BPBC / Jones family update 1-30-12

It has been a very busy couple of weeks at Bryant Pond Baptist Church! It is a blessing to be busy in the work of the Lord! As the video below attests to, we had a very fun youth ministry event on Saturday the 21st. We had a good time of games, Bible jeopardy, eating and of course preaching of the Word of God. All in attendance had a very good time. We were very happy with the results, and I believe the Lord was pleased.
That next morning the devil began working. He managed to freeze our well that feeds the church and the parsonage. We had power but no water to either building. This resulted in the difficult decision to cancel services. I worked outside in the -10 degree temperatures to see what could be done about the well, but it was beyond my knowledge. This same morning we also lost heat to half of the parsonage / prophets chamber. The Lord was working at BPBC and the devil was not happy.
Early Monday all the problems were fixed with minimal charges (praise the Lord!) We are very happy that our well pump was fine, as well as our heater. As it turns out we had multiple members that had their water freeze that same morning. I guess that's what -20 at night (not counting the wind chill) will do.
I set in my mind that I wanted to give the devil a black eye for the rest of the week, and the rest of my life. Paula and I had the opportunity to do just that on Monday as we led my 88 year old great aunt to the Lord. She had "the faith" but did not know for sure she was on her way to heaven. She said she was baptized, but when I read her the Bible to show her why we need salvation and what it takes to be saved, she bowed her head and trusted Christ! Hallelujah! The Gospel of Jesus Christ still works!
Tuesday night I had the pleasure of attending my first class of the semester at Heritage Baptist Bible College. "Bible Doctrines 2" covers the doctrine of Jesus Christ and the doctrine of the Holy Ghost. What awesome topics! It is great to see all my classmates.
Saturday we had our first ladies ministry event. My wife was nervous, but from all reports it went very well. Paula has already started working on the next event, Saturday the 25th of Feb.
Sunday services this week were very uplifting. The Lord gave me a hard message on Sunday morning, but it was truly received very well and the Lord helped many a folk. I preached out of Ezekiel 8 and 9, with the key point being in verses 4 and 5 of chapter nine. Would I have the mark or would I have been slain. Tough stuff that causes us to look inward. I was very convicted.
We had a great evening service as well.
We have also been busy visiting many folks in our nursing homes and at their homes. It is great to get to know these precious people.

Sunday night I received an email from the First Baptist Church of Cape May, NJ inviting me to preach there on June 3. They are celebrating their 300th anniversary this year and it just so happens that my great (six times) grandfather, Nathaniel Jenkins, was their first pastor. This is something to look forward to.

I guess that is all for now. Thank you all for your prayers. We love you all!

Bryant Pond Baptist Church youth event 1-21-12

Bryant Pond Baptist Church youth event 1-21-12 a video by PastorMatthewJones on Flickr.

BPBC update!

Praise the Lord things are busy here at Bryant Pond Baptist Church! We are preparing for our first youth activity tomorrow at 4pm. I pray it will be fun for the children. We are doing games, prizes, pizza and preaching.
Next Saturday the 28th is our first ladies ministry event.
We are looking forward to our first "preacher boys club" meeting in Feburary.
We now have weekly bus visitation as well as weekly door-knocking times on our schedule. Add to that nursing home and member visitation and you gots youself a full schedule! It is wonderful to be busy in the business of the Lord!

Mark your calendars as we will be hosting Dr. Ron Caudill, preaching for us April 22-25.
On July 8, we will be hosting Phillip Brown and family. The Browns are church planters to Bozeman, Montana. For more info on the Browns, look at the video at the bottom of this page.

We have had three different people visiting our church from the town of Rumford. God may be providing us with some specific direction for our "next towns" vision.

Prayer requests: please pray for the sale of our house, as well as or 7 x 16 trailer.

Remember, God is good all the time!

