God stirred my heart this week as I have been thinking about the future of the First Bible Methodist Church of Chattanooga. I spoke this morning on New Wine and New Wineskins. God has done amazing things for us these past few years and to Him be all the glory. I pray God will give us clear direction on His desire for our future. What is His purpose for all the open doors that have come in the last 2 years? He has met so many needs and I know He has a plan for our church. I liked this illustration I come across about tradition: A newlywed husband watched his wife preparing a pot roast. As he watched she cut off one end of what looked like a perfectly good roast and threw it away. Asked why. Because my mother always did it that way! Man was still confused. He went to his mother-in-law and asked why she always cut the end of the roast off. She said, Because my mother always did it that way! Man then went to his wifes grandmother, now old and feeble, and asked her about this strange family practice. The old woman laughed. She said she always cut off the end because they didnt have a pot large enough to hold the whole roast! May God search our hearts and help us see if we are doing things because we have always done it that way or if there is a reason behind what we do. May God help us to be relevant in 2014 to a lost and dying world!! Ive been in some churches that didnt want to throw anything away even if it was broken because someone donated it 50 years ago. Oh that God would give us a freshness and newness for such a time as this. I thank God for new converts that shake the rust off of some of us who have been in the church for years. Meri Graben Smith went into an Amazon resale shop that her dad works at and saw a new couch and new projector and screen. She wanted to know how much her church could get it for and the owner said if it is for Meris church they can have it. I praise God for all He has done for us. Our Youth Room/Prayer Room will be finished soon and we plan to put the couch there. We want to see about mounting the projector and screen in the sanctuary to be used for the glory of God. I also ask for your prayers because we are feeling the need to also have a hispanic pastor. Probably over 1/3 of our neighborhood is hispanic. Many of these are from Guatemala. It is on many of our hearts to see a Hispanic Ministry in our church. In the last 2 months, 2 hispanic pastors have asked to be able to hold services at our church but one was 7th Day Adventist and the other Pentecostal. It is our desire to partner with a Hispanic holiness preacher and the harvest is ripe all around us. Please keep this in prayer as hispanic churches are popping up all around the east lake area. I am confident we need help to spread scriptural holiness to our hispanic brothers in East Lake. Philip SmithKaren Watson Bettie Lewis Beagan Paul N Linda Alexander Andrew Peden
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 19:35:23 +0000
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