Christ's Purpose for the Church

[0:00] it's always such a pleasure and joy to be with you all the family of God it's wonderful to be a part of that family and y'all are my family I love you bless you and I'm gonna echo what John said earlier we just had such a good time last night I mean like you say somewhere between 60 and 70 people great food good time just in every way super well let's go to the Lord in prayer as we begin today Father the folks have not gathered today to hear me at least I sure haven't Lord I know that it's only if you come and are with us and speak through your word and give me something of value to say that can make a difference in our lives that's all that we're here for so Lord we're listening come and meet with us now help us to understand your word better and to live it in Jesus name we pray amen well we're beginning to study this book together we're going to be preaching six sermons because there's six chapters in this book and this book is called flickering lamps Christ and his church by Henry and his son Richard Blackaby it's mostly all written in the voice of Henry Blackaby and if you don't have a copy of this book yet let us get it for you right now because what happens is on the way out you forget to grab one so Steve or Roger's gonna go back there right now and grab a few raise your hand if you didn't get a copy of this book we've got at least one for every adult we'll give it to you right now okay Janet needs one Tim needs one there you go it's a very it's a very easy to read book it is full of stories about things that uh Henry Blackaby experienced in pastoring a church so I know you'll enjoy reading this book and uh this author by the way has played a special part in my life and in the life of this church

[2:18] I first heard of this author probably about 27 years ago and he had written a book called experiencing God which was a group bible study and I took that bible study at first baptist church in Sanford and through that bible study by the end of it I knew that God had called me to be a pastor and I said yes Lord I'll do that well at the same time I was in that bible study this church was going through that bible study and I'd never heard of Montecue Baptist Church but they were doing that same bible study by this same author Henry Blackaby and uh they were going through some difficult times uh their pastors left there had been a little bit of some dissension a little split here in the church I don't know if there's ever a little split in a church it's always terrible if you live through a split in a church it's a terrible thing and uh but anyway they were going through that and then uh it just worked out I came here and became a pastor here and uh we were all on the same wavelength when I arrived because we had all just been very influenced and touched by that book and uh of those who are present this morning Glenn may be the only one today who was here then and uh so it was a special time wasn't it Glenn and Brenda came along and I'm just going to say I went through the ladies Bible study first practice in the same book okay and that it stirred your heart yes there you got you knew god had more for you to experience him so anyway it's a great book it begins in the uh introduction with uh next slide mark actually he doesn't really start writing this part the the preface before his book the guy that writes a little introduction says this book is really greatly needed at this time in the churches of america because so many churches are closing and he points out that four thousand churches a year are closing in the united states primarily due to a lack of attendance that amazing four thousand a year and uh the bad news the guy writing the preface is a baptist and he says sadly 900 of those four thousand are baptist churches and then i did a little research and while that sounds awful like yeah and it is awful it sounds like oh my gosh the baptists are going down the drain we happen to be the biggest denomination in the united states so if churches are closing a lot of them would have to be baptist like you know if if restaurants were closing there'd be more mcdonald's closing than anybody else so that's part of it but i'll also say this that the southern baptists are working really hard to spread the gospel we're starting 1200 new churches in america every year so we're starting 1200 churches 900 are closing we're making some advance but oh my goodness it's almost a wash so there's never been a time more when we need for churches to be renewed and seeking to serve the lord and and touching their community than a time when so many churches are closing in the country and many denominations have really lost their way i was at a meeting three four weeks ago of retired community college people and the guy across the church from me is the kind of the leading um i don't know their name of in their church in the methodist church maybe the leading elder or something not a pastor but like the head deacon kind of guy in his methodist church and he was talking about that in north carolina since the methodist church got so woke that they're now ordaining homosexuals to be pastors and they will marry gay people etc that uh that has caused so much chaos in that church that in

