Faith Baptist Church 5750 N Hwy 101 ~ PO Box 570 Lincoln City, Oregon 97367

Phone- (541) 994-9106 ~ Fax (541)-994-8471

Email– FaithLincolnCity@earthlink.net

Webpage– www.FaithLincolnCity.org

APRIL 2014

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You are my refuge and my shield; I have

put my hope in your word.

Psalm 119:114

Pastor Brian

Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

—2 Corinthians 11:28

―…I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.‖

—Matthew 16:18

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ―My grace is suf-

ficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.‖ Therefore I will boast all the more

gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

—2 Corinthians 12:8,9

A little more of God will make up for a good deal less of you.—George MacDonald

Let me tell you some of the things I want:

I want Faith Baptist Church to be a church full of people who spend time in God’s Word

and in prayer on a regular basis. I want people to join small groups, serve according to their gifts, attend

faithfully, and give generously. I want us to be a church that missionaries are grateful for. I want us to

be a united church, and a loving church, where we care more about the success of the Gospel and the

quality of our relationships than about our personal agendas and preferences, where we are quick to for-

give and reconcile and to overlook small offenses. I want to see people saved out of darkness into the

light of Christ on a regular basis. I want to see families transformed, and people set free from sin and

addiction and past wounds and legalism and selfishness. I want God to heal broken hearts and thaw fro-

zen hearts. I want people lining up to be baptized, to proclaim that Christ has saved them and changed

them. I want our prayer times on Wednesday nights (6pm) and Sunday mornings (8am) to outgrow my

office. I want our children’s ministry and our youth ministry to raise up and send out the next generation

of church leaders, pastors and missionaries. I want lost people to wake up on Sunday, April 20th, come to

Faith Baptist Church for Easter services, hear the gospel, repent of their sin and rebellion against God,

place their faith in Christ’s death and resurrection for them, and become our brothers and sisters in God’s

family. I want north Lincoln County to be a different place because of the way the people of Faith pro-

claim and live the Gospel. I want to see Satan lose and Jesus win.

Now let me tell you something that I know:

I cannot make any of these things happen.

Lately God has been helping me see more clearly than ever that I cannot change a heart,

save a soul, make a ministry succeed or grow a church by my efforts or abilities. Only He can do those

things. He has shown me that prayerlessness, and often busyness, are expressions of pride: we trust our-

selves and we do not trust God. As Pastor Luke said in a recent sermon, we don’t pray enough because

we’re not desperate enough. We don’t realize how much we need Him.

In our community, we are entering the season of spring sports and summer schedules (and,

for some of us, new babies!). It’s a time when I realize I’m going to have less opportunity to have my

hands on the wheel of Faith Baptist Church. And this is a good thing. I’m going to be preaching God’s

Word, praying a lot, and trusting Him for the results. I invite you to join me (perhaps on Wednesday

nights or Sunday mornings?) in asking Him to do the things we cannot do, to His glory.

This week in FYRE, we talked about King Saul

and it dawned on me that life has a lot in common

with the literary genre of choice for my fourth

grade self. Saul had several episodes in his life in

which some pretty drastic consequences hung on

his one decision. Wait for Samuel to offer the

sacrifice to God, or do it himself? Annihilate the

Amalekites as instructed, or bring home some

spoils and win the people's favor? Kill David, or

let him go? Over and over again, Saul chose

poorly. It's a shame that he couldn't turn back to

page three and start over again, but life doesn't

afford us that luxury.

Like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, we're

responsible for the choices but not for the out-

come. Consequences are beyond our control,

written into history but an Author who's weaving

the best story of all time. Like Saul, I think we

often approach our responsibility to choose well

with a lot of flippancy. We can be pretty cavalier

about some decisions that ought to carry a lot of

prayer and sincere thought. I know I'm guilty of

this often. Thankfully, we do have a good idea of

which ideas to take. We've got the life of Jesus as

a model, not to mention countless of other peo-

ple's stories that give us an idea of how conse-

quences might shake out. The bottom line is that

when we live according to our own reputation and

glory, things don't work out well.

