Bartimaeus Baptist Temple

Hello faithful BBT members.  I really enjoyed the service last week and I want to thank Richard and Preston for sharing their testimonies with us last week.  I hope you are thinking about when you would like to share because so far no one is volentering.  That’s OK I don’t mind asking!

If you have not noticed, Larry has been able to record our service and you can go on our website and listen to the testimonies from last week, and if you have a hard time sleeping at night you can listen to my sermon again.  The way I can put John to sleep I ought to be anesthesiologist.  You may not want to go and listen to service if you are able to be there but if you have to miss a service you can go back and listen to it later.  My we are big time, next thing you know we will be broadcasting on TV.

Remember Summitt Church is going to be here this Sunday.  Expect to be blessed and I hope you come Bible in hand and paper and pen to take notes.  I don’t know what Joel is preaching on but I am sure you will be encouraged and blessed when you leave.  Larry and Linda will be traveling to Arkansas this weekend so we are praying they have a great trip and a safe return.  We will miss them on Sunday

On the last week of the month we are going to hear Linda share with us about her new program called Mission Accessible.  She is very excited about what God is doing in her life and ours.  After the service we will have a Baby Shower for Sarah and Chuck and little Cheyenne.  Last week Don and Brenda had to leave early as they took Sarah and Chuck to the hospital with Cheyenne.  She is doing fine and we want to continue to keep them in our prayers.  We will also celebrate the Birthdays and Anniversary that week.

Keep praying for the renovations on the church as I grow impatient God has this all under control, lets trust him to do his part as we do our part.  Ruth is back and the food bank will be open.  She had a great time and has some photos to show us of her trip.  I look forward to seeing you on Sunday and keep praying for those that need our help because God is blessing us every day.  Do something good for somebody this week and remember to confess who you are because you are blessed and truly favored.  We love you

Pastor David

Hello faithful BBT members.  Looks like we made it through the wintry blast this week.  I hope you were all safe and warm inside.  Have no fear Sunday is going to be clear and sunny so there will be no excuse for missing church.

We had a great time last week and I saw God move in our church.  There were relationships that were mended and I am claiming God’s healing power over my left eye.  I can not see out of it yet but I am confident if it is God’s will that I will see out of this eye again HE will make it happen.  As brother Joel explained to us we need to speak these things over ourselves and others and trust God to move through us.

Speaking of having positive thoughts I want every one in the Church to continue to pray for the renovations to the Church.  My prayer is this will be finished by Easter but that is my time table may not be God’s.  We are getting the plans finished up in February and hope to start the work in March.  I am so excited about what we will be able to do with the extra space.

This week sermon is entitled ” A New Message”.  I know a lot of you are saying it is about time.  There is a story I love about a  preacher’s little boy who asked “Daddy, I notice every Sunday morning when you first come out to preach, you sit up on the platform and bow your head. What are you doing?”    The father explained, “I’m asking the Lord to give me a good sermon.”  The little boy said, “Why don’t he?”.  Well hopefully this week God has given me a message to present that will not only be new but good.  The scripture for this week is in Mark 1 ; 21-28.  This is just the beginning of Jesus ministries and, unlike me, he is astounding the congregation on his teachings.  See what these versus show you this week and hopefully you will have something to share with us Sunday.  I want you to look closely at the man with the demons and see what that has to do with you and me. Also ask yourself what was it about that Jesus that attracted people to his teachings.

If anyone has any ideas on what we can do to help our Church reach others with the good news we have for them please let me know.  I am looking forward to seeing you on Sunday and having the chance to worship with you as a family, committed to being everything God wants us to be.  Start by doing good things for the people you meet.  Makes no difference if you know them are not just be kind, caring and loving and you will endear yourself to everyone you meet.

Love you

Pastor David

I was so encouraged to hear Ruth testimony last week.  She means so much to us.  I was glad to hear that she is willing to continue to do what God has for her to do, in fact all of us should always being willing to sacrifice or give of our selves so the Kingdom of God can be advanced.  That is what is so exciting about being a Child of God, their are always opportunities to be part of what God is doing right here on earth.  Our God is so awesome that once we get moving in the Holy Spirit no thing or no one can stop us.  We are truly a force to be reckoned with!

As I said last week we are going to start looking into the ministry of Christ leading up to his Crucifixion, and as we talked about last week, it began in the wilderson with the temptation of Christ.  This week we will be in John 1 35-51.  the title of this message is “Yes something Good can come out of Nazareth!” As we read this scripture and see Phillip comes to Nathanael and tells him he has found the one they have been looking for.  We are going to talk about Nathanael’s response to that and how that applies to us.  I hope you can read the Scripture this week and share with us what God shows you in this scripture.

This week we will be having the Lords Supper as well as having a spaghetti dinner afterwards. We will be celebrating the birthdays and anniversary’s for December and January also. Linda is going to do the Sunday School lesson and Pam is going to share her testimony with us.  I hope you enjoy us sharing with each other our personnel testimony’s and I want to make sure all of you get a chance to share.  If you  see something that you would like to do to help us minister to one another please let me know what it is and lets see if we cant get more people involved daily.