[6:26] north carolina alone half of the churches in the united methodist church group have withdrawn they're no longer a part of united methodist and so there's a lot more independent methodist churches that say you know we are just not going to go there we're still going to stick with the bible and uh we're going to let the bible be our guide and not seminary graduates who went to to seminary or wherever they went and uh we're going to let the bible be our guide so may god bless the methodists and the episcopals and presbyterians and the baptists and everybody else that's declaring the truth well there's really a main point in this book that uh could be summarized in one sentence next chapter or next slide rather is this sentence right here there is no reason for a church to ever die not when christ is the head of that church think about it jesus christ was dead and the power of god brought him back to life and he said i'm going to build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it and that living christ is who we're following today and as long as he is in the church and being honored that church there's no reason it would ever die it's only if we get our eyes off of him that the church gets in trouble well henry black could be in this book mostly it's kind of a little bit of a biography of stuff that he went through um and it's strange that his story he was a pretty happy preacher in his mid-30s with four young boys his sons and he was living in southern california near los angeles back before california was as crazy as it is today and it was a beautiful place to be everybody wanted to be in southern california i mean that was where the first disneyland was i mean this was great stuff so he was there everything was great and he got a phone call from some folks at a church in saskatoon canada and the first thought i had was where in the world is saskatoon canada so i looked this up if you'll have a next slide got you a map to show you so los angeles way down here on the pacific ocean you know where los angeles is saskatoon the middle of nowhere canada it is a little city of some size i don't know how big exactly it's bigger than sanford i think anyway why would he ever want to leave a thriving church he'd been there five or six years he had close to 200 members things were going good the church had just given him a raise in los angeles and they had just said we're going to let you start working on your doctorate and we're going to pay for you to take your family on a trip to israel i mean the church in los angeles things were going great meanwhile the church in saskatoon was about to close the building was falling apart they had put a for sale sign in front of the building and there were only 10 people left attending that church and who knows how they ever heard of henry buckaby he had never written a book he wasn't famous he was just a preacher in southern california somehow they heard of him they called him after much prayer and they said we believe god is calling you to come and be our pastor and he had to look up where in the world saskatoon was why would you leave southern california look at the next picture mark next slide this is a literal picture that i found on the internet of winter in saskatoon canada why would you leave

[10:31] southern california to go there crazy and he said that he thought when he first got the call from them there is no way in the world i'd be a fool to do that and he said he began to pray about it with his wife and talk to people and then everybody he talked to said that cannot be god's will you're doing a really good ministry where you are it cannot be god's will so how can you consider it but he said the more he prayed about it that the lord began to touch his heart and they just felt like we're supposed to leave here and go to the middle of canada we don't know why now it's a funny thing but it's often true in god think about it it's often true in the bible god may call you to do something you're not really crazy and excited about doing jones is a good example jeremiah is a good example jeremiah is a good example elijah is sometimes there's a lot of people in the bible that god spoke to and said i have a special plan for you and they were like oh no i don't believe i can do that so keep your heart open to god you don't know what he may be leading guiding you to do and i pray that whenever he speaks to us we'll be willing to say yes so this book then tells about how his family left california went up to this town 10 church members and god it never became an enormous church but over the next 10 or 15 years while he pastored there they started several dozen churches all across canada out of that little church they started the first church they planted when they still only had 10 members the first week he got there they started a new church in another town they also because there's a college in that town they led hundreds not all at one time but over 15 years hundreds of college students to christ and dozens of them became pastors and went to lead those churches that their church started and so god had a great working plan an important work for canada now another thing i like about this book blackaby never takes credit for any of it he never says i had this great plan i was a church creating genius he says i never had any plan in fact the next slide is what blackaby often talks about in all of his books waiting on god he says all we ever did was we waited to see how god was working and then we joined him in that work he said i didn't have any plan to start new churches the first week they were there somebody pulled up a couple people in a car in front of the church came in and said we're from a town i think it was a couple hours away and we don't have a gospel believing church in the whole town and we've prayed and we just came over to ask you could your church help us we've got four or five of us that would like to start a church and instead of saying there's only ten of us are you crazy they prayed about it and said well looks like god's at work in that town i guess we ought to go join him and so they began to on sunday afternoons different people would go there and kind of start leading a sunday school class and that turned into a church and this is the way that everything that happened in his church they didn't come up with a master plan they didn't come up with a mission statement they didn't come up with long range goals they they just said lord what are you doing help us to see what you're doing and then we'll try to join you in that as much as we're able to and from there god did wonderful things so today we're really

