prepare hearts to receive the gospel. We should also pray for Him to add to the church! By His grace, we have the answers this world needs. Let’s go in the power of the Holy Spirit and trust God for a harvest of souls.
Pastor Andrew Sluder and congregation have invited the church family to a youth service on Saturday, October 15, at 7:00 P.M., at the Black Mtn. Independent Baptist Church. Bro. Doug will be preaching, and the family along with others from our church have been asked to provide special music. In addition, Bro. Joe Cox, founding pastor of Progress Baptist will also be preaching that night. Come and enjoy a good evening with God’s people! Come praying and expecting God to work in hearts and lives.
The church family is invited to the wedding of Stacy Raynes and William Stewart on Saturday, October 8, 2011, at 2:00 P.M. The wedding and reception will be held at Grace Baptist Church in Liberty, SC. Please keep this young couple in your prayers as they begin their new life together.
On Monday, October 3, the church family is invited to join in the “Heritage Revival” at Swannanoa Heights Baptist in Swannanoa, NC. Pastor Bruce Robinson and the church family are excited about this special week of services. Bro. Doug will be preaching and the family will be providing the special music on Monday night. Come and go with us if at all possible!
In October, Lord willing, Progress Baptist Church will enjoy four nights of special services with Bro. Johnny Jones doing the preaching. More than just a series of meetings, it is our prayer that God will move us deeper and higher in our walk with Him. This past Sunday night, the message God gave me for our people was from Ezra regarding the importance of the house of God. In the typical modern-day “church”, the sanctuary has been reduced to little more than a gymnasium or night-club. In the detention center ministry God has brought into my life, more than one inmate has described the atmosphere in area “churches” as reminding them of the clubs they were involved in prior to their incarceration. As God’s children, I believe our heart and attitude toward God’s house is a very clear reflection of our heart for God. I believe that is why the first message God placed on my heart in preparation for our revival services dealt with this very important topic.
Over the next few weeks, it is my desire to read, study, and pray for direction from the Lord in preparing our hearts for what He has in store for us. What a tragedy it would be for God’s man to come with a message and for us to be unprepared to receive it. In my reading, I recently came across an article that I will give excerpts from below. The title is, “Thoughts on Church Renewal” by Jay Wegter and Massimo Lorenzini, and it can be found in its complete form at: frontlinemin.org.
The Need for a Grace Awakening
Without a grace awakening, they (church members) will be unable to give back to God, their pastor, or one another. They are operating upon reflected glory, similar to those who gazed at Moses’ glowing face after he descended the holy mountain with the law of God (Ex 34:29-35). But they themselves are not in the habit of regularly beholding the glory of Christ in the gospel. They are not daily drawing their spiritual life directly from Christ in personal communion with Him.
In a grace awakening the congregation will begin to fix their sight on Christ and what He has done for them in redeeming them by grace. As they grow in their personal knowledge of the Son of God by the Spirit of God through the Word of God, they will be eager to follow Christ in discipleship and ministry. They will become team players alongside the pastor rather than being mere spectators sitting on the sidelines watching the ministry of the pastor. They will no longer be content to accept the ministry of their pastor as a substitute for their own ministry within and through the body.
The Lost Spiritual Discipline of Meditation
The majority of church members today have not learned to go to their Savior directly by meditation, worship, and adoration. Lest we forget, meditation is a godly discipline that is resisted by our natural faculties. Our cognitive faculties are dialed into sensual stimuli. As our media-saturated culture becomes more and more visually stimulated by man-made fantasies, it becomes increasingly difficult to tune our hearts into the invisible truths of the gospel. It is work to have the eyes of the heart opened fully wide to behold by faith unseen spiritual certainties. But the labor of meditation is necessary if our souls are to be ravished by the sight of our wealth in the Son of God.
The eyes of our hearts must be enlightened in order for us to be constrained and animated by God’s love in Christ. In considering the concentration and labor necessary to meditate on the Word of God, an illustration may be helpful. By way of example, consider the fact that 37 tons of metal, crew, fuel, and payload in the shape of a Tomcat fighter jet can only remain airborne at mach 2.0 if multiple physical laws are strictly obeyed. Friction, gravity, and heat all seek to bring the craft back to earth in a jumble of disorder. So also, nature fights against our attempts to meditate upon invisible spiritual realities. The Word, the Spirit, and the mind must all come together in order to gaze continually with the eyes of faith upon invisible spiritual realities. We must individually and collectively as the people of God discipline ourselves to meditate upon the Word of God as a crucial step toward church renewal.
It takes meditation in order for spiritual truth to come alive so as to renew the mind and transform the life. But teaching biblical meditation will of necessity require detailed, step by step instruction and examples. This is because our media culture is characterized by a mind numbing busy-ness, but paradoxically, also by a mental laziness. Most people slow down by entering a “veg-out” mode of passively watching television. The enemy, however, has virtually complete control over television programming which has become a conduit for postmodern thought (i.e., no absolute truth, moral relativism, erroneous view of tolerance, moral and intellectual autonomy, etc.) Viewers who attempt to “relax, refresh, and recharge” by hours of television are unwittingly imbibing postmodern values in the process of devoting themselves to mindless amusement.
Believers need to be “unplugged” from the deadening effects of postmodern culture. If Christians refuse to stir themselves so as to dedicate their minds to love God’s truth, they will of necessity find themselves conformed to the world (Rom 12:1-2). They will be unable to mourn and grieve over the sins of this generation. Their zeal for soul-winning will fade into apathy toward the lost as their attention turns to maintaining their personal comfort and entertainment. By contrast, biblical meditation requires mental discipline and concentration, and even self-confrontation. It’s impossible to be passive and meditate on Scripture at the same time.
It is my prayer that over the next several weeks, the the Holy Spirit will guide our church family into a sincere hunger and preparation for true spiritual renewal.