I am looking forward to seeing you on Sunday, invite someone to come along with you and do something good for someone this week.  See you Sunday and may God bless everything you do this week

Love ya

Greetings faithful Friends of BBT.  I home you have a terrific New Year.  My prayer for this year is that we will begin to come together as a Church and we will see great things accomplished in 2009.

Looking back on 2008 it was sad to think about all the friends we lost.  We can also look back and see new friends we have made over the past year.  I hope in 2009 we will appreciate how short life is and appreciate what we have and the friends and family we have to share it with.  Remember every day you wake up God has a new blessing just waiting for you receive and share with others.

This week’s sermon is on New Beginnings.  The Scripture text is found in Gospel of John 1:10-13.  As we reflect back on this past year we are bound to have regrets and would love to do things different but all we can do is go forward and learn from our mistakes.  This is message for this week is not to look back at where we have been or even where we are now but to see the possibilities of where we can go.  We have all been given a gift and we have a responsibility to use that gift.  I hope in 2009 we reach the potential in all of us and as we look back at the end of the year there will be less regrets and more feelings of accomplishments and growth in our life.  I will see you all next year and lets start out this year being more faithful in our church attendance our tithing and our commitment to be what God wants us to be.  Do something good for somebody before the end of the year because you really can change a person life just by being kind to them.  See you in church

Love you.

Pastor David

Thanks again to Pastor David for giving me the opportunity to share with you this Sunday.

This is always a challenging time of year for me.  I’m always relieved when it’s over.  I always feel a lot of pressure to do things that have nothing to do with the real object of Christmas, the celebration of Jesus’ birth.  I’m not particularly interested in the arguments against celebrating Christmas at all.  Yes, the date was adjusted by the Catholic church to coincide with a pagan festival.  Yes, many of the traditions now part of Christmas have pagan roots.  We’ll talk about them a little bit on Sunday, but I’m not convinced that God is much concerned with all of that.  He is concerned with the condition of our hearts.  For most of us, the Christmas tree has no link to the idolatry that brought it to us.  Santa is a different issue.  I suppose no harm is done by playing out the fantasy for children as long as we tell them it’s a fantasy.  The story does have some Christian roots.  However, lying to them that he is real, giving him god like qualities only to have the myth debunked in later years compromises our witness to the real God.  As to timing, His birth was probably several months earlier, but we can’t even agree on the year, much less the day.  Let’s put all that aside and celebrate His birth.

That leads to the question of how.  This is where we’ve gone terribly wrong.  Certainly charitable giving goes up, but even much of that is pointless.  Myriad organizations exist to give toys to poor children on Christmas.  What good is that?  It may make them happy for a while, but it only feeds the self-oriented spirit that should be antithetical to a celebration of the One who gave it all.  The children receive no lasting benefit while we can feel good about ourselves for giving them a Christmas experience.  This is not to say that it cannot be a tool for sharing the Gospel and the love of Jesus or that more practical giving does not occur.  In fact, it’s a better use of our resources then spending them on ourselves and our families, who generally don’t need and sometimes don’t want what they end up getting.

Even among Christians, Christmas celebrations are often more about us than about Him.  He gets a nod.  Some of us might even go to church and a few of those may worship rather than watch a show, but most of us just round up the family and rip into the presents.  I’ve used this analogy before, but I think it’s a good one so I’ll repeat it.  Let’s say it’s your birthday.  It’s amazing how many people are celebrating it.  There are parties all over the world.  There’s just one problem.  You’re not invited to any of them.  In fact, if you showed up at most of them you would not even be welcome.  Everyone buys presents, but none of them are for you.  They are all for each other.
Christmas can be a wonderful time.  There’s nothing inherently evil about most of the things we do.  Enjoy the fun, but don’t forget why the season exists in the first place.  Bring a present for Jesus.  Never was the question so appropriate, “what do you get for someone who already has everything?”  I think I know a few things He would like.  We’ll look at some scriptures to help us really celebrate this year.

•   He really loves new creations.  If you take this wonderful opportunity to share His story with someone who doesn’t know Him yet and that person turns His life over to Jesus, you’ve just Given Jesus the best gift ever.

•   On kind of a related note, He’s really into forgiveness.  Maybe you have friends or family you’re not getting along with.  Maybe this Christmas would be a good time for reconciliation.  He’d really like that.

•   He likes it when you give.  It’s fine to give to those from whom you expect something back, but He’s not real impressed with that.  He likes it better when you give to someone who can’t return the favor.  Read Luke 14.

•   Share the love.  If you know of anyone who won’t have a family this Christmas, invite them into yours.  We know He likes that, because that’s what He did for us.

Those are just a few suggestions, but you get the idea.  I bet you can think of lot’s more good things Jesus would like for His birthday this year.  It thrills me to be in a church where these things are already happening.

Happy birthday, Jesus.