[14:34] going to talk some about the first chapter and the first chapter is a study it begins in the book of revelation in chapter one two three right through there now in about 2008 our church did a study on the letters to the churches in the book of revelation and this is the same context he uses as he writes this book but these will not be the same sermons that we shared then because it's a little different emphasis so let's begin then the next slide we'll go back and look at those words at the beginning of revelation a little background john the apostle of jesus is the last apostle left all the others have been killed and he's in exile he's imprisoned on an island and the book of revelation is a vision that jesus christ gives him and he writes it down so at the end of revelation 120 jesus comes to him and says that the seven lampstands that he sees in this vision he sees a vision of jesus standing with seven lampstands burning around him and he says those seven lampstands are the seven churches and by the way that's when this lampstand first came to this church it was while we were preaching through a series about these lampstands and so this lampstand represents the presence of christ in our church it's symbolic for us it shows that uh as long as this lampstand i mean not literally but symbolically as long as the lord has his lampstand burning here in our midst then this is a church that's serving the lord well let's go ahead and keep reading from there then jesus tells john write these things to the angel of the church in ephesus write the words of him who walks among the seven golden lampstands and here's what he writes to ephesus i know your works your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil and you have tested those who call themselves apostles and they are not and you have found them to be false i know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake and you have not grown weary let's just stop there for a minute this is really some good stuff jesus is saying about the church in ephesus he's really giving them a pat on the back he says look i know you're really a hard worker you've had a lot of endurance you don't put up with false teachers you have good doctrine you've not grown weary you've been doing all of this for my name's sake i mean this is a real pat on the back and so when they're reading this when this letter arrives in ephesus they're probably feeling like wow we're doing great but then well before we get to that i should tell you that they should be doing really well the apostle paul himself started this church and spent three years in ephesus helping this church get off the ground and then he sent timothy to be a pastor there for two or three years these people have had really good teaching from the best of the time but then jesus has one humongous criticism and that's the next verse mark jesus says i have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first therefore remember from where you have fallen repent and do the works you did at first if not i will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent these are such serious words when jesus says i will come if you don't change remember what repent means repent means you're going in this direction

[18:38] you need to change and go in this direction jesus says you have forgotten that you used to really love me you used to be all about loving me serving me but you have gotten off track and unless you can turn and go back to that then i'm going to come to you and i'm going to remove your lampstand in other words he says i'm going to leave your church i'm going to that church can close down for all the lord cares it's no longer serving him this is really serious and what is their sin here their sin is that they no longer have that first love like they had for the lord jesus when the church started they neglected the most important thing the most important thing we'll ever do as a church is glorifying god loving him worshiping him serving him keeping our focus on jesus it's the most important thing we do individually you as a follower of jesus the most important thing you do is keep your eyes on jesus he is the author and finisher of your faith he is the lord of lords the king of kings the fairest of ten thousand your redeemer the lover of your soul the friend of sinners he is the wonderful wonderful god jesus and always keep your focus primarily on him don't let it get distracted don't let yourself be distracted or he could come and remove our church's lampstand christ won't tolerate a church that forgets him and that would kind of lead into well then what are the purposes of the church next slide mark the first purpose we've just been talking about is that we would glorify god which means keep your love and your focus on jesus christ and on loving him it's the most important thing we do but there's a couple of other things that come right up there close to as important the second one mark would be to make disciples this means that you lead people to know jesus christ like we talked about in my sunday school class with the children this morning we talked about how do you share your faith with somebody else and help them to know jesus the way that you know jesus how do you do that but after you help them to become a christian then the church helps them to become a disciple a disciple is somebody that's really following jesus a disciple is that person who's trying to become more like jesus the disciple jesus said when you bat remember right there in the great commission go ye therefore teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit and teaching them to observe all things that i have commanded you that's the discipleship part of that teach each other we should be teaching each other to observe to follow everything that was left behind by the apostles about the life of christ for us to understand so that when we see jesus forgave his enemies then we need to forgive that aggravating family member or that neighbor or that person at work who drives us crazy because jesus and so we become disciples by following the book and following the example of jesus christ and that's what our church is supposed to be doing first we love him then as we love and help each other and then beyond the walls is the third remark to bless the community this is the third purpose of the church how do we bless our community jesus said you're the salt of the earth but if you stop being salty you're good for nothing salt is a nice flavor doesn't take a lot of it either too much salt ruins something in that right state

