West Virgina Time Shares

Friend's Day 2008

Yesterday was our first Friend's Day at New Columbia (at least since we have been pastoring here). What an exciting day it was. For the past few weeks we have been announcing and encouraging people to invite friends to come join us for our worship service. And guess what? They did. We had 42 visitors in our morning worship. It was exciting. We are trusting God to help us make every in-road we can so we can do our best to help show each one the love of Christ. I spoke from the text, "behold I stand at the door and knock". Reminding people that God knocks because He is interested in relationships. He knocks on the the door concerning our relationship with our Companions, the Church and with Christ. There were different ones who raised their hand for prayer, so if you think of it, pray that God would continue to be faithful and give us the opportunity to follow up and press the issue a little deeper. Last evening we had our Commission Service for Michael and Crystal Mason. They leave this week to serve in Mexico. They served our church in the music department for nearly four years. They were a great asset to our church. God is good and we are grateful for the wonderful day He gave us yesterday.

Breaking News...

It has been reported by the Professional Dog Fighting Association president Michael Vick that they are looking into reports that some of its participates are using steroids. More news will follow.

Easter 2008

Justin and Kayla were excited about wearing their new Easter outfits. Justin is on a suit kick. He would wear one every Sunday if he could. The last picture is with two of their friends, Eric and Collin. We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.

Book Report

I am not a big fan of bloggers who continually give book reports on their blogs, but I will do so for this post. I have read different books from the Leading Pastor Series that have been great. This book follows the tradition. I am only into the first few chapters but it deals with an area I feel the "church" needs to reconsider. I mentioned it in my most recent post, but again the question is, "why are we here as a church"? The book looks at the entire story of Joshua and examines his leadership time. He makes a statement that, like the Isrealites, the church of today has spent to much time wandering in the wilderness. Their focus is lost. They mark time by doing things they have always done, not pursuing any particular direction. Because of this, the church cannot see beyond their own needs. Because of this misdirection, statistics say that churches reach their peak well before they reach 2 decades old. God help me to regain the real focus of the church. I must admit as a pastor it is easy to fall into this mentality and be only a mediator among the saints and fail to be a mentor to the sinner.

God help me as a pastor and leader. Without someone to keep the vision real and fresh before the people, people will perish. "God, keep me real so my vision will stay fresh."

21st Bus & Outreach Convention

Last evening, we returned from Lebanon, Pa where this years Bus & Outreach Convention was held. To me, this is the most valuable convention ever. It is always chuck full of practical ways to enhance your ministry in every area. From Sunday School, bus routes, pastoral and leadership, they have it covered. Each evening an evangelistic service is held. This years main speakers were Revs. Chris Cravens, Mark Mowery and Rick Maloyed. In recent weeks God has been helping me see some things. We seem to have gotten into a mindset in our holiness churches that church is about ministering to the saints. Encouraging them, loving them and refilling them with enough strength to make it back next week. While this is all part of it, the main responsibility of the church is to minister and serve this world with the life changing message of salvation. We sometimes focus so much on the saints we forget our responsibility to the sinner. If all we do is minister to ourselves and do not reach out and bring others in we become an unhealthy church and a failing church. This Bus Convention helped me to see this more real than ever before. My prayer is that God will help me to apply what we heard to our ministry at our church in a greater way that we will be the balanced and strong church God wants us to be.

Ministerial 2008

Laughter was heard often.

Shuffle board king, Aaron McCarty.

Team Twisted Tie

Jacob Martin was voted Pastor of the Year.

Having a great time playing and singing at the
Couples Dinner.

We recently had our Ministerial at Camp Hebron. It was a wonderful time together with our conference co-laborers. Rev. James Keaton did a great job in encouraging and challenging us. Our church is so kind to pay our way and we are very thankful, for it was a charging time for us and hopefully we can better serve our people.