Sunday February 13th, 2011

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by
Dear members of BBT, I am so sorry we missed services last week.  On Saturday I was afraid that at night the melting ice would freeze back and we would not be able to get our members out but it was warm enough Sunday that we could have had service if I had waited. I am sorry and I promise I will try not to make that mistake again.  I want us to be at Church every week and I want us to be willing to sacrifice if necessary.  Again I apologize that I jumped the gun and cost us a Sunday to worship together.  I hope you will let me make it up to you this week.  I know it is sleeting today, Wednesday, but I know it is going to be beautiful on Sunday and we will get to be together again.  Make plans for this Sunday you will not be disappointed.

My sermon this week is about getting the message across. We want to make our message simple and clear and I hope we don’t confuse people more than they already are.  My message is about K.I.S.S. a message my wife reminds we all the time. It stands for “keep it simple stupid.” I am going to use scripture to show that this is a lesson we all need to understand.  Before church on Sunday read 1 Corinthians 1 start at verse 18 and read to the end on the chapter, on Sunday we will read 1 Corinthian 2 :1-5.  This is how Paul shares with the Church not just in Corinth but everywhere.  I hope you will be in Church on Sunday and once again I am very sorry for disappointing you last week.

Keep praying for all those that need our prayers and call us if we can help you with anything.  Keep believing that God is for you and wants the very best for you and we can do our part by being faithful.  We love you and want great things for you and this ministry and with God’s help we can do “all things through God who strength us.”

Pastor David & Pris

Sunday February 6 2011

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by
Well how are all my Eskimo BBT members.  I guess all the visitors from Green Bay and Pittsburgh brought more than just themselves to our little city!  Today is Thursday and it has been frozen outside for 3 days.  I hope your electricity is on and you are staying warm.  I know it is bad outside right now but by Sunday this will just be a dream.  A nightmare for some and a Holiday for others (kids).

Last week Joel and his group really topped off the month of January as they played and ministered to us last week.  I love the way they show up every month and I love  how God blesses us each time that they come.  If you are missing each time they come because the music is loud you are missing out on what God is doing and you are missing out on a great fellowship.  I can’t wait till they are back again.

This week I am going to preach a sermon I started 2 weeks ago that I did not get to preach, and it is a familiar lesson of the Thankful Samaritan.  The scripture vs are Luke 17: 11-19.  I think one of the things we lack in this city as well as this country is gratitude.  We expect some things and very often we don’t appreciate what we have.  It is very dangerous to make this mistake.  Before you come to Church this week think about what are you taking for granted?  What is it you are expecting to receive that when you have it you just take it but when you don’t receive it you are being mistreated?  You will be surprised at how much you take for granted every day.  I hope we can learn to be more grateful in our lives and we can show that to others.

Continue to pray for those that are hurting right now and don’t forget to pray for this  ministry.  Do me a favor this week, count your blessings this week and thank God for his mercy as well as his grace and lets be at Church on Sunday and celebrate the real Super Bowl.  Our time together worshipping God.  Do something good for someone this week and share a blessing on Sunday.  We love you but God loves you more! We will see you on Sunday. God bless you

Pastor David & Pris

Sunday January 30,2011

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Hello members of BBt.  I hope you are doing well.  I am still feeling good from last Sunday when Sean and his group worshiped with us.  We really felt the Holy Spirit and I loved that feeling.  I am sure Sean and his guys will be back again. We had some old friends that were back after a while and had a new visitor, Alan from Brentwood, that really enjoyed the service and I hope he will be back.

This week is another great week as Joel and his group will lead us this week.  November was the first time Joel had been back in a while and I am looking forward to seeing and hearing him again.  I hope you will come and bring someone with you.

I hope you are  making plans to be in Church this week and I am hoping to be able to see you on Sunday.  Keep praying for those that need our prayers and always remember to do good things for the people around you.  We will see you on Sunday!

Pastor David & Pris

Sunday January 23rd 2011

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Good afternoon followers of BBT! I hope this message find you happy and warm because it is cold today.  We had a great time in church last week.  Linda brought us the Sunday school and Larry brought the message on “Saved from what?”.  I hope you were there and if not you will listen to it on the webpage.