[22:48] we're not going to tell the whole story right we won't tell the whole story of the time i put salt on his oatmeal when he was a baby and tried to force him to eat it because i thought it was sugar i thought he was being stubborn but it was anyway i said i'm going to tell the story and then i did a little bit of salt is wonderful my grandmother my mother's mother we call her mama lily she made the best yeast rolls you ever ate made them from scratch they were so good every time we went to her house she'd pull them out of the oven these great big round yeast rolls oh they were good and then when she got to be in her 50s some doctor told her well you know with your blood pressure you better quit eating salt and you know what she did she would no longer put a single grain of salt in those rolls and they were just so bland i was so disappointed a little bit of salt is a wonderful thing it makes everything taste a little better you're the salt of the earth amen the place where you work is blessed because you're there you give a better flavor to that place your family whether they're a christian family or not your brothers sisters aunts uncles because you're in the family as a christian you add some good flavor there to your neighborhood you might be the only person that's a believer you add a better flavor if you'll keep being salt salt's also a great preservative you know you can they used to put salt that's how they cure country hams and stuff they put salt all over it you can salt fish down it'll keep it's a great preservative salt we are also to be helping to preserve the presence of god preserving the faith preserving moral standards in our society and in our country we have a job to do we are the salt of the earth the light of the world how do we bless our community well we need to see where god's working and joining him in it and one thing that's been very successful for us is the things we do with the public school locally there were times when we worked a lot with the sprott center hadn't been needed to do that as much lately lately we've been helping to bring the churches together more and god has been blessing that those fifth sunday singing things they've been growing and some other times when the churches have gotten together been very good so it's things that the lord is doing and i think we're joining him but it's not just our local the community of course is the world you know you've got concentric circles i guess mom cure and lee in chatham county north carolina and so forth spreading out and so when we've gone like we just heard from courtney in a sense we trained her up and sent her out to bolivia representing us she's in south america and so we are blessing the community of the world by what we invested and poured into and trained and planted and blessed in courtney like when steve was with her on her first ever mission trip outside the country or like when her dad and i were with her on her first ever mission trip inside the country and she was about this tall you know we by doing these things we are blessing the community and the the folks who help with uh whatever projects the coats that y'all were talking about jordan that some of us will be taking up and giving away in new york city that's blessing the community when some of you help with the crisis pregnancy center or a food basket kind of place for the hungry or the project right now that roger's been helping get us ready to help pack chicken boxes

