May 2018

Our Vision:

Building Christian lives on a firm foundation. Our Mission:

Grow in Jesus Christ ~ Encourage the Discouraged Magnify the Lord ~ Seek the Lost

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Bishop Bytes 2

Church Calendar 3

Birthdays & Anniversaries 3

S.A.M. Group 4

Women’s Ministry 6

Youth Update 5

Missions News 7

Inside this issue:

VOLUME XXXI I I , ISSUE 5

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

The plans are complete for our annual Appreciation Banquet and Program for all Sun-day School Teachers, Sunday night Youth Workers and the Pastoral Team. There will be a presentation by Sharon Dillman appearing as Betsy Ross. The Fellowship Team will be preparing the meal. It will be May 19, 2018, at 5:30pm. Each person involved will receive an invitation on Sunday, May 6, 2018, with all of the details.

See you in Sunday School,

Connie and Jo Ella Maugans

MEN’S MINISTRY BREAKFAST

The monthly Men’s Ministry Breakfast will meet Saturday, May 5, at 8:00am.

EASTER SUNDAY 30 PIECES OF SILVER COLLECTION

Easter Sunday, MSCC took up the yearly 30 Pieces of Silver offering, and collected $700. This year the offering will benefit the Women’s Open Arms Shelter. The face of homelessness in America is changing. Instead of the stereotypical disheveled middle-aged man with a bottle in a bag, the typical homeless person today may be a young woman with a baby in her arms and a toddler at her side. Kokomo Res-cue Mission ministers to these women and children through the Open Arms Women’s Shelter. For more information about Open Arms, visit their website: https://kokomorescuemission.org/programs

OFFICE CLOSED

The church office will be closed Monday, May 28, in observance of Memorial Day. Regular office hours will resume Tuesday, May 29.

BISHOP BYTES

Page 2 VOLUME XXXI I I , ISSUE 5

Some of you have experienced the terrifying panic that comes with the exhilarating joy of launching your children into the world. As par-ents, you might find yourself reminiscing the days gone by when you held them in your arms, kissed their bruises when they hurt, in-stalled their training wheels only to take them off the next week, walked them to the bus and watched them drive off to their first dance. As you smile on the inside, you start to question, “Where has the time gone?” Then you might start thinking about all of the unanswerable questions of, “What if?”

This past month, Sophia and I helped Linsey move into her first apartment. There has been a lot of reminiscing and day-dreaming about our life with her. There has also been a lot of questions floating through our minds and our conversations with each other that dealt with those pesky “what if” scenarios. “What if we haven’t done all that God wanted us to do with her?” “What if she falls?” “What if, what if, WHAT IF?”

There are so many “what if” scenarios, that it is impossible to prepare them, let alone yourself, for all of them. It is here, in a moment of panic, that we must let our faith and trust in Him guide our thoughts and actions. After all, our children are blessings from God that have been on loan to us from Him. Our responsibility is to teach them as much as we can about Him before re-leasing them back to Him.

The writer of Hebrews reminds us that, “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). As a par-ent, I hope to have honored God with the blessing He gave me in my children. I hope to

watch them continue growing in their personal relationship with Him. My hope is that they know where they can turn when I am no long-er there to help them up. What I am certain of is that God is and always will be there every time they call His name. What I am certain of is that God will hold them as their Father, as long as they let Him. I am certain that they are being released back into His loving hands and that as they seek Him, He will continue to guide them through their every journey.

So, thank you Lord for the privilege and honor that comes with being the care-takers of your children. Thank you for allowing us to share in those beautiful and scary moments of their lives. But most of all, thank you for freeing us from the need to worry about those “what if” scenarios. Thank you, Lord, for entrusting us to release them back to you. May they honor you.

