Community Prayer Blitz

All,

We will be having our community prayer blitz on March 21. Meet at the church at 4:30 for details, then depart around 5:00 to head to our areas of the community. Should last about an hour. Childcare will be provided by the church if needed. This will be another great way to grow together and continue our prayer for revival in our community. If anyone is intereseted, please let me know and I will add you to the list!

Thanks,

Jon

Happy Birthday!

Happy Belated Birthday to Michelle Martin!! Who turned a certain age Yesterday March 3rd.

Everybody join me in singing:
happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Michelle, happy birthday to you!!

Do you get the Sunday paper?

I am working through the Women's Ministry Team to put together "Envelopes of Encouragement" for some of the clients (for lack of a better word) of the Bartow County Women's Resource Center who live in the Housing Authority properties. These envelopes are intended to let these women know that someone is thinking of them and wants to encourage them. We plan to fill 50 envelopes each month with coupons, scripture cards, and anything else that we can think of from time to time that will be an encouragement to these women. These families probably wouldn't wake up on a Sunday morning and decide to come to CFBC, but this is a way for us to reach out to them from our church and other local churches and give them an opportunity to get to know us better. We'll use this opportunity to invite them to preschool activities, VBS, and other church events. To get started, though, we need more coupons than I have at home right now. If you get the Sunday paper and have coupons that you don't use, please consider bringing them to church and putting them in our coupon box. I don't actually have our coupon box ready, yet, so I'm not sure where it will be located. You can always just bring coupons directly to me! You do not have to clip the coupons unless it's convenient to do that. Any contribution helps! Thanks, Deana

Meet the Abells!!

Ok, when Scott Barkley set up a blog for our class, before he started teaching his own class, he did some "biographies" of some of our classmates. I am going to attempt to do that now, so we can get to know each other a little more personally. I am NOT as good of a writer as Scott is, so please look past all of the grammatical stuff and runon sentences,etc etc........

Beth and Greg Abell:

Beth Abell is 30 years old and was born and raised in Bristol, Tenn. (Nascar Country). Beth loves singing and reading. Frank Peretti is one of her favorite authors. Greg Abell is 34 years old and was born in Atlanta and raised in Stockbridge. Greg enjoys golfing, basketball, and video games. He served our country in the Marines (active duty for 5 years). I (Craig) thank you for your service Greg!! They both accepted Jesus at the age of 8!! (Greg's story is very cool!! Ask him about it sometime!)

Beth and Greg met in Beaufort SC while Greg was stationed there. They have been married for 9 years! They have 3 little boys! Christian is 7, Luke is 5, and Eli is 2. Greg has been working for Shaw Carpets in Calhoun for a year and a half and Beth is a stay-at-home mom, with all of the duties that entails!! (There is not enough pay for that job!!)

Currently, life is going very well for the Abells and if asked they would tell you they are blessed! They are thankful for a job that provides! They are ecstatic that God has led them to a church family that is growing! Another joy in their life right now is that Beth is one of the newest members of the praise team and we all will be seeing her lead us in worship soon!!

As with any family there are areas of concern for the Abells that they are praying over and for. I (Craig) wanted to mention some of those so that we as a Bible Study Class could join with them in lifting those concerns up to our God!

The Abells are praying for wisdom and guidance in where to send their children to elementary school next year. They had some problems with a local school this year and as we all know the elementary years are vital in providing a foundation and LOVE for learning in all children! They are asking God to lead them to the right school and teacher! They are also praying for a schedule change for Greg. Working night shift with a family is not fun and they would love for Greg to be able to get moved to day shift. With the boys at home, Beth is not able to attend a Bible Study she once was a part of, and feels that God has been telling her to start her own Bible Study in her home for women in her neighborhood!! (WOW!!) She is praying for guidance in this endeavor and praying for the women that WILL be attending that study!

I hope you have enjoyed getting to know the Abells a little better and any errors in this posts are mine, not theirs!! I hope everyone in our class will put these concerns in your prayer journals so WE as a class can be prayer warriors for Beth and Greg!!

The Treasure Principle

Thank you to everyone who participated in the discussion this week in bible study!! A big thanks to Michael and Derrick, who had a spirited debate that helped me more than either of you will know!! For me personally, since the church was having trouble in December, God has been beating me up about this topic. It was a very good study and I got a lot out of it.
For me, it was hard to join either side of that debate, because while I agree with Michael that a certain percentage is not "required" or commanded, I agree with Derrick that for me personally, if 10% is not the minimum I give, then I feel I have sinned against God. And to "keep it real", I have not been giving at that level, and have asked forgiveness. Before we started this study, I couldn't have even told you what mine and Donna's gross salary was. That is tough to admit, but there you go.
In the future, I will be remembering that it is God's money, and I am just the manager. (Of course, I would fire someone that was managing my money the way I have been managing God's money, and therefore, He has been on me about this!!)
Craig

Test Successful!!

Make sure that you accept the invite from google groups. Make sure that anything from google groups is a safe sender in your email and NOT going into your spam folder!

Testing the new email system

This is only a test. Had this been an actual post this writing would be filled with something no doubt inspiring and uplifting. This is only a test!