"I wish I was preaching to a black church"

This Sunday we had Dr. Larry Harris of the church plant The Word Fellowship with us.

Dr. Harris was a real encouragement to our people (and especially to the Pastor).

Not only did Dr. Harris bring a great message but his wife and mother-in-law tore it up singing.
Mrs. Harris sang a great rendition of "We Shall Behold Him" and his mother-in-law Dorthea hit it out of the park with a very soulful "Precious Lord".

One thing that was funny and yet true was when Dr. Harris would get rolling he would stop and say, "I wish I was preaching to a black church!" The obvious point was a lack of response/feedback from the congregation.

Although he didn't know it he did address an issue we need to look at: involving the affections/feelings when we worship as a church. The great intellectual Jonathan Edwards was right when he penned that Christian religion was primarily a religion of the heart.

The challenge becomes: How do we become more liberated when it comes to expressing our feelings during worship?

NYC Pics Day 1 and 2 (July 17 & 18)

The first day of the pics revolve around Time Square. The second day of pics is working @ Wadsworth Ave Baptist Church.

Michael and Pastor Josh Blair gave us plenty of work to do. A building this old and massive is a never ending project. Today we concentrated on cleaning up a couple of rooms. We filled a 30 yard industrial dumpster with junk!

To quote Audley McQueen everyone was 'working like we were killing snakes.'

A good first 2 days. Hard to believe tomorrow is the last day before we come back to KY.

NYC arrival July 17

The first team arrived @ Wadsworth Ave @ 3:45 on Tuesday afternoon. The second team arrived around 4:15.

Pastor Josh Blair showed us around the massive Wadsworth Ave Baptist Church building. Hiswife Marsha stopped by with their 3 boys (Caleb, Noah & Natan) as they were heading to a Little League Baseball Game.

Tomorrow we will hit the work of which there is plenty to do.

Look for more info and pics tomorrow

Vermont Sunday Monday re-cap

Here's the run down of the last couple of days in Vermont.

Sunday
Sunday morning we worshipped with Hope Community Fellowship @ the local community hall.
Meeting in a community hall was a first for me. Pastor Jeff brought a very thorough and practical message on 'We Need Better Men not Better Methods."

The congregation sang out and seemed genuinely happy to be in service.

During the afternoon we went over to visit @ a Nursing Home in Vergennes. We met Pearl, Mariam, Helen and Mildred.

Mildred (age 90) was one of the first woman air traffic controllers in US history. She worked in DC during WW II.

Sunday Night we met for the bi-weekly Men's Meeting. We discussed, "Half Truths and Outright Lies." This was led by Dave Carpenter. We had a good thought provoking discussion on the nature of truth and falsehood and our daily encounters with both.

While we were doing the men's meeting the Ladies were together preparing the literature we would pass out in town the next day.

We had a great day of fellowship, worship, discussion and food.

Monday
We were out @ 9:30 to pass out the professionally done literature of Hope Community Fellowship.
Three teams (Ron; Alyson & Lori; Tina and Sheila) went to the college town of Middlebury to knock on doors and invite people to services.
*Aly and Lori had a couple of good visits. Sheila and Tina did as well.

*Doug, Caleb and Adam went around Bridport and had a few good visits.

*The McQueens and the Duncans went to Vergennes and some country areas and had a few good visits as well.

We hope these prospects pan out for Pastor Jeff and HCF.

After a nice noon lunch, Pastor Jeff took us over to the local elementary school (Addison Central). We spent the next 3 hours ripping out 5 rooms of carpet.

The team did an amazing job. The 2 custodians had worked 2 days on it and due to an incredible glue job by the installers had only gotten about 10% of it ripped up. 3 Kauffmans and the team descended upon it and knocked it out quickly.

Just a note of how well it was glued down: The plywood floor was coming up with it. Or to quote Audley when someone said, "Audley this is starting to look like work." Covered in sweat and smiling he said, "Brother, it doesn't look like it. This is exactly what work is." He should know.

After the project was done, the school principal and the custodian made this comment, "You guys answered our prayers." I wonder if they knew how true that might be? It was also said by the principal, "Maybe we can get a mission team in here next year to help the school." This is from a public school, 15 mins from the most liberal college in VT, in a state where only 3% claim to be born again Christians.