1 2

3

Ladies Aid 12:30pm

Ladies Bible Study 6:30pm

4 5

Men’s Ministry Breakfast 8am

6

AKA 5pm

TF3 6:30pm

7 8

Prime Time Dinner 5:30pm

9

Bus Ministry

9:30am

CIA 6:30pm

10

Ladies Bible Study 6:30pm

11

Williams Patch Pre-K Reunion @ Russiaville Friends Church 3:30-6:30pm

12

13 Mother’s Day

No AKA or TF3

14

Board Meeting

6:30pm

15 16

CIA 6:30pm

17 18

TF3 Moving Outing

19

Teacher Appreciation Banquet 5:30pm

20

AKA 5pm

TF3 6:30pm

21 22

SAM Table Games Night 6pm

23

CIA 6:30pm

24 25 26

27 28 Memorial Day

OFFICE CLOSED

29 30 31

1 Tyler & Jessica Sceggell 20 Alex Burk

2 Dan Powell Mandy Oakes

Lucas Sceggell 21 Cassius & Linda Mansfield

Tom & May Etherington 22 Stephen McKibben

4 Carrie Mills Lily Williams

5 Abigail Bishop 23 Alan Anderson

Jack Hyman Max Bell Julie Watkins Patty Chaffee

6 Alan T. Anderson Terry Powell 9 Deb Davis 24 Betty Bennett 10 Connie Maugans Ian Mouser Tom & Patty Chaffee 25 Charlie Mills

13 Chris Carter 29 Ryan Watkins

16 Pam Carter 31 John Hurst 17 Dakota Smith Reid Walden

VOLUME XXXI1I , ISSUE 5 Page 4

S.A.M. Group

Senior Adult MinistrySenior Adult MinistrySenior Adult MinistrySenior Adult Ministry

… May, 2018 …

We are announcing our activities for everyone, including your guests 50 years of age and older, to place on your calendars.

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On Tuesday, May 8, at 5:30pm, we will meet in the MSCC Fellowship Building for our monthly Prime Time Dinner. Please come and enjoy a meal and time of fellowship with us! We know there are several hungry people at this church who also know oth-ers who are hungry and qualify as 50 years of age or older. Invite them now!

B34 M-0-45,6 On Wednesday, May 9, at 9:30am, we will meet at MSCC and drive to Kokomo to shop, pick up prescriptions, and eat lunch. Any questions, call Rosie 566-3896.

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On Tuesday, May 22, at 6:00pm we will meet in the MSCC Fellowship Building for several different table games. All are encouraged to bring your favorite snacks to share with others. Drinks are provided. If everyone invites someone new to come and enjoy a time of warm fellowship with us, we would be able to double our numbers and our fun.

Wayne & Donna Janner / Wayne & Shirley Watson

Joann Monroe / Charlie & Rosie Mills

Page 5 MAIN STREET MESSENGER

A father and his daughter are having a wonderful time hanging out and enjoying time with one another. When at some point the little girl holds her arms up, clearly wanting to be lifted up by her father. He obliges and picks her up and holds her in his arms, then she giddily cries, “up!” He knows just what she is asking for, so he gets her into position and tosses her up in the air. Then, with the steady yet gentle hands of a loving father, he grabs her out of the air and secures her in his arms. Typically this will be followed by additional re-quests. This little girl had complete trust that her daddy was going to catch her. It never crossed her mind that she might be dropped.

Trust is all around us, and in different forms. It can be a child’s trust in a parent, trusting that the oncoming car is going to stay in its lane, and even the trust that it takes for us to believe that the money we carry has any kind of value. The level at which we trust, will also vary. We will generally have quite a lot of trust in a close relative or a good friend. However, we will most likely not have much trust in a person we’ve just met. All of this is true when things are status quo, but things change dramatically when stress enters into the equa-tion. There is a general idea that true character is revealed in a time of crisis, but where you build your foun-dation makes all the difference.