[26:53] 10 000 10 000 chicken boxes on november 18th if you're available let roger know and you we put you to work that day packing boxes and then what's going to happen those 10 000 boxes will be given away there will be a thanksgiving meal in each one of them a frozen chicken and all the things that go with it to 10 000 different families when we do things like that when we're involved with stuff like that we're blessing our community a few years ago maybe two years ago we gave away must have been i forget how many 50 or so um gift certificates um to all firemen policemen sheriff's department etc in our community to show our appreciation for them this is called blessing the community and it's a major purpose of the church if the church stops doing any one of those three things then they're in serious trouble and may god help us now blackaby does ask a question in this chapter that to me is a painful question i stopped and meditated on it a lot and it's going to be one of our questions in our our bible study groups and the question is if your church closed this week when the community even notice oh my goodness that is something to think about if moncure baptist would close down and if no one in this community or the world or even noticed we were gone then are we blessing them are we making a difference or not serious thought well god does not give every church the exact same assignment it's based on where you're located you know i don't think it would be possible without spending zillions of dollars to create a mega church with 10 000 members in moncure we don't have those kind of people here that that numbers of people but you know if you're in new york city it might be a little easier to create a mega church now that would never be the goal of a church no church's goal should ever be we are out to build a mega church but every church based on where you're located and on who god puts in your church and what needs he shows your church that's his specific assignment for a church some churches if they're especially like for us it would be really hard for us to have a mission ministry outreach to um university students in chapel hill but if our church was in chapel hill and pretty close to the campus if we didn't have any college students attending from the university i would think something's wrong we're missing the boat i heard about i just read about this one two three weeks ago there's a church a baptist church over in smithfield right where i-95 goes and somehow it came to their attention that there was a great deal of human trafficking going up and down i-95 between florida and all the major cities new york and that they were coming right through smithfield teenage girls children adults people who were being bought and sold into a slavery for terrible purposes and somehow it came to the attention of this church that they had some connection to some i don't even i don't know how exactly but they stepped up and they've joined forces with the baptist children's home and they've created a a shelter there for victims of human trafficking and they're able to rescue them and give them a place to be and feed them and close them and

[30:59] help them get some training and help them get back to their home if they've been stolen from their homes or help them start a new life well now that's not our church's mission we're not there where that's happening so god has different kinds of missions for different kinds of churches in fact mark if you'll show the next slide just as no two churches will look just alike well maybe they will you can buy a plan and more than one church might use the same plan but most churches will look a little different on the outside the building in the same way what's happening on the inside will vary some churches are specialized they reach out to cowboys or to bikers or to sports fans or you just all different kinds of ways that god will use a church so as we as a church try to always understand what's god doing and what does he want us to do we should also look at each other and say well what are we able to do i just kind of feeling just looking around right now that god's plan for us is that we should be probably more into some kind of handyman and kind of stuff ministry because we've got so many guys here that know how to fix anything and you know we haven't been we've done some of that and so roger has been involved in doing a lot of that and you know we could probably find out more and help with that more um i don't know the lord would show us the opportunities we don't have to create the opportunities but i wouldn't be surprised it was also when we first went john when you and i and jeremy and and pat when we first went down to columbia we didn't have a clue what we were going to do i figured they probably need sand water sanitation i knew they wanted to work with indian poor indian villages and i went in there and it was just poverty stricken i thought oh man they need something like habitat for humanity to build houses for them they they need somebody that knows how to clean the water system they need uh i mean just all these thoughts but it turned out that what they wanted was somebody to teach them english and our church especially at that time was full of people related to teaching my career and john's career and kathy greenlee and and jody and uh phil stone and sherry stone and and i'm you know get in trouble when you start talking off the top of your head i'm leaving somebody out but brenda i mean we had a lot of people with a background in teaching and so it just seemed natural hey this must really be what we're supposed to do we've got people with the gifts to do that and here's the opportunity they're asking us and so that's kind of how it works that the lord will based on who he puts in a church and where he locates the church and the needs that he shows the church that becomes his special plan of action we're doing all those things we're loving the lord and glorifying him we're making disciples we're blessing our community but we've probably got a specific purpose as well and let me take a minute to say that one error that we make in america in america this really is our culture that is not in the bible bigger is better that is not in the bible folks i don't care how american it is think about it if you're an insurance salesman every year you should be selling more insurance than you sold last year if you got a used car a lot why aren't you expanding that car a lot and selling more cars than last year if you've got a store or whatever why aren't you opening more stores or if you i mean there's always in america if it's not bigger it's no good something wrong

[35:08] but there's nothing in the bible that ever says that the first thing you ought to ask about a church is how much is their attendance and are they growing and uh have they had more baptisms is their offering growing are they building more buildings are they building more buildings are they they co-c dagedeoc for the gospel.

[35:55] And probably the guys in heaven that are going to get a lot of praise are the ones like, was it William Carey that went to India and ministered for 40 years and had two converts?