After that project, the Bamforth guys went to jet ski with the Kauffmans, the Duncans and McQueens hung around to help finish a project for the Community Hall and the rest of us came back to clean up and walk the town.

Walking the town: All the shops literally close @ 5:30!!! So our walking didn't take long.

Back to the Kauffmans for a good bye grill out.

Devotions in the gazebo @ the Blue Spruce.

Hit the hay because it NYC tomorrow!!!

Monday in Vermont ~ Pics

The majority of the pics are us ripping out carpet @ the local public elementary school, Addison Central School.

The pics of little people walking towards the camera was part of our visitation team. The mission team went to approximately 100 houses on visitation this morning.

The bottom are some sights of which my photography skills do not do it justice.
There is Middlebury town square.
The other is a old metal railroad bridge over a creek. This is from the backyard while I was on visitation.
Then you have the one of the American Baptist Church next door to the Addison Town Hall.

More info on Vermont Sun/Mon re-cap.

Sunday Pics

Pastor Kauffman's family on the left.
The mission team on the right.
The church sign.
The rented facilities.
The worship services.
Tina, Sheila and Doug singing a special.
VT gun owners for M.K.

Mission Trip Day 2 ~ Vermont

As you can see we did arrive safely @ Bridport VT.

Today we got a little briefing by Pastor Jeff Kauffman about the Vermont spiritual landscape.
Highly liberal, and very little concern over Biblical spirituality.

An interesting thing he pointed out was the Middlebury College. MC is just a few miles from Bridport in a beautiful town called...Middlebury. Interesting facts are...

*It is the most liberal college in VT.
*It is one of the leading linguistics college in US. Missionaries go there to train.
*If you take Arabic @ MC you sign a document saying that you won't use it to proselytize.
*DL Moody's son was one of the Presidents (in the pre-liberal days).
*There is some kind of Al-Jazeera connection (I hear).

Tomorrow we have worship services. Monday we should be out doing the ministry. It should be interesting.

Mission Trip Day 1.5

The woman on the left is Lori Hale. Yesterday (Friday the 13th appropriately enough) and spilling in to today, Lori became a swirling tornado of anger.

How you might ask? A simple mistake in driving directions.

I will leave the ugly details but suffice it to know that a 20 min driving trip back from the Niagra Falls turned into a 3 hour ordeal.

3 hours was the fateful time for Gilligan and 3 hours was the fateful number for the mission trip.

Without sounding like a gossiping little old lady, Lori threw what can only be described as a Paris Hilton like hissy fit today (Sat the 14th), when we discovered the direction to Vermont was mislabeled by one turn.

I am concerned about her mental well being.

Stay tuned for future episodes of when Lori goes wild!

Mission Blog Day 1 (July 13 2007)

We made it to Buffalo New York!

After about 9 hours on the road, one or two small detours, a couple of rain showers and 4 states we arrived.

I am especially excited because it is my daughter's first mission trip.

Our week will consist of staying in Buffalo tonight, checking out Niagara Falls, and rolling out @ 8am.

We look to arrive in Vermont around 4pm. We'll catch up with Pastor Kauffman of the Hope Community Fellowship and officially begin the mission part of Mission Trip.

Tuesday we will roll out and head to New York City where we will serve Wadsworth Ave Baptist Church and Pastor Josh Blair.

Watch for First Baptist Church in the newspaper!!

Our local paper the Community Press will be doing an article on our 5k with pics (hopefully) and a number of interviews with FBCers.

I'm not sure when this article will be out. The reporter Chris Mayhew recognized the importance of getting it out ASAP.

Keep your eyes peeled.

Random Thoughts

Random Thought #1...I'm reading Augustine's Confessions. I don't know if I'll finish it. But already Augustine poses a great question, "Lord, if you are larger than your creation (Heaven of Heavens cannot contain You) where do You spill over into when you exceed your creation?"

Random Thought #2...Conviction: The need to do much better in leading spiritual development @ home.

Random Thought #3...There is so much overload of good information (online, libraries, etc) the temptation is to skim and not go deep.

Random Thought #4...Great quote from Tim Keller on grace. Keller points out that grace is only properly understood when we see the enormity of our personal sin and the magnitude of the provision of the Cross.

Random Thought # 5...I need to go pray.