The Bible is full of instances of trust. We can easily find examples where God’s people trusted Him and found victory, but there are also a bunch of examples of the consequences when God was not trusted. I’d like to highlight a pretty obscure fellow who was highly trusted and was key in bringing God glory in the OT book of Esther; this man’s name is Hathach. The book of Esther is about a young woman who suddenly finds her-self married to King Xerxes which made her the queen of Persia. She is secretly a Jewish woman and had been placed in this position by God to help save her people. There is a moment in the midst of the action where a eunuch named Hathach is trusted with a crucial bit of communication. This is a man who was a trust-ed servant in King Xerxes’ court, so much so that he attended the queen. While serving Esther, he must have garnered her trust as well, because in chapter four we see Hathach as the go-between for Esther and Morde-cai. This communication is very important as it both helps to inform Esther of the danger her people were in, and it helped Esther and Mordecai decide on a plan of action. It was also at this time that Esther requested Mordecai to gather the Jews to fast and pray for her as she went to approach the king. If going to the king went poorly, it would mean Esther’s life. The book of Esther is an excellent narrative that shows God’s provi-sion for His people. You might consider reading it again and looking for all the different examples of trust you can find.

So, what of Hathach? We know very little information about this man. We know that he has been made into a eunuch, he is a servant, he is trusted by the king, and he is trusted by Esther and Mordecai. Imagine the kind of damage this man could have done if he wasn’t trustworthy. He could have told the king where Esther was from, or even had gone to Haman to tell him there was a plot against him. When you think on it, he held a lot of lives in his hands. He was also risking his own life in helping to oppose Haman. Ultimately, there was something about him that communicated his trustworthiness, and in the end he played an important part in this moment of history. He was both trustworthy and he trusted in Esther and Mordecai. I feel fairly certain that Hathach didn’t understand all that was happening, but in the end, his service helped to save God’s cho-sen people.

Though it is pretty unlikely that we will find ourselves in a covert mission for God (though you never know), we can still ask the same of ourselves. Am I trustworthy? In whom/what do I trust? It is pretty easy to get along while things are going well, but when it seems everything is going sideways we need to evaluate how we are handling the situation. We will naturally need a period to adjust to whatever has happened, but when we finally find our footing again, where do we stand? Much like Hathach, we are called to play a part in fur-thering God’s kingdom. We only see a piece of the puzzle, but we must be confident that God sees the whole picture and knows what is best. There is a verse that I love, it is Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding.” No matter what has happened, whether inconvenient or tragic, God always holds us securely in His strong, loving arms. We are called to be the kind of person that can be counted on, the kind of person that has a firm foundation in the midst of life’s storms. In reality, the only way we could ever be considered as trustworthy, is by trusting in the One whose good and perfect will is for us to rely on Him alone.

Ryan, out.

VOLUME XXXI I I , ISSUE 5 Page 6

Ladies there is still time to participate in the planning and organization of our 2018 line up of events and activi-ties; if you have interest, please reach out to the team leader for the event or activity.

Save-the-Dates

* Family Game Night – July 29 – Team Leader - Carrie Mills

* Prayer Walks – Team Leader - Laura Redding

o Sunday, May 6

o Sunday, August 5

* Women’s Retreat – Friday, September 28 & Saturday, September 29 o Location - The Ark Christian Camp o Guest Speaker - Becka Shaffer o Theme - Immeasurably More o Co-Team Leaders: Sophia Bishop and Lee Ann Redding

* Shopping Trip – Saturday, October 6 – Team Leader - Donna Janner * Christmas Cookie Exchange – Saturday, December 1 – Team Leader - Lee Ann Redding

Ladies, there is still time to join us Thursday nights at 6:30 pm for the Ladies Bible Study, Kingdom Woman. This is an amazing study by Dr. Tony Evans and his daughter, Chrystal Evans Hurst, that will help us to discover our TRUE value in Christ! If you are unable to attend but would like to participate in the study via Face-book, see Sophia, Carrie, or Lee Ann for a workbook and access to the Ladies Bible Study FB group.

LADIES SPIRITUAL SPA UPDATE

After much deliberation between the Women’s Ministry and MSCC Leadership, it has been decided to post-pone the Ladies Spiritual spa for the time being. It is the intent of the Women’s Ministry to use 2018 as a reevaluation and planning phase to determine the direction of this long-time, impactful ministry event.

