THIS MORNING'S UPDATE FROM MY PASTOR ON OUR WALK-THRU DRAMA: THE HAUNTING TRUTH:
Good Morning to all you AWESOME people. Just a quick update. Last night was once again just amazing. 181 more folks (mainly adults) came through. 18 more gave their hearts to Jesus and 36 made recommitments. WOW!!!! God is so good. That brings our running totals to 481 who have been through, 62 who have given their lives to Christ and 76 have made recommitments.
I wish 15% of people who come to church on Sundays gave their lives to Christ!!! What an amazing impact this is having on our community. Way to go team. You are building the Kingdom!!!
See ya tonight as God continues to show out on our behalf. He always blesses FAITHFULNESS!!!
Pastor Greg Davis
Lead Pastor
Chelsea Community Church
http://www.chelseacc.com/
205-678-9565
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Color, Color Everywhere
It's raining color outside my window. Red, yellow, brown, orange.... The fall colors are just gorgeous! The space outside my window where the computer sits is filled with colorful trees, some reflecting in the water below, and specs of gray/blue sky showing through the leaves. The bright sunshine highlights it all.
The Lord created a beautiful world for us to enjoy. Wherever you are, I hope you are enjoying His creation this morning as much as I am.
How can I ever get any work done while sitting here?
Monday, October 26, 2009
"The Haunting Truth."
Wow, what a powerful walk-through drama!
It's being presented by my congregtation October 28-31. But the congregation (members who are not in the cast) got a sneak preview last night.
Audience members register, get a name tag and a group number in the gym, where the concession and "holding" area are also located. A new group is called up every 15 minutes. A walk-through lasts around 45 minutes.
Scenes are set up in several rooms, spaced out from one end of the church and preschool facilities to the other, upstairs and down. Although I have worked in church drama (I'm not working in this one) for over forty years, I have never been more impressed with a performance by amateurs. It's as though they are really experiencing what they are doing and what is happening in the scenes. And watching, it's easy to forget that this is only make-believe.
"The Haunting Truth" is about two teenage girls and their families, and the consequences of their decisions. Hundreds of people are expected for this week's productions. And many lives are expected to be changed.
I pray, God, this is so.
Wow, what a powerful walk-through drama!
It's being presented by my congregtation October 28-31. But the congregation (members who are not in the cast) got a sneak preview last night.
Audience members register, get a name tag and a group number in the gym, where the concession and "holding" area are also located. A new group is called up every 15 minutes. A walk-through lasts around 45 minutes.
Scenes are set up in several rooms, spaced out from one end of the church and preschool facilities to the other, upstairs and down. Although I have worked in church drama (I'm not working in this one) for over forty years, I have never been more impressed with a performance by amateurs. It's as though they are really experiencing what they are doing and what is happening in the scenes. And watching, it's easy to forget that this is only make-believe.
"The Haunting Truth" is about two teenage girls and their families, and the consequences of their decisions. Hundreds of people are expected for this week's productions. And many lives are expected to be changed.
I pray, God, this is so.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Seeing Clearly
A recent experience has helped me to better understand what the Apostle Paul meant when he told the Corinthians that now we see God "through a glass darkly," but that someday we'll be able to see Him clearly.
It's sort of like having cateracts, then having eye surgery.
For several years my eyesight had been getting fuzzier and fuzzier. Then, on Monday I had cateract surgery on my right eye. I can already see better, and can hardly wait to get the left eye done in two weeks.
I was surprised to learn, though, that I'm now walking around with a little sheet of plastic in my eye.
I'd always thought that a cataract was a growth in the eye. But it's a cloudy, or yellowed, lens! No wonder I was always cleaning my glasses and wondering why there continued to be a film over them. It wasn't the lens in my glasses that were dirty, but the lens in my eyes. So, the surgeon removed the dirty, foggy, natural lens in my right eye and replaced it with a clear plastic one.
It's wonderful to know that someday God will replace my foggy spiritual lens with clean, clear spiritual "lens" so I can see Him clearly. So I can know Him even as He knows me. (I Corinthians 13:12)
It's sort of like having cateracts, then having eye surgery.