This month, pray carefully about the adventure

that you're living and seek God's will with every

decision.

Stay on FYRE!

Luke

PS. For the record, I went to sleep on the couch.

You're lying on your couch on a quiet Sunday after-

noon, recovering from a busy morning and having

just fought off a fever the previous few days, when

your telephone vibrates on the coffee table beside

you. You'd like to ignore it; Sunday mornings are

especially exhausting, and you'd like to spend the af-

ternoon sleeping on the couch before devoting your

evening to youth group. Your curiosity gets the best

of you, however, and you check your phone's text

messages to see that you have received a message

from a faithful FYRE member. He's enjoying the un-

usually sunny afternoon with some other teenage

friends, and you've been invited to meet them for a

game of ultimate frisbee. Your head tells you that it's

a great opportunity to connect with some kids and get

some exercise. Your body tells you that sleep sounds

a lot better and that Sunday afternoons are your sa-

cred time of relaxation. You'll be spending the entire

evening with teenagers anyhow, you reason. Yet, at

the same time, this could be a missed opportunity to

fellowship with some great kids, and frisbee weather

in Lincoln City doesn't come often enough. What do

you do? If you decide to get off the couch and play

frisbee, turn to page 3. If you decide to sleep on the

couch and ignore the text, turn to page 4.

Okay, so maybe the "Choose Your Own Adventure"

genre doesn't translate well to church newsletters, but

let me tell you that when I was in fourth grade, they

were the only books that I read. I haunted the stacks

of the Loveland, Colorado Public Library and read

every single Choose Your Own Adventure book

there, normally multiple times. Call it sentimentality,

but I refuse to entertain the prevailing notion that the

genre isn't an untapped goldmine for adult litera-

ture. Who doesn't want to decide where the story

goes? How many books have you read that had

crummy endings? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to at

least choose which ending you get? That's the magic

of the Choose Your Own Adventure: it's interactive

literature at it's best, page-turning by design.

I don’t know how many of you are reading through the New Testament this year with us this year, but I’ve talked to a lot of people who are. I have really been enjoy-ing it, although we are a couple of days behind in my house at the moment. We made a decision to read it as a family with the kids before bed each night. It has been a great way to close the day together and set an example for what is most im-portant.

To me, though, the best part of reading through with my kids has been the opportunity to attempt to answer the ques-tions they have about the scripture. They often stop me reading to ask for further explanation, and I admit that while some answers are simple (“why would she kiss his feet? That’s weird!”), some have really challenged me to find a way to explain and have deepened my own understanding. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I wanted to share two of the discussions we have had regarding some of the good questions that have come up. As we read in Matthew 26 about the night in Gethsemane, the boys took notice of the fact that Jesus was “overwhelmed with sorrow” and “fell with his face to the ground and prayed” for the cup to be taken from him. The boys where having a hard time understanding why Jesus was so sad and begging God for his crucifixion not to happen, if it was the plan all along. I told them that just because you know something is coming doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. If they have a big speech or a hard test coming up in class, they don’t get especially nervous when they first hear about it a month away. The night before, however, can be filled with anxiety as they are faced with the reality of what is about to happen. It was also really helpful for them to understand that Jesus was a person just like us, and had the same emotions we do. So even though he knew it was for the best, leaving his friends and family on earth was still hard. We talked about what it would be like to know you only had 24 more hours to live and how sad you would be knowing that you would-n’t be hugging your family any more or having any more days to spend with your friends. Jesus, just like us, was faced with the sadness of relationships that he cherished coming to their earthly end. Another spot that really got the questions going was in Mark 9: 43-47, where Jesus explains that it would be better to remove a body part causing us to sin, than to have a complete body in hell. I think the question from Jackson was something like, “Is Jesus being serious right now?” I started by simply saying yes. If we really thought about what was most important, then eternity in heaven was much better than having both hands or feet or eyes. However, I really wanted them to get the point Jesus was making, so I tried to go a little deeper with them and ended up with two expla-nations. First, I told them that I didn’t think Jesus was likely recommending self-mutilation. The point he was making was that if something is making you sin or is an obstacle to your holiness, get rid of it. This may not be their hand or their eye, but it could very well be the computer or the TV or even a friend. (The friend example leads to more discussion about impacting your friend for Christ vs. guarding yourself, but I won’t get into that here). The other thing that we dis-cussed, was I think Jesus was explaining just how difficult it can be to remove sin from our lives. In an attempt to dem-onstrate both the gravity of our sin and how difficult it can be to remove, he equates it to cutting off a body part. The reason that doing that seemed so hard to my kids is that getting rid of sin IS hard. I have been made even more convinced as we read through God’s word together, that teaching the Bible to kids is just as beneficial to the teacher as the student. The questions they have asked have forced me to stop and think through these passages in ways I otherwise would not have. If you are reading this and have kids, for your sake and theirs, try and make consistent time in the word part of your daily routine. Also, if you don’t have kids or yours are grown, I’d encourage you to find time to volunteer in Sunday School or Mops childcare or FYRE or even babysitting oc-casionally. Time spent in the word with kids is so incredibly valuable for them and will likely challenge you to slow down and examine the word for yourself as well. God Bless, JD