[36:09] Guess what? That soil was not very fertile. Was it that he was a bad missionary or a bad pastor or didn't have the right? No. He was being faithful because God doesn't care about numbers.

[36:21] He cares about faith. He cares about faithfulness. Serve him where you are with what you've got and do your best and leave the results to him. You're not in charge of the results. You're just in charge of being obedient and trusting him and let God take care of the results.

[36:38] So, if a church ever gets too distracted with the buildings and the budget and paying the bills and all, you will be missing the boat. God would much rather see scuff marks on the carpet of a church that's doing something for him than a pristine, perfect building that doesn't want anybody to come in and mess anything up.

[37:02] I was in a church that was having an opportunity to let a new church of Hispanics use a part of their building.

[37:15] And of the debate and argument, they'll mess everything up. They'll get the carpets dirty. They'll put gum under the seats.

[37:28] I mean, it was terrible. Fortunately, the vote was, yeah, we're going to let the Hispanic church come in here and start a church. And after they're finished and they've got their own building, whatever, some years from now, we'll come in and clean up and repair as we need to.

[37:45] But we're going to serve God while we've got the opportunity. May we always have that kind of vision and purpose. Well, what brings God glory is serving him and loving Jesus.

[37:59] Last slide, Mark. The question for us then, are we like that church in Ephesus? What do we love? Have we lost this first love?

[38:11] Jesus said, I have this against you that you have abandoned the love that you had at first. And if you don't repent, I'll remove your candlestick. Do we love Jesus?

[38:21] And are we focused on serving him? Is he pleased? He's here with us now. He knows all of our programs, all of our activities. Is the Lord being honored here or not?

[38:33] If he's being honored here, our candlestick will glow. If he's not being honored here, then he'll come and remove his candlestick. And so, let us be faithful to walk with the Lord.

[38:49] As I pray, I'm going to ask the musicians to come and lead us in a closing song. Lord, we want to be faithful. We want to be true to you. Lord, we'll be happy to accept any growth in numbers that you send to us, but we'll be happier if we will remember that we love you and that we're serving you and that we're using the opportunities that you provide and the resources you've given us to do your work and to do it your way.

[39:20] Thank you, Lord. You are keeping the bills here paid. You always have, Lord. You've been so faithful financially to always provide what we need here. Thank you for that. And Lord, we pray that you'll continue to use us.

[39:34] Use us to glorify you. We love you, Lord. We sing your praises and use us to make disciples, training people to really live like Jesus wants us to live.

[39:47] And God, help us to bless all community as far out in the world of community as you want to use us. Thank you for hearing our prayer.

[39:57] In Jesus' name, Amen. The church is built on the people within the church, right?

[40:09] I mean, you don't have a church where you don't have two or more people gathered together in the Lord's name. And so it's not got anything to do with this building or the time of day or the day of the week that we get together on.

[40:23] It is that we are in community with each other doing God's work. work. And like anything else, where there is weakness, that part, false part, right?

[40:36] And so we're going to sing this song, I Surrender All. And so you should analyze as you're singing this, is what you're singing actually truthful? Are you actually surrendering all to Christ and inviting Him to daily begin your life?

[40:53] Because if you're not, then the church can't. won't benefit from you being a part of it to help it move forward where God's called us. So let's sing this song together.

[41:04] Let's stand together and consider it a, not just a declaration that you're surrounding everything that you are to God, but also look at it as a, Lord, am I really doing that?

[41:16] Help me do that. All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give.

[41:41] I will ever love and trust Him in His presence daily live.

[41:54] I surrender all. I surrender all. I surrender all.

[42:05] All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

[42:16] All to Jesus I surrender. Make me Savior, holy, Thine.

[42:29] Let me fill Thy Holy Spirit. Truly know that Thou art mine.

[42:40] I surrender all. I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

[43:02] All to Jesus I surrender. Lord, I give myself to Thee.

[43:15] Fill me with Thy love and power. Let Thy blessing fall on me.

[43:27] I surrender all. I surrender all.

[43:38] All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

[44:08] Good morning, everyone. We come to our time when we gather together to pray about the concerns of the church family.