For several years my eyesight had been getting fuzzier and fuzzier. Then, on Monday I had cateract surgery on my right eye. I can already see better, and can hardly wait to get the left eye done in two weeks.
I was surprised to learn, though, that I'm now walking around with a little sheet of plastic in my eye.
I'd always thought that a cataract was a growth in the eye. But it's a cloudy, or yellowed, lens! No wonder I was always cleaning my glasses and wondering why there continued to be a film over them. It wasn't the lens in my glasses that were dirty, but the lens in my eyes. So, the surgeon removed the dirty, foggy, natural lens in my right eye and replaced it with a clear plastic one.
It's wonderful to know that someday God will replace my foggy spiritual lens with clean, clear spiritual "lens" so I can see Him clearly. So I can know Him even as He knows me. (I Corinthians 13:12)
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
GOD HAS WORKED! AND IS STILL WORKING.
Six months ago we were having around forty people in Sunday morning services at our church, and financial problems were plaguing us. Now we have between 180 and 218 on Sundays and 100 sometimes for Wednesday evening supper and classes. At least 40 people have accepted Christ through our services and close to that many have been baptized. And we are no longer having financial problems.
Would you call that God at work? I do.
The K-Springs Church, first called the East Saginaw Church of God, was established 107 years ago in East Saginaw, a little logging town located around two or three miles southwest of our present facilities. At first the people met in homes to hold services. Then in 1911, a family donated land for a church building.
Traveling evangelists and singers came often, some from national church headquarters in Indiana, to help with the church. They traveled by horse and buggy or on a log train from Saginaw or Bessemer. Some even rode into town on railroad handcars, where they stood and pumped a hand lever, propelling themselves manually down the tracks. Or on small, work cars where they sat on the back of the car and pushed themselves along with their feet.
The church people came by foot, on horseback or in wagons. They forded swollen streams or walked across on foot logs.
These were still the main modes of travel when the congregation moved to the old K-Springs School House after the logging operation moved out of the area and people followed their jobs.
After a few years, around 1936, the congregation tore down the old school building and erected a little, white church building (This building still stands across the road from our newer, modern facilities, and is in use by another congregation). Pews and altar rail for the little building were built by men of the church.
The congregation later built a basement by digging and drawing out the dirt with a mule and a slipscrape. They also added a wood-burning furnace, where warm air rose up into the sanctuary through a hole in the floor. They baptized in creeks and lakes.
The church moved across the road into a new brick building in 1978. Several years later, they added another wing.
Almost every adult you talk to who grew up in this community, attended, K-Springs church at one time or another, if not as a regular member of the congregation, at least for a funeral, wedding, drama, Vacation Bible School or youth activity. Numerous ministers and dedicated lay leaders grew up in this church. And it has been a lighthouse to many others.
The church has had many faithful pastors through the years. Oftentimes, in the early days, when there was not enough money to pay a pastor with money, he was paid with chickens, eggs or vegetables from community gardens. One pastor, too ill with cancer to stand in the pulpit, sat on a stool to preach. Still later, he spoke to the congregation from his sick bed via a special telephone hookup.
Many people of the congregation and many faithful pastors have sacrificed and worked hard to keep a ministry going at K-Springs. A few years ago, when it looked as though we would have to sell the property or lose it, part of the congregation was anxious to sell. Others could not see giving it up --if there was a way to save it. We didn’t feel that God wanted us to give up and sell these wonderful facilities for ministry, which so many had worked and sacrificed to save.
And, so, we hung on, trusting God and doing everything we could to make, at the least, mortgage interest payments when they came due. People from out-of-town but with long-time ties to the church, stepped in with large donations. But even this was not enough for very long.
Then, early this year, God brought this 107 year old congregations into fellowship with a congregation who had been in existence for a little less than a year. They needed more space; we needed more people. So, in March the K-Springs Church of God merged with Chelsea Community Church and changed its name again.
Over 200 people gathered for our first joint meeting. 268 came for worship on Easter. Average Sunday morning attendance is now between 180 and 220. At least 40 people have accepted Christ through the services and around that same number have been baptized. We no longer have financial woes.