Those who volunteered to be a part of the planning committee to reevaluate the Spiritual Spa will continue to work diligently on drafting a proposal for a 2019 event for elder approval and include it in the 2019 budget proposal.

Please join us in praying for all the planned 2018 and potential future Women’s Ministry events as we seek God’s will in furthering His Kingdom in all that we do as a Ministry of MSCC. Thank you for your patience and support!

In Him,

Lee Ann Redding

Page 7 MAIN STREET MESSENGER

The following are two short updates from Abby Alter’s newsletter: 2017 A Year of Transitions

“At the beginning of last year I was throwing myself headlong into learning every aspect of our Me-dia Communications department as the new director of the department. It felt like finals week in col-lege for months? Summertime took me to Europe with our Journalism intern team, working to col-lect stories and pictures of what God is doing in those places. It also took me to Indiana to celebrate 50 years of marriage for my parents. The fall brought planning to move out of my home of 5 years, a hurricane, a gravely ill dog, a dead car, buying a new car, moving into temporary housing while my new rental was repaired from the hurricane, and our largest, most complicated year-end appeal ever that had to be designed, printed, prepped. “God is faithful in the chaos-by the end of the year I was exhausted, but I had been blessed by a car that runs well, a healthy dog that continues to bring me joy every day, a new place to call home just steps away from my office, and the reminder that God shows up in chaos.

Hello to Africa

“2016 found me in Asia and the South Pacific over the summer, 2017 found me in Europe. Imag-ine my amusement, then, when our Mobilization team asked me if I would be willing to lead our Journalism interns this summer to Africa. I seem to be making my way around the world! “I will be taking two interns, Bekah and Sarah, to Uganda, Rwanda, and Malawi during the month of June to write, photograph, and record all that Jesus is doing to transform lives in those places. Please pray: · That we will be a blessing to the missionaries and ministries in each place; · That God will prepare the hearts of the interns for the summer ahead; · Wisdom for me as I lead; · For the Media department to run smoothly while I am away.”

********************* Abby is one of our monthly supported missionaries. Please keep her work in your thoughts and prayers as she uses her talents, and develops new talents, to ensure the message of eternal life with Jesus is shared around the world.

Missions Team Leader, Carol Talbert

Abby Alter – New Mission Systems International Newsletter Updates

220 West Main Street PO Box 155 Russiaville, IN 46979

Main Street Chris t ian Church

Office: 765-883-5265 Fellowship Building: 765-883-7613 Email: mscc9@sbcglobal.net www.mainstreetchristianchurch.com

Grow in Jesus Christ ~ Encourage the Discouraged

Magnify the Lord ~ Seek the Lost

WORSHIP S.S. TITHING

DATE LAST YEAR’S

AVERAGE: 123

LAST YEAR’S

AVERAGE: 87

WEEKLY

BUDGET NEEDS: $ 4,380.96

March 18, 2018 107 72 $ 2,875.00

March 25, 2018 117 85 $ 4,569.00

April 1, 2018 162 89 $ 6,121.55

April 8, 2018 119 88 $ 4,490.50

April 15, 2018 114 81 $ 3,215.00

April 22, 2018 117 87 $ 2,976.28

April 29, 2018 n/a n/a n/a

Sunday School ~ 9:30am Sunday Morning Worship ~ 10:30am

Senior Pastor: Steve Bishop Associate/Youth Minister: Ryan Mills

Church Secretary: Carrie Mills

Church Office Hours: Monday - Friday ~ 8:30am - 12:00pm & 1:00pm - 3:30pm

PASTORAL TEAM

Home Cell

Steve Bishop 883-7793 (863) 446-2234

Ryan Mills 883-1225 210-7719

Alan Anderson 854-0145 438-4824

Wayne Janner 459-8423 614-9473

Connie Maugans 453-4861 459-3941 (work)

437-1353 (cell)