[44:24] And we lift these names up to you. So, as our customer, I'm going to read out the name and the prayer concern. And we'll give you an opportunity to be praying for them.

[44:36] So if you would, bow your heads with me. Father, Lord, we come to you this morning knowing that you hear our hearts. You know what we have, Lord, that concerns us. You know the desires of our heart, Lord.

[44:49] So we come to you, Lord, just asking that you would hear our prayers. Father, we lift up Candice Wimberly, Teresa Parker's niece. She's in intensive care, Lord, on a ventilation and a diagnosis with a cardiomonopathy.

[45:09] She has just given birth to a child. The child's one week old, Lord, and she has a seven-year-old. Father, we lift her up to you right now. She's in ICU, Lord.

[45:20] We pray for healing for her. Lord, we lift up Tommy Pasteur to you, Roger's brother in Florida.

[45:41] He has lung cancer, Lord, and he's not doing well. We pray that he will renew his relationship with you, and we pray for healing for him too. Father, we lift up Jennifer Greenlee to you, Tim Greenlee's daughter.

[46:13] She's getting ready to have her first baby is due, and Lord, she's at that point, and we just pray that you would be with her and the baby. Lord, we lift up our brother Phil Stone.

[46:43] He's gone through it. You have blessed him through his surgery. Sherry has gone to pick him up, hopefully today, Lord, to bring him home. We pray for fast recovery from his hip replacement that he's had, and Lord, that he would be well enough to go on the mission trip to New York that he has been planning.

[47:02] Lord, just bless him and his healing. Bless Sherry and her caring for him, and with what they need to have done. Lord, we lift up our sister Courtney Mathis to you.

[47:25] Lord, continue to bless her on her work for you in South America. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[47:35] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[47:51] Father, we have a prayer here, and I'm just going to read it to you, and we'll pray for them as we go through it. Our Father, please keep Janet Carper safe while her body is healing from the remaining infection she has in her teeth.

[48:05] Father, keep healing Tim Greenlee, Sherry, and Phil Stone. Be with Christine and Scooby and their family healing their hurts and answering their needs.

[48:23] We thank you, Father, for the young couples you are bringing into the church. May we be the kind of people and offer them opportunities for growth that you would have desire for them.

[48:40] Father, be with the families learning to live without a loved one today. Heal their hearts and help them to live a good future life with your leading them.

[48:51] Instill in them your love, Lord. Father, be with Israel and those in their towns and through their area.

[49:04] We pray that you will keep your people, Jerusalem, and all Christians safe and give them your peace. Father, we lift up this world and our nation.

[49:20] Lord, that all that you would have done would be done for you, Lord. Lord, all these things we lift up to you.

[49:33] And all God's people said, Amen. Amen. Okay.

[49:44] Now, 18th set-up Saturday is the 8th to 10th. 8th to 1, rather. See, Roger, volunteer to go pack chickens. And there's a lot of other things to do, too, right, Roger?

[49:55] They have blue boxes, and they unpacked 24 things later. We will hear back if we got accepted. We put in a request for 123 of those boxes. We should hear back at the end of the week.

[50:06] That's us, and they are all up together? Yes, that's us together. All right, so that's on the 18th November. We're going to have a church meeting for our team leaders and pastors on November 6th.

[50:21] And anybody else that would like to come, we're going to be talking about the upcoming year budget and calendar and the preparations that the teams are doing to get a good new year.

[50:31] That'll be a 635th church. All right. I love that picture. I don't know who that is.

[50:44] That's Zach. That's Zach, right? That's Zach. A lot of passion. I sing loud, but I don't sing well. People are standing around me know that.

[50:58] So we're having practice this morning after services and next Sunday after services in preparation for the fifth Sunday when the men will sing.

[51:09] So the fifth Sunday is at the chapel church. We probably need to tell people where that's at. I'm not very sure. Yeah. I think that they address on the slide.

[51:20] Yeah, the other songs are coming. I'll know this one. The other ones. All right. And they're going to have a wheel. They'd like to bring chili and cornbread, if you would, to share. They'll have a wheel at 530 and worship at six.