We have found that no matter what name we go by, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are all part of the same family -- God’s family. We share not only these facilities, but the work of the ministry, a loving pastor, who -- under God‘s leadership -- began Chelsea Community Church.
And we now share the history and heritage of the little group of Believers who first began meeting at old East Saginaw, and who, worked so hard to get -- and keep -- a ministry going at K-Springs.
Today, the people are working together to increase the Kingdom of God in this community and beyond.
Would you call that God at work? I do.
The K-Springs Church, first called the East Saginaw Church of God, was established 107 years ago in East Saginaw, a little logging town located around two or three miles southwest of our present facilities. At first the people met in homes to hold services. Then in 1911, a family donated land for a church building.
Traveling evangelists and singers came often, some from national church headquarters in Indiana, to help with the church. They traveled by horse and buggy or on a log train from Saginaw or Bessemer. Some even rode into town on railroad handcars, where they stood and pumped a hand lever, propelling themselves manually down the tracks. Or on small, work cars where they sat on the back of the car and pushed themselves along with their feet.
The church people came by foot, on horseback or in wagons. They forded swollen streams or walked across on foot logs.
These were still the main modes of travel when the congregation moved to the old K-Springs School House after the logging operation moved out of the area and people followed their jobs.
After a few years, around 1936, the congregation tore down the old school building and erected a little, white church building (This building still stands across the road from our newer, modern facilities, and is in use by another congregation). Pews and altar rail for the little building were built by men of the church.
The congregation later built a basement by digging and drawing out the dirt with a mule and a slipscrape. They also added a wood-burning furnace, where warm air rose up into the sanctuary through a hole in the floor. They baptized in creeks and lakes.
The church moved across the road into a new brick building in 1978. Several years later, they added another wing.
Almost every adult you talk to who grew up in this community, attended, K-Springs church at one time or another, if not as a regular member of the congregation, at least for a funeral, wedding, drama, Vacation Bible School or youth activity. Numerous ministers and dedicated lay leaders grew up in this church. And it has been a lighthouse to many others.
The church has had many faithful pastors through the years. Oftentimes, in the early days, when there was not enough money to pay a pastor with money, he was paid with chickens, eggs or vegetables from community gardens. One pastor, too ill with cancer to stand in the pulpit, sat on a stool to preach. Still later, he spoke to the congregation from his sick bed via a special telephone hookup.
Many people of the congregation and many faithful pastors have sacrificed and worked hard to keep a ministry going at K-Springs. A few years ago, when it looked as though we would have to sell the property or lose it, part of the congregation was anxious to sell. Others could not see giving it up --if there was a way to save it. We didn’t feel that God wanted us to give up and sell these wonderful facilities for ministry, which so many had worked and sacrificed to save.
And, so, we hung on, trusting God and doing everything we could to make, at the least, mortgage interest payments when they came due. People from out-of-town but with long-time ties to the church, stepped in with large donations. But even this was not enough for very long.
Then, early this year, God brought this 107 year old congregations into fellowship with a congregation who had been in existence for a little less than a year. They needed more space; we needed more people. So, in March the K-Springs Church of God merged with Chelsea Community Church and changed its name again.
Over 200 people gathered for our first joint meeting. 268 came for worship on Easter. Average Sunday morning attendance is now between 180 and 220. At least 40 people have accepted Christ through the services and around that same number have been baptized. We no longer have financial woes.
We have found that no matter what name we go by, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are all part of the same family -- God’s family. We share not only these facilities, but the work of the ministry, a loving pastor, who -- under God‘s leadership -- began Chelsea Community Church.
And we now share the history and heritage of the little group of Believers who first began meeting at old East Saginaw, and who, worked so hard to get -- and keep -- a ministry going at K-Springs.
Today, the people are working together to increase the Kingdom of God in this community and beyond.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
New Life, New Pastor, New Writing Possiblities
Hopefully, Ken and I will be going to south Alabama the first of the week -- if my bronchitis clears up enough by then -- to check out an area that my agent wants me to use as setting for a novel. She now has two of my novel manuscripts which she's trying to place with publishers. One is a contemporary set in central Alabama where we live, and the other is historical set partially in this area and partially in South Carolina. I'm looking forward to exploring the possibilities in this new area of our state, and writing the proposal for the book. Then I have to finish the proposal for a nonfiction about living with chronic illness.
