message for 11-9-08

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

I am sorry I am getting this posted so late this week but it has been a hectic week.  The next 2 months are going to be full of exciting things so be sure and check out the information center for a list of upcoming events.

On Monday of this week Joel and Dana had a new Little baby girl.  Both mom and baby are doing good and are at home.  her name is Olivia Grace  and she weighed in at almost 7 pounds.  We cant wait to see the new addition to this family and I will put any pictures I get on this web page.

This week we are going to talk about Jesus lesson on clean hands but dirty hearts.  The scripture vs will be in Matthew 15: 10-20.  One of the things I harp on the most is having our priorities right.  This lesson is going to show you can try to do the right thing but if you go too far you can lose sight of what Jesus really wants us to understand.  It is hard sometimes to know where the line is but there is a line and we must, as Christians, see the line and see what God really is intending for us to do.

We are beginning a new outreach at the church and we need to get the word out that we are here and we have something to offer to people with disabilities and their families.  We are going to meet Saturday with a man from Veterans Disability Commission who is starting a new housing project out in Lancaster and I really believe this would be a good col labration to help us meet some new men and women with disabilities that may be looking for a new church home.  Be praying for us on Saturday as they visit the church that God will show us what we can do to help reach others with the message of Christ.

I am looking forward to seeing you on Sunday and I hope you are looking forward to it as well.  Do something good for somebody this week and remember you have found favor with God!

Love you

Pastor David

MESSAGE FOR 11-2-08

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

I hope all of you enjoyed the experience on Sunday as much as I did.  I know this may be a little different then what we are used to but we need to be receptive to what ever God has for us NOW not just in the future.  God is good and his grace really does flow like a river.  This week’s sermon we are going to continue to look at grace and how we really do have favor with God whether we realize it or not.  The bible verse will be very familiar to you this week it is Matt 5: 38-48.  I hope we will be able to see because we have favor with God we need to pass that grace on to others.  It is a lesson you have been taught before but something we need to hear again.

Also this week Linda Thacker is going to share with us her testimony.  Larry and Linda both have had a terrific influence on us in just the few months they have been part of us and I am so excited to hear her story and how God has worked in her life.  I want to give others a chance to share their testimony as well as that is how we are going to be able to bring other people to the Lord by sharing what he has done for us.  I hope you will make plans to be here on Sunday because you don’t want to miss any opportunity you have to be in God’s House because we never know how many chances we will have to worship together.  As Laurie taught us don’t take things for granite because you will overlook many blessings and much joy if you don’t take time to enjoy even the little things in life.

I hope to see you on Sunday and I am looking forward to worshiping with you.  May God bless you and remember to do something good for somebody this week, it will make your week go much better.

I love you,

Pastor David

Memorial service for Laurie Genola

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

This Monday afternoon a truly nice lady went home to be with the Lord.  Laurie has been a member of Bartimaeus for over 10 years and I consider her one of my best friends.  It is hard to let someone this close to you go but Laurie was “packed and ready to go.”  She had shared with me many times how she had felt like she was getting weaker and felt she had become a burden to the love of her life, her husband Sammy.  Sammy would have done anything for Laurie and I never saw two people more in love.  We can only hope that we can have as much influence on other people as Laurie had on us.

We will have a memorial service for Laurie this Sunday October 19th and we will celebrate the memory of this terrific lady.  If you have anything you would like to say you will have the chance to do that and afterwards we will have the 1st, of what I hope is many,  of the ” Laurie family dinner.”  Laurie loved it when we would have dinners at the church and I would like to propose we have a celebration every year on the week of her birthday Oct 22 that we have a “Laurie family dinner” to celebrate her life.  The church will provide chicken and all the members will bring a side dish or desert and we will remember her the way she would have wanted us to remember her as a Lady who loved to fellowship, loved to talk and read, loved to be around her friends and loved to work at being the best person she could be.  This will truly be a celebration and I hope all of you will be able to be at church on Sunday so we may honor this truly great lady.

Pastor David & family

How You’re Made – Message for Sunday, October 12, 2008

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

First of all I wish to publicly thank Pastor David for giving me the opportunity to share with my new family so soon after joining the church.  I appreciate the trust that conveys, and hope it isn’t diminished by my reminding everyone that only my wife went through seminary.  I did not.  However, she did graciously provide me some of her notes to help me prepare this message.