[51:33] All the songs in our churches. All right. Next one. West Virginia soup, though, is acceptable. Yeah. West Virginia. That's good. All right. Veterans Day and Pastor.

[51:44] Appreciation. Semper is on the 11th of November at 6 p.m. here at the church. That's a Saturday. Barbecue, chicken, and pork will be provided. There's a sign of this for size and desserts. So come and join.

[51:57] You got somebody who knows it better or appreciates a pastor? Next.

[52:09] All right. On 5th of November, which is a Sunday morning, during the Sunday school hour, we'll be meeting together to hear from Julio and Emily about their mission and what they've been doing and what goes on.

[52:20] And that will be in the first half. So I plan on coming that morning to hear from them. Reflection. A revived and reflected revived.

[52:31] 7th of November and 8th of November will be working on these questions. By the way, the question I have is just about as deadly as the one you brought out.

[52:41] I'm going to be able to roll beyond this particular R&R. There's some heavy questions in here. He didn't pull punches. All right. So, it's Sunday saying.

[52:52] There it is. Lee Chapel Christian Church. It's at 5453. Lee Chapel Road. Church Road. I don't know where that is either. It's literally right on the other side of the river.

[53:03] Is it real? It goes down, what is it called? Lower Monkier Road. Lower Monkier Road. And then turn on to Lee Chapel Road. You'll go right by it. It's on the left. Right there. Okay. Great.

[53:14] So it's not that far away. And again, it's the churches in the area working together to celebrate the fact that we all belong to Christ and that we have something to celebrate together.

[53:24] And it says men's fire too that anybody that wants to sing can. You're going to let others? Oh, Casey wants to sing. You should sing, sir.

[53:35] Yeah, well. Yeah, okay. But anybody that wants to sing can. All right. So, let's do that. Oh, this is from China County.

[53:48] They're going to have a switch of veterans on November 3rd at the China County Aboriginal Conference Center. If you'd like to attend, it's 10 o'clock per pressure. It's 10.30 to 9.30 is the program.

[54:00] RSVP. Hmm? RSVP. Okay, you do need RSVP. Women's breakfast. I've heard enough moaning and groaning. You have your own. Oh, ho.

[54:12] John said that the rest of us guys didn't say anything. We all. John, you're going to hear what you're saying. There's a cookie exchange that's coming. I don't know how to hurt you.

[54:27] That's true. It's on November 4th, 8.30. It's going to be at Dunn's Six House on William Perry Road. Salon City Biscuits. We'll be provided to bring something to share.

[54:41] Okay? Have a good time. We'll talk about the union. Is there any others? No. Okay, that's it.

[54:51] Any other? Yes, sir. Just a reminder, the associational meeting is tomorrow night. The refreshment, the meeting starts at 7th, not speaking at that taxing screen.

[55:04] If anyone would like to be able to vote as a messenger, I've got that stuff. All right, anything else? Well, I haven't given Glenn the info yet, but the men have a breakfast the same day and have a guest speaker.

[55:18] Yes, we do. Yes, we do. We'll get a good one, too. All right. And that's for the men's breakfast. She can go to the Montcour, Montcour Alliance Club.

[55:28] And the fish fry. Yes, sir. I understand. That's true. The day of eating. Talks about working. I don't think she ate anything except yogurt and whatever came in a bottle.

[55:39] The whole time on the first mission trip, she didn't think you could eat the food. It just made her nervous. And then they served her a fish with a teeth in it. She's come a long way.

[55:51] She's come a long way. She's eating guinea pigs. I didn't even know. All right. Just ending the experience. Lord, you are a gracious and a wondrous God.

[56:03] We thank you for accepting us into your family. Help us to walk with you all the time, to listen for your voice, and to watch through the world, our generation, that we might enthusiastically join you in confidence of your love, and your gifting and your grace.

[56:22] In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

[56:54] Thank you.

[57:24] Thank you.

[57:54] Thank you.

[58:24] Thank you.

[58:54] Thank you.