Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Weekend Wrap Up

What a wonderful weekend of witness and worship for BBC! The weekend started off with the Annual non-violence march sponsored by Mamas Against Violence. This is a group of women who have had a child murdered. This ministry is led by, Bobbie Woods, who is a member of our church. They come together for support and violence prevention. Normally this event is lead by the Mayor of our city, but this year they asked the IMA to lead the march. I think it sent out a special message to see the preachers leading a march against violence in our community. I had an opportunity to push the Gun Buy Back as well as speak out publicly against the violence in our community. The IMA has vowed to do something to reduce the violence in this area, and our presence there was felt and appreciated by all in attendance.

After leaving there, I was invited to a cookout/concert in Lasalle Homes. This is a housing development located in our city, which has seen an increase in violence lately. This event was out on by Camp Salvation. This is a young group of gospel rappers, who instead of competing with one another have joined forces to do ministry. One of these artists is Bro. Cory Brazier, who is a member of our church. I had an opportunity to fellowship with people there and met several new acquaintances with whom I look forward o fellowshipping with in the future. Being in Lasalle Homes reminded me of being back home in Gary, so I felt very comfortable. The people there are very nice and warm and they helped out in serving food and everyone enjoyed the music. I also had an opportunity to promote the Gun Buy Back there as well and share my passion about seeing a decrease in violence in our community.

After this great day of work in the community, I could not wait until public worship on Sunday. Our morning started with Early Morning Prayer. The topic of the day was Togetherness. The prayers offered up were passionate and powerful as the people asked God to bring them together and to remove anything from them that caused any separation in the body.

Morning Worship started off high and lifted up! The songs were beautiful and the prayers were fervent. I could not wait for the preaching moment as we began a new series of messages in the Gospel of John. This series is entitled, "You made a believer out of me". In this preaching series, we will look at the miracles in the book of John. I believe that there is a message in the miracle and the signs have significance. The overall scripture for this series is John 20:30-31, which says, " Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. "

The 1st message in this series was from John 2:1-11. The message was entitled "Advice for your Adversity". Here's the basic outline:

1. Acknowledge the problem

2. Adhere to the procedure

3. Advance to praise.

God truly blessed the exposition of this passage! We had run em go get em, pick em up and put em down church, followed by a soul coming back home on restoration. God be praised!! I am pleased to see the people of BBC allowing themselves to be free in worship once again. I believe that God was pleased with our presentation of public worship on this past Lord's Day!

Pray for us as we have a long week of meetings gearing up for our 60th Church Anniversary, our 1st ever Youth Sunday, Gun Buy Back promotions, and Teaching/Preaching prep. Also I am pleased to announce that I will be meeting with Rev Jessie L. Jackson Sr. on today at 3pm EST!!

By the way, if you would like to help us with the Gun Buy Back, visit our website and click on the CURE link. God Bless!!!

3 comments:

Pastor Lance A. Mann said...

Spoon, your work in the community as well as the Bethlehem Church is such that it should be both celebrated and emulated. I look forward to the fruit of all the labor that you have waged in this battle for the Kingdom.

Lance

Ronald said...

Pastor Spoon, you diligence is inspiring and your commitment is evident. May God allow your tribe to increase and your ministry to flourish.

Standing in awe,

Ron

Fitts said...

As usual, great outline Doc. I missed reading your post.

DeAntwan