In Genesis Chapter 1, verses 26-28 tell us that God made us in His image.  What does that mean?  Why is it important?  In what ways are we lie Him, and in what ways are we not?  Does knowing this give us insight into how we should live our lives?  I believe it does, and I want to share it with you.  We will cover a lot of scripture, so I will provide the notes if anyone is interested.

State Fair of Texas

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

I hope you were able to go with us to the Fair this year.  I want to think Dr. Chad Blackwell and his wife Michelle for their generous gift that paid for us to enjoy the Fair again this year.  We had a great time and I appreciate all the hard work of Mike and Cindy, Don Potts and Ruth and Cathy.  I don’t know what I would do without all of your help.

I will be out this week with my Daughter’s wedding and my In-Laws wedding anniversary, and Larry will bring the message this week.  Please be there and support him and this Ministry.

Hope to see you next week!

Pastor David

Tuesday September 30,2008

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

Well we have made it through another month and what a month it was.  We celebrated our 50th Anniversary as a church,  we are making progress on the remolding of the Church, and we have all been blessed to just have been able to enjoy the blessings God has given us.

Last Sunday brother Joel reminded us of how we are to “Experiment with God.” I hope we can all really adapt that to our lives and step out and do what we believe God has for us to do.  So many time we sit around waiting to hear a specific word from God and we have missed out on many opportunities to help someone because we have been afraid to trust what we already know to do.  I encourage you, as well as myself, to reach for new areas to expand our Faith to work hard to bring the Kingdom of God down to this earth so we can make a difference in the people’s lives we touch.  We wont make a difference if there is not something diffrent about us.

This week’s sermon is called ” The Blessing Complex “.  the scripture for this week is Philippians 3: 7-15.  This week has been a very difficult week for our Country.  We are seeing our economy fail all around us and the government is trying to step in and save us from ourselves.  What a mess!  The question is how can we fix it?  Well to begin with we will have to get our priorties in the right place.  In the scripture verses for this week Paul says those things we counted as profit or all worthless compared to knowing Christ Jesus.  We are blessed because God has chosen us, each and every one of us, to pass this blessing along to others.  When we truly understand that our gr eastest assets are not what we have accumulated here on Earth but what we are doing to advance the Kingdom of God, we wont have to worry about depressions and ressicions we will understand how we have been truly blessed.  That is a promise from God.  He has promised in his word  When my People who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and turned from their wicked ways, then will I hear their prayers from heaven and heal their land.  Our Land needs healing, our Lives need healing and our spirit needs healing.  Lets develop a blessing complex so we can praise God and bless others.

The State Fair excursion is quickly approaching so be sure to let me know if you are going.  Don’t let the lack of money keep you from going with us as the church has been given the funds to let every member who wants to go have enough to get in and have plenty to eat for that day.  We will meet at the Church around 8 am and have breakfast and leave from there.  Hope to see you there and I hope to see you in Church on Sunday.  Invite a guest and share a blessing with someone  this week.  We love you!

Pastor David

Tuesday September 23rd 2008

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful weather over the past week.  It really makes it nice to be able to get out and enjoy the beautiful world that God has made.  Lets think about having a Picnic before it gets too cold.

I need to know from you if you are attending the Fair this year with us it will be Wednesday October 8. We will meet at the church and go from there.  We always have a good time and come home wore out but it is a good kind of tired.

This week Summitt Church will be at Church and Brother Joel wants me to remind you to bring your bibles along with pen and paper.  The title of his message is ” Experimenting with God “.  He will be in 1 Samuel and 1 Kings.  He says this is fresh word that we need to hear so be there so you can be blessed.

I visited Laurie again today and she is not improving, be sure and continue to keep her in your prayers every day.  I hope you will go to the Prayer request section on this website everyday and Pray for those we have listed and if you have a new prayer request let me know and we will get it posted.

I hope you have a great week and I will see you on Sunday when we meet to experience what God has for us.  Keep up the good work, do something good for somebody this week and remember Gods loves you and so do I.