Children’s Ministries!

APRIL 2014 APRIL 2014 APRIL 2014 Faith Baptist Church

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 Celebrate Recovery 6pm

2 MOPS 9:15am Prayer 6pm

3 Mom’s Day Out 10:30am-1:30pm *RSVP with Rebecca Flaming

4 5 Men’s Breakfast 8am Church Clean Up Day 9am

6 Communion Nursery workers meeting 12pm FYRE 6pm

7 Deacons 6pm

8 Celebrate Recovery 6pm

9 Prayer 6pm

10 Deaconess 1pm

11 12

13 Easter Family Night-Dessert Potluck 6pm

14 15 Celebrate Recovery 6pm

16 MOPS 9:15am Prayer 6pm

17 18 Good Friday Service 6pm

19

20 Easter Sunday Worship at 9&10:45am and Pastry Buffet FYRE 6pm

21 22 Celebrate Recovery 6pm

23 Prayer 6pm

24 25 26

27 Hymn Sing 5pm FYRE 6pm

28 29 Celebrate Recovery 6pm

30 Prayer 6pm

Church Clean Up Day! Saturday, April 5th 9am

Wednesday Evenings

6pm - 8pm Kindergarten through 6th

grade

Each meeting will include: Large group teaching, small group discussions, game time, Bible verse

memorization, worship and tons of fun!

Contact person: Cori Cox 541-921-7665.

Coats dresses pants shoes shirts hats jeans purses coats dresses pants shoes

L a d i e s ’ C lo t h i n g E x c h a n g e

Gather up clothes you don’t wear anymore and bring them to the church office. We’ll get things organized and you can come

shopping for a “New To You” treasure on...

Saturday, May 17th 10am-2pm in the Family Room

Contacts: Angela McCann, Rachel Profitt & Kara Swanton This year we’ll also have a table for beauty products.

(Hand lotion, nail polish, hair products, etc..)

BABY SHOWER

For Amy Graham Thursday, May 1st at 6pm in the Family Room at Faith

She is expecting a girl! **Amy is registered at Amazon.com

Family Day Center: 1206 SE 48th Place in the Taft area of Lincoln City.

Family Promise Thrift Store: 5030 SE Highway 101, in the Taft area of Lincoln City.

Open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday11:00am to 3:00pm

Thrift Store message line: 541-996-6939

For more information: 541-992-1682, Linda Roy

Email us:Director@FamilyPromiseOfLincolnCounty.org

Easter Weekend at Faith BaptistEaster Weekend at Faith Baptist

Saturday, April 13th- Easter Family Night & Dessert Potluck at 6pm

We will have the Faith Baptist kid’s choir and Bridgetown, a men’s

vocal group from Warner Pacific College.

Friday, April 18th- Good Friday Service at 6pm

Sunday, April 20th- Easter Worship Services 9am & 10:45am

Pastry and fruit buffet between services

Everyone is invited to join us for our

All Church Clean Up Day! Saturday, April 5th at 9am

Lunch will be provided