Hidden blessings!

Sunday February 23, 2014 at Bryant Pond Baptist Church, we did not set any kind of attendance records. In fact, we were below our 2013 average attendance. We did not have record offerings.on Sunday. We did not have to take out the van and the bus like we do most Sundays. We didn't have enough children that we were picking up. So...I'm complaining....right? Actually, Sunday was a powerful day for me and I wanted to share some of these blessings with everybody! In Sunday School we announced our next youth service (March 9 at 6pm). Already we have music acts and two young men preaching! This is a huge blessing! They are picking a verse or verses and speaking on them, what they mean. This is exciting! We have children that play the clarinet, the trumpet, the flute (two of them), the piano.... In the morning service we had a visit from a member who has been "on the books" since 1942! Wow! (by the way, her health does not allow her regular attendance) In the morning service we had a couple of ladies visit...they came in after the music had started so I didn't have a chance to introduce myself before the service. I noticed one of the ladies was paying close attention but the other was not....after the service I worked my way to them and found out they are Bulgarian. One lady did not speak a word of English. Her daughter did, and is a member of a Baptist church in Mass. She complemented us on our website and having our sermons online. In the evening service we had special guests the Tignor family, missionaries to Equador. It was great to finally meet this family, and they are a great bunch! Brother Chris preached a great message and the service was wonderful! I was very pleased at how generous our church was with them. It warms my heart to serve with such missions-minded folks! The best part of the day was a girl named Lexi. She has been attending semi-regularly for a number of weeks now. She has had some questions about salvation for a time, but every time we were going to sit down, something else got in the way. Yesterday before the am service I walked up to her and asked her if she had gotten saved yet. She hadn't. We talked and she was ready to ask God to save her soul. She bowed her head and prayed. When she said amen she had a smile from ear to ear! She was so excited! It was so awesome to see! Our experience this Sunday goes to show, it is not always about the numbers, nor about the offerings, but it is about God moving and watching Him change lives! Are you down about numbers? Maybe you just need to look a little deeper. God is good and He will never let us down!

Thoughts on "Duck Dynasty" drama...

Social media is crammed with stories and posts about the Duck Dynasty controversy. Many of my brothers and sisters in the faith are very upset with the A & E network for their suspension of Phil Robertson. Robertson was suspended from the show (basically fired) for expressing his opinion of sodomy in GQ magazine. I fully agree that Robertson has the right to express his belief in the Word of God and what it says of the sin of sodomy. I also understand that is A&E's right to suspend Robertson. It is also every person's right to protest that suspension. In all of this I have seen many well-meaning Christians attempt to lay the ills of the country at the feet of the crowd that is calling for the suspension. There is no doubt that this "tolerance" crowd is completely intolerant of any disagreement with their beliefs. However, the fact that Robertson was suspended points to a bigger issue than liberal bias. The true issues of this country lay completely at the feet of the churches of America. All of the anger towards A&E should really be anger with ourselves. If we had invested the time we spent watching Duck Dynasty into walking down our streets and witnessing to our neighbors, there would be more "like minded" people all across the country. I am not saying that it is a sin to watch this show, but are we putting first things first? Are we getting angry and writing emails of protest? That is fine. Are you knocking on doors and preaching on the streets? If not why not? Unfortunately many are willing to speak up to protest the ill treatment of their favorite tv star, but not willing to speak up to tell a lost soul about the fact that Jesus Christ can save you from your sins. This message is so much more important than any tv show. We all understand the absolutely deplorable condition of this world. What are we going to do about it? Write letters of protest or go and tell some lost sinner about Jesus? One more note here....please understand that the Robertson family does not believe in salvation by grace through faith. They believe that baptism is a part of salvation. This doctrine (called baptismal regeneration) is heresy and it is a perversion of the grace of God. You must fully trust in the shed blood of Christ for your salvation, plus nothing, minus nothing. I am glad that they are using their platform to preach, but let's not direct people to a message that will damn them.

Awesome new piano book for beginners!

I love good, Godly hymns! I have long had a desire to be able to play some hymns on the piano, but lack the time and money for piano lessons. I heard of Pastor Steven L Anderson's new course and I am giving it a try. Within minutes of receiving the book I was playing "Nothing But The Blood" on the piano. I was also playing "Am I A Soldier of the Cross" in just a short time. By the way, did I mention that I do not know how to read music? If you are interested, here is the link for his blog.

God's Ways...