1-13-12

It's been a great couple of days for the Jones family! We had a good service on Wednesday night at Bryant Pond Baptist Church. The spirit was sweet and we had great prayer time. I preached on the call of God from Galatians 1:15-16. After two weeks in a row preaching out of Galatians 1:14, we actually made it through two verses.
Yesterday we hunkered down for the snowstorm. The Lord gave great study time and I am "fired" up about preaching Sunday. I will be starting a series on "fire" in the Bible. It has already been a good study.
After I shoveled and snow-blowed, we had some family time. We played some video games together and they discovered their daddy could still impress! yes, these are games where you physically move and the game uses your movements to control the character. Much different than the ole Atari 2600 I had when I was their age.

Today there will be more snow clean up, then a trip to the big city of "Pohtland". Looking forward to what God has in store for us this weekend!

Trailer for sale and other good news!

Well, it has been quite a few days for the Jones family. We had a fantastic weekend at Bryant Pond Baptist Church! We have been praying for our van ministry to become a "vans" ministry or a bus ministry. Well, we were just a couple of people away from a full van. Praise the Lord! This is a great "problem" to have. We had the opportunity to pick up a rider from Rumford. This lady was just saved on Christmas day at the New Heights Baptist Church. What a blessing it is to see her being fed with the Word of God. What a wonderful day Sunday was.
God is sure blessing the Bryant Pond Baptist Church. Wow! It's great to see!

In "other news", God has moved us to close up shop at "Jones Quality Foods". This move will allow us to put our entire focus on the mission at and through Bryant Pond Baptist Church. To be fully "ministry supported" is exciting. I am thrilled to be able to put my full effort into the ministry.

Oh, the trailer.....well, we don't need a trailer any more so it is listed on craigslist and uncle henrys. We have already had some interest on it (on the first day)so if you want it, please act fast (smile).

New to Bryant Pond Baptist starting in January / February:

Scheduled weekly bus visitation.
Scheduled weekly soul winning.
First ladies event.
First youth event.
The "Separate Baptist Preacher Boy's Society".

Also, our first special preaching meeting is tentatively scheduled for April 22-25 with Dr. Ron Caudill preaching for us every night.

How about a camp meeting? There seems to be much interest throughout the state and it would be fun!

Well, that is it for now.

Bryant Pond Baptist Church 2012 Vision

Our vision for 2012? Reaching for the next towns. We need to not be satisfied with evangelizing Bryant Pond, but we need to get into the next towns. Our little town (around 800 people)needs to hear the gospel, of course! The entire Oxford county area is gospel starved and we have the answer!
Here is the vision for 2012:
-weekly soul winning / visitation
-weekly bus visitation
-youth ministry (not youth group, but ministry)beginnings
-preacher boys club (where young men and old alike meet together to learn and then preach to each other, praying for God to call men to the ministry)
-ladies ministry beginnings

Our vision is to put the programs in place for God to bless. We cannot just sit on the side and pray for God to send people, we need to go out and get em!

We are excited for what God will do through Bryant Pond Baptist Church in 2012!

What a great Christmas!

The Lord blessed in our Christmas services at Bryant Pond Baptist! On Friday night we had our candlelight service. Our official attendance was 51, just one person away from the record for a candlelight service. (Since 1856) Praise the Lord! We had our first choir presentation, singing "O Holy Night". I look forward to more choir performances in the coming weeks and months. I then preached from John 8 on "Five Witnesses to the Light". Each and every soul there knows why they must and how they can be saved. It was a special service and we managed to not burn the church down! : ' )
On Christmas morning we had a very strong attendance, and I preached out of 1 Thessalonians 4 on "Comfort on Christmas". We have quite a few families that have had a rough year and are struggling through Christmas. Well, we are told to comfort one another with the thought that "if we believe", Jesus is coming back for us!
Glory! The same God who came in Luke 2 will be coming again in 1 Thessalonians 4! Amen, Hallelujah!
On Sunday we had a young family request information on becoming members. (This was an answered prayer if I have ever seen one!)
We also had the parents of one of our van children come to church together for the first time ever. Praise the Lord!

God is moving in Bryant Pond and I am so excited to see what 2012 is going to bring.