I'm also working on a couple of articles with my new pastor, and trying to place an article on the work of our local pregnancy resource center and a young woman who works there.
These little problems with lupus, or things related to the disease, keep popping up to slow me down. But evidently God is not through with me yet, or He would not keep giving me all these writing assignments, or all these people in my life to love. I say God because I feel that it is He who called me into this work and this ministry and who gives me the ability to do them. And it is He who gives me my wonderful family. A new great-grandson is due next week.
I'm also working on a couple of articles with my new pastor, and trying to place an article on the work of our local pregnancy resource center and a young woman who works there.
These little problems with lupus, or things related to the disease, keep popping up to slow me down. But evidently God is not through with me yet, or He would not keep giving me all these writing assignments, or all these people in my life to love. I say God because I feel that it is He who called me into this work and this ministry and who gives me the ability to do them. And it is He who gives me my wonderful family. A new great-grandson is due next week.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
The Lord is Working
If anyone has checked on my posts lately, they probably think that the Lord has been a very long time working on the situation I talked about in the last post, since it was dated August 5, 2007 and titled "Waiting for the Lord to work."
He hasn't been a long time working, though. He actually began working very quickly - had already started working on the situation even before I posted the last time. Someone who lived in our community and attended our church several years ago, saw one of the evening news stories about the church property being put up for sale, left the t.v. to sit in the bathroom and cry for thirty minutes, then got up and made a call that put the ball to rolling. The person they called, called someone else, and this person talked with their spouse who made a call to a church leader the next morning offering a large sum of money to help pay off the building loan so the church could continue to operate at its present location.
Since that time, our pastor has resigned to begin a different type ministry in another area, taking a core group from the congregation with him. The congregation is now regrouping and continuing to minister in the community where it has been ministering for over a hundred years. The congregation is small for the time being, but we still have a group of people, youth and adults who are excited about our potential for growth and ministry to a mushrooming community. Our "new" children's program has fewer children than a few months ago, but the ones who are still here are excited about it -- and about their new teachers.
We are not yet seeking a new pastor while trying to get reorganized and get some new Boards and Committees in place. But we have been having some very good speakers from a nearby Bible college, from some of our other churches in the state, and now some ordained ministers from our own congregation are on the schedule for this month. We do need some singers and muscians, though. A talented young lady is leading the music, but she needs some help with it.
But we can see evidence all around us of ways the Lord has been working and ways that He still is. Exciting things are happening. And as I ended the last post (and told the reporter): "We don't know what the Lord might decide to do" NEXT. For, as the Bible tells us, His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)
He hasn't been a long time working, though. He actually began working very quickly - had already started working on the situation even before I posted the last time. Someone who lived in our community and attended our church several years ago, saw one of the evening news stories about the church property being put up for sale, left the t.v. to sit in the bathroom and cry for thirty minutes, then got up and made a call that put the ball to rolling. The person they called, called someone else, and this person talked with their spouse who made a call to a church leader the next morning offering a large sum of money to help pay off the building loan so the church could continue to operate at its present location.
Since that time, our pastor has resigned to begin a different type ministry in another area, taking a core group from the congregation with him. The congregation is now regrouping and continuing to minister in the community where it has been ministering for over a hundred years. The congregation is small for the time being, but we still have a group of people, youth and adults who are excited about our potential for growth and ministry to a mushrooming community. Our "new" children's program has fewer children than a few months ago, but the ones who are still here are excited about it -- and about their new teachers.
We are not yet seeking a new pastor while trying to get reorganized and get some new Boards and Committees in place. But we have been having some very good speakers from a nearby Bible college, from some of our other churches in the state, and now some ordained ministers from our own congregation are on the schedule for this month. We do need some singers and muscians, though. A talented young lady is leading the music, but she needs some help with it.
But we can see evidence all around us of ways the Lord has been working and ways that He still is. Exciting things are happening. And as I ended the last post (and told the reporter): "We don't know what the Lord might decide to do" NEXT. For, as the Bible tells us, His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)
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