I am sitting here this beautiful evening thinking about the ways of our God. We serve an amazing God! I have recently watched as God has been stirring our little church and our little community for His glory. We have had powerful services and it is good to see more young people and visitors almost every Sunday service. I have seen God answer prayer after prayer in stunning ways. He is so good. Just today we had a tremendous need met in an unexpected way. Amen! God sure knows what we need and when we need it. This afternoon I heard of the passing of Jeff Sprague. Jeff and his wife Denise are old friends who I met in my Walmart days back in 1998. Over the last couple of years I have become reacquainted with them. Over the last 18 months, Jeff has been fighting cancer with the wonderful care and help of his wife. His battle ended today as he entered the gates of heaven. He leaves behind his wife and five children. My heart hurts for the family, though I have already seen such great resolve and inner strength exhibited by Denise and the children. (she has posted some of the reaction). How wonderful it is to know that all those that are saved will one day see each other again. Oh yeah, I was thinking about God's ways and God's thoughts.... Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Sometimes we just don't understand why certain things happen. We may even be crass enough to think that we know better than God, but the truth is, God has everything under control. Praise the Lord that He knows what is best. We can trust the Lord fully. Please pray for the Sprague family as they adjust adjust to life without Jeff. It is a blessing that they know that they will see him again one day. What a legacy that Jeff has left behind. A saved wife and five saved children. Amen.

Sorry for the long delay....

OK, so it has been quite some time since I have posted anything on my blog. I promise that I will be more faithful in the future. It has been really busy lately. Our big news is that we have recently purchased a bus. This was a move that the Lord had in our heart since I first came to Bryant Pond. Our van ministry would one day become a bus ministry. God has truly blessed us and we are truly grateful to Him! Yesterday was our first Sunday in our new bus and we had a total of 21 on the bus (including workers). God allowed us to exceed our van capacity in the very first week on the bus. What a blessing! In related news, I am getting nearer to having my bus license for myself. I am training to be a substitute bus driver in my local public school district. To have the chance to influence the children during the week (as limited as my time with them would be) is wonderful. (plus, having a couple of extra dollars around is always good....after all we have one that will be going to college in just three years). Church services have been going very well. The Lord is working in hearts and we give Him the glory! We recently hosted a Valentines banquet which the children served the parents. What a wonderful night was had by everybody. The next day we celebrated "Heritage Sunday" and had 50 out in the snow in our morning service. We broke out the old time outfits and had ourselves a time! We were celebrating 185 years of heritage from the founding of the Woodstock and Gore Baptist Church, and the Woodstock and Greenwood Baptist Church (Feb 14 and 15, 1828). These two churches joined together to form the Bryant's Pond Baptist Church on April 26, 1856. What a blessing! Please pray for us as we go forward. We are having to move more chairs and a bigger table in one of the Sunday School rooms to accommodate the extra students. That is a huge blessing. We need more laborers. We need one more Sunday School teacher (a man for the adult males). Please pray with us that God would provide us more laborers for the harvest up here in the foothills of Western Maine.

Busy in the Lord!

It has been a very long time since I have updated my blog. Thank you to everybody who has hung tight with us despite the long layoff between posts. Things have been busy here at Bryant Pond Baptist Church. The Lord has given us good services over the last two months and we are thankful for that. In October we conducted "operation saturation" and were able to distribute door-hangar bags with John/Romans, Bible tracts and invitations for our church. We successfully canvassed all of Bryant Pond. We are trusting the Lord that He will use this in His time. At the end of October we hosted missionary Larry Strout. We have been supporting his ministry in Argentina for decades. Yes, you read that right, decades. He and his wife Melissa have been on the mission field since 1974. Their ministry is preaching the gospel, church planting and training up local pastors for those churches. Brother Strout is often asked when he will be retiring. His answer, "Well, we have another church we need to plant in...." what a great answer! He is not looking at retiring it, he is looking at re-firing it! This month we have been very busy doing some work projects at the church. We are now finished with our foyer and it came out very good. We are now praying about putting everything in order to begin the big work on the church building. Please continue to pray for us about these decisions. This work will literally cost tens of thousands into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for our church. It all starts with a good foundation. (kind of applicable to life...huh?) We are looking forward to hosting the December Plant and Root Maine rally meeting on the 11th at 7pm. We hope to see you there. Well, that is it for now. Remember, if there is ever anything we can do for you, please contact us at www.bryantpondbaptist.org God bless!

Oxford Fair and beyond!

Praise God for the great summer He has given us! Last week we had the opportunity to work the Fishers of Men, International booth at the Oxford county fair. What a great week! We passed out @2,000 to 2,500 tracts during the four days. We had opportunities to witness to dozens and dozens of people with many re-committing and seven precious souls trusting Christ as their Saviour! What a blessing! Special thanks to Brother Steve Elliot who set up the tent, trained the workers and staffed the tent every evening. Thanks also to the following who helped staff the tent: Paul Bragg - Bryant Pond Baptist Church Fred and Ledena Seger - Bryant Pond Baptist Church Marybeth Hoover - Bryant Pond Baptist Church Paula Jones - Bryant Pond Baptist Church Pastor Gary Wilkins - Standish Baptist Church Pastor Witham - Liberty Baptist Church, Poland Pastor Carl and Alice Morrison - New Heights Baptist Church, Bridgton Thank you to all who prayed for us this week. Now...I can't wait till next year!