This weekend Sean and his group will be sharing with us in the Praise and Worship time this week.  Sean has been a couple of times but this is the first time his quartet as come along with him.  I cant wait till we get the chance to worship with them.  I am going to bring a message on being grateful and I am using a very familiar scripture Luke 12: 11-19.  I have used these versus many times but I want us to see how gratitude and Faith really go together.  Next week Joel and his group will be with us so this month is really going out in a great time for God’s movement.  Be here this week and next and lets receive what God has for us.

Chuck’s  tumor was removed Tues and he is doing very well and may get to come home very shortly.  Thanks for all your prayers for this family but they still need us as there will be a long time of recovery.  I hope you will be in Church with us Sunday and invite someone to come with you and remember to keep doing good things for people because that is just what we do.  Pris is feeling better and sends out a special thank you to all of you who prayed and called about her, she really appreciated it.  We love you and speak blessings on all of you.

Pastor David & Pris

Sunday January 16, 2011

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by
Well I guess you know the Winter blast kept us out of Church last week, so we will pick right where we left off last week, this week.  Larry is going to be presenting the sermon this week on Saved from what? And Linda will be teaching our Sunday School this week.  I love the snow but I really miss not having a chance to get together with my family on Sunday.  I am hoping we get a chance to spend more time with you individually each week.  I hope to be able to visit with every member either at your house or ours this year and I hope we can start up a bible study this year as well.  Let me hear from you on these ideas.

On Sunday the 23rd Sean and his quartet will be with us and on Sunday the 30Th Joel and his group will be here.  I hope we don’t miss any more Sundays but I hope you were safe and warm last week.

Keep praying for one another this week and remember to do something good for somebody this week.  May God bless you  and we will see you on Sunday.

Pastor David & Pris

Message for January 9 – Saved from What?

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I had an entirely different plan for next week’s sermon, but a question to the pastor from the congregation prompted me to change it.  I think the Holy Spirit had a better idea.  You might think of this as another installment on my unplanned series on Christianese words.  This week we’re going to talk about getting “saved.”  Most if not all of you who are likely to be hearing this have already given your lives to Jesus.  You may consider this a very elementary topic, but I have found over the years that even among sincere Christians there is a lack of understanding that makes it hard for us to communicate to those who may question us the importance of the Gospel message.  In fact, if we do not understand what it is we were saved from and why we needed saving, we may need to reevaluate what it was that we did when we prayed that special prayer.  Certainly we will have an incomplete understanding of the grace and mercy given to us by God.

We’ll start in the famous passage of John 3:16-17.  It is my prayer that after this Sunday we will have a greater comprehension of what Jesus did for us and a greater depth of knowledge from which to answer the question, “saved from what?”

Sunday January2, 2011

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by
Well I hope the members of BBT had a great Christmas and I hope you are looking for new and better things in 2011.  Our Christmas party on the 19Th was a terrific success and I hope the ones that came from the Heights Baptist church got as much out of the Christmas spirit as we did.  They are really a great group of people and we are really blessed to have them in our lives.  We owe a big thank you to Jerry for bringing in the meat for us to take home and to my neighbor Dianna who provided us with bags of all kinds of things that we all could use.  We were really blessed and I hope we passed that blessing along.  I missed not having Church last week but it was nice to spend some extra time at Christmas with the family.  I hope you enjoyed the time off as well.

Well this week we will start off the year of 2011 with a bang.  There is so much to look forward just this month.  This week I am going to talk about what we do after Christmas is over and a New Year starts.  The scripture for this week is in Matthew 2:13-23.  I want us to look at how we can cope with the passing of Christmas and what we need to do to help us make 2011 a great year.  I promise I will not ask you to make a list of New Year’s resolutions that are hard to keep and you end up feeling like a failure.  I want us to just be more who we really are and more who we would like to be.  Also this month Larry will bring a message,  Joel is going to be here this month with his group and Sean Haynes will be here on the 23rd with his group Consecrated to sing for us.  We also have five sundays so lets start the new year off by being at every service this month!

We did get GREAT news in regards to Chuck Small this week.  The tumor removed from his brain stem this month was not cancer.  What a answer to prayer!  He still has a long way to recovering but we will just keep praying for him and his family the whole way.  I hope you will continue to do good things for the people you meet and let’s get excited about this new year.  We cant wait to see you on Sunday and invite someone to come with you.  We love you and will see you soon!