Pastor David

September 9th 2008

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

Well it is here!  The 50th Anniversary of Bartimaeus Baptist Temple.  I hope each and everyone of you are as excited about this as I am.  I can hardly believe how blessed we are and how many good friends we have had over the years, that have helped us achieve this Anniversary.  God has really showed his Power and his Mercy to a small group of people who just want to be involved in God’s business.  You inspired my Father and Mother through the years and now you are the inspiration to me and my family.  I hope you feel like you are a part of this Church weather you are able to be in service every week or you just pray for the People of this Church.  We have many people who send a tithe check to this Church who attend other Churches just because God has laid this ministry on your heart and for that we are truly grateful.  I want everyone who has been a part of this ministry to be proud of what God has done and will continue to do through this Church.

Jay Gibson called me Sunday night and he has made arrangements to be able to be here this Sunday and we are looking forward to seeing him and his family as he brings the message on Sunday morning.  What a blessing he and his family have been to this ministry.  I know how mush the Trustees of this Church meant to my parents and my parents would be very proud to see how they continue to support this ministry.

I hope to see a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new faces this Sunday as we prepare to celebrate this “Homecoming”. Remember we will start at around 9:30 on Sunday morning and we will have dinner afterwards and we want to see this Church filled to the brim with people who have been a part or want to become a part of this wonderful ministry.  Matt 10: 40-42:  “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent me.  He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward.  And he who receives a righteous man in the name of of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.  And whoever gives one of these little ones a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.”  Let’s receive what Jesus has for us this week.  Lets help those who need our help and lets celebrate on Sunday the 50th Anniversary of Bartimeaus Baptist Temple.  I and my family love you all very much and we hope to see you on Sunday

Pastor David

September 03, 2008

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

Greetins to all I hope you have had a great Labor Day Holiday and a great week.

I have some good news on Laurie,  We have not heard back on the EEG yet but the nurses say she is moving her arms and hands and has opened her eyes.  Lets pray that God will continue to heal her.  I will let you know as soon as I know more.

This weeks sermon is about Building Relationships. The scripture for this week is Matthew 18: 15-25.  It has gotten so hard to build close relationships nowadays as we all tend to wear our feelings on our sleeves.  We have a hard time trusting people and we seem to think everyone is out to get us,  and that is a shame.  Building and keeping relationships is something we as Christians need to be able to do.  It requires have a forgiving spirit and trusting God to help us give and receive criticism.

When our relationship fail it is hard for us a Christians to not feel like we have failed.  My family and especially my daughter Kim is going through this right now.  As we will learn in our lesson this week, sometime relationship have to be broken in order to go in the direction God is calling us.  Not every relationship can be healed or even should be healed.  This is where we have to trust God to help us overcome our feeling of failure and help us not to be afraid to start new relationships.  We are not perfect and the people around us are not perfect but God is.  We have to be able to change the things in our lives that need changing and we have to be willing to help others change as well.  That is what Jesus wants us to understand from the scriptures this week.

I hope to see you at church on Sunday and I hope you will have a testimony as to how you have done something good for someone this week and have began the start of a new relationship.  I and my family love you all!

Pastor David

August 27th 2008

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

Greetings members of Bartimaeus Baptist Temple.  As I am writing this today my heart is very heavy over the recent turn of events in our sister Laurie Genola.  Yesterday she was preparing to move to a rehab center when she was found not breathing.  She has been placed in ICU on the 7th floor at St Paul Hospital and she is unable to breathe without a respirator.  I know everyone in the church is praying for her and we are claiming a miracle for her to pull through this situation.  I will keep you posted on any turn of events.

This week we will be in Matt 16: 21-25

The question is who side are you on.  Are we stumbling blocks or do have in mind the things of Jesus. We will see that it takes lots of faith to follow Jesus but God gives us lots of Faith if we will just use it.

I was really blessed last week with the Praise and Worship of Summitt Church and the word given to us by Joel.  I saw you as a Church minister to each other and I know that the only way we will be able to accomplish the things God has for us is to do it as a body.  Keep asking God to show you where you can minister and then go where he sends you.  Start by inviting someone to come to church with you Sunday and do a good deed this week because we need to show others what we believe.  Remember to keep Laurie in your prayers over the next few days.  See you on Sunday!!!!

Brother David