Christmas – when God gave His very BEST to us. A gift worth eternity to those of us who receive the gift of His Son. I hope you take time this month to pause and give thought to how precious and how expensive God’s gift to you really is. Given all eternity you and I could never pay enough for the Lord’s special gift to us. YET…if we are appreciative, we should be committed to giving our very BEST to Him.
As you analyze the way you have spent 2009, can you say that you have given your very BEST? If you can’t do that then I invite you to join me in confessing to our beneficent God that we have failed to be as appreciative of His gift as we ought to have been. Can you say, “God deserves more than what I’ve been giving”? Well, let’s do some soul searching and commit to new ways that we can give back to Him.
Let me list a few ways below – just to get you to creatively thinking about how you can give your very BEST:
- We need people to step up and help us reach our Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions goal of $4000.00\
- Mark & Norma Honeycutt have committed to feeding a Christmas meal on Christmas day to the needy in our community. They are planning to feed up to 400 people at supper time. To pull off such a wonderful undertaking they are going to need plenty of help.
- The Melody Bells and Sunshine Ladies are always looking for new participants.
- We need adults to support our Mid-Night Service [contemporary service on Wednesday nights] and promote it among their unchurched friends.
- Some of us can step forward and commit to getting involved in a Sunday School class on a weekly basis.
- We are going to need lots of First Baptist Church folks to step up and help us in our Servant Ministry. [Introductory meeting on Sunday, Dec. 6th at 4:30pm]
- We need greeters
- We need people to commit to making food-goodies [cookies, jam, small loaves of bread] to be taken to our first-time guest on Sunday afternoon
- Others will be needed to deliver those food-goodies
- We need people willing to be trained to make follow-up visits to our guests
- We hope to have a Welcome Center and we will need people to be a part of that outreach
- We had over 8o people participate in our Fireproof small groups. It is our intention to begin a small group ministry. We will need facilitators and participants
Stepping up your commitment to pray for our church is another way to give God you very BEST. Here are just a few concerns that you can pray consistently about.
- We’re seeking to start a Sunday School class/outreach to young adults. Pray for Amy Collins as she leads this effort.
- We are actively seeking a paid choir director for our church. This effort needs to be soaked with your prayers.
- We are seriously moving toward adding a contemporary worship service to our weekend. Pray for God to lead in every aspect of this.
- We need for someone to step up and lead our Baptist Men’s Ministry. Your prayers can be a part of God filling this need.
In no way are the above ways of ministry meant to form a complete list. My intention is to get you thinking and dreaming about how you can be more like God by giving Him your very BEST.
JESUS is a gift beyond our ability to pay, yet He is worth our very BEST! What steps are you going to commit to taking so that He gets more from you than ever before?
IN HIS DEBT,
Pastor Steve