Pastor David and Pris

Sunday December 19, 2010

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“Hello members of BBT.  We had a great celebration last Sunday,  The “Senior Moments” sang our favorite Christmas carols and Larry brought the message “Name that Prophet”  He showed how the Christmas story goes way back to the Old Testament.  It was a great service, the only thing that would have made it better would have been more people to share it with.  My prayer is that in 2011 we will all have a new commitment.  I am hoping it will start this week!

This week we will have our annual Christmas Party given to us by a great group of believers from Heights Church in Richardson. They have been so faithful over  the years. God has a special place in his heart for this special group of saints. I am so excited to see them again.   This week I am going to read the Christmas Story in Luke 2: 1-7.  I am going to talk about someone in this story that has been given a bad reputation and did not do anything to deserve it.  His name is never mentioned in the scripture but he is usually part of a Christmas play.  See if you can figure out who I am talking about.  I hope you will be there this week as it will be really exciting and fun this week.  It is also the last service of the year as we will not have service on Sunday the 26Th.

Keep praying for Chuck Small as he has gone back into surgery again this week.  Our hope and prayers are that he will be home soon.  I will let you know something as soon as I hear something.  We hope to see you on Sunday and lets share the joy we have as we are being blessd everyday.  We can make a difference if we try.  We love You cant wait till we see you on Sunday

Pastor David & Pris

Message for December 12 – Name That Prophet

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It would be hard to find many people living in the western world that aren’t at least somewhat familiar with the story of how Jesus came to spend His time with us.  Though the actual facts of His birth may not be quite what our traditions portray, we’ve all seen the depictions of Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus in the manger.  What you may not know is that many of the facts of Jesus early life were foretold centuries before they happened by the prophets in the Old Testament.  Every prophecy that covers events that have already occurred is completely accurate.  What does that tell us about the ones yet to come?  Who were these prophets?  Join us this Sunday as we look at these men blessed by Yahweh to give His people the signs that pointed to Jesus the promised messiah.  We’ll be reading from Matthew 1-2 and Luke 2.

If you’d like to see some more of the prophecies about Jesus that were fulfilled by His life, death, and resurrection, check out the link below.  I don’t know anything about the organization behind this site and haven’t looked at any of the other material so this is not an endorsement of the site, but this page has a neat little summary of just some of the prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus.  The commentary is pretty good too.

http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/m_prophecies.shtml

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by
It is good to talk to you again and I hope you and all your family are doing well.  We had a great Sunday last week as Joel and his group were back after several months.  Joel brought some new guest with him and we have some new friends now.  The Praise and Worship was amazing and inspirational and Joel message of hope and what a blessing is, is just what we needed to hear.  He reminded us we are blessed ever day and we need to live our lives like nothings broken, nothings missing.   No matter what is going on in our lives we need to adapt that message to our lives.  I can’t wait till they are back!

We have such a full schedule this month and I want to start off the month of December with a message of peace.  Seems like it is something we all want but have too little of.  The scripture versus this week are found in Isaiah then11Th Chapter versus 1-10.  This is a season we talk about peace, and although we do not seem to have much peace right now, the promise is one day when the Prince of Peace comes we will have real peace. A peace that passes all understanding.  Till that time it is up to us as Christians to make as much Peace as we can.  That may sound like pie in the sky dreaming but I think, no let me restate that, I KNOW we can bring peace in our little corner of the world if we really want to.  When was the last time you were a peacemaker in your family or with your friends.  When was the last time you stood up and put yourself out on a limb in the name of making peace.  It may mean you will have to swallow your pride but isn’t it worth it to make peace.  I hope you feel like it is because if not us then who?

Larry will be giving the message next week and the “Senior Moments” will be here also. The 19TH will be our Christmas Party put on by Heights Church and I am excited about seeing them again. I hope you are as well.

Keep prayinf for those who need our prayers especially for Chuck and Sarah as Chuck is going in on Tuesday to have brain surgery, hopefully to remove the tumor on the stem of his brain.  Keep claiming a miracle for this family and keep them and others in your prayers daily.  Don’t forget how important it is the have a smile and have a kind word for the people you meet this week.  I can’t think of a better way to bring peace in your life as well as others.  We hope to see you on Sunday and remember as much as we love you God loves you more!

Pastor David & Pris