The World Evangelism Committee of Vision Baptist had a meeting yesterday afternoon planning the Summit. It was a very special time. We prayed and talked over all the things that God is doing in and through all the young people that are serving Him around the world. We worked on the schedule and plans for the Summit. I believe this one is going to be the best Summit we have ever had.
I believe that you are going to be motivated and challenged like never before.
Standing in the Gap–There is so much to be done. Jesus is coming soon! We have the opportunity to spread His glory and His Word now until He comes.
Many are already registering every day. Things are popping. Thank you God for what you are going to do this year.
Come prepared for God to do something radical in your life.
The Summit will be held in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It will be January 1-3. Register now!
I am giving Twitter a try. I will be using it for about 30 days to see if I see any benefits. If you would like to get on the band wagon or follow along you can sign up to follow here.
I will be blatantly honest–my goal is to raise world evangelism awareness.
Just thought that I would remind you that He has made us all priests and we need to do everything as the Lord commands! Did you go alone and wash your feet this morning? Did you consider the fact that as you go about today you are doing so based on the fact that you are a servant of God and that He has a plan for you.
Remember we need His power, His anointing! Seek His face and His will for your life!
Remember to do everything as He commands–as His priest it is not up to you to decide how to do ministry.
If you do not know what I am talking about you should be able to listen to the message from Sunday PM on the Vision pulpit at the top left side of the Vision News soon.
Called to his reward on high on the 20th of October, 1876.
He carried the gospel to men and women regardless of their skin color–In his first church he had about 200 white people and 2400 black people!
He said that they only way a man can preach with power is to believe the word of God with all of his soul and walk with its Author continually!
His might lay where his heart was, in his holy breathings after the Holy Spirit.
To this he added the most painstaking study to ascertain by every form of help what the Scriptures required him to preach.
Superficial men, who are total strangers to the throbbings of soul-agony and the toilsome exertions of soul-thought, flippantly attributed his great power to the absence of half a quire (24 sheets of paper) of paper from his pulpit, and prated about his being an extempore preacher.
Having a message from the Man of Calvary, he wished to deliver it as an accomplished pleader with men, for Jesus’ sake.
Taken from pages 309-312 of A History of the Baptists VOLUME 2 By Thomas Armitage
Everybody is getting to be so oily, so plastic, so untrue, that we need a race of hardshells to teach us how to believe. Those old-fashioned people who in former ages believed something and thought the opposite of it to be false, were truer folk, than the present timeservers.
“There are a lot of Christians who are halfway fellows. They stand in the door, holding on to the Church with one hand while they play with the toys of the world with the other. They are in the doorway and we can’t bring sinners in. And, until we get some of God’s people right, we cannot hope to get sinners regenerated. Now they always accuse me of carrying around a sledge hammer with which to pound the church members. Yes sir, I do pound them, every time I come down, I knock one of the halfway fellows out of the doorway, and every time I knock one out I get a sinner in.”
Long before slavery was abolished in the United States, Lott Cary bought his freedom and became the first American missionary to Africa.
He helped found Liberia and established the first missionary Baptist church on the African continent.
Cary was born about 1780 in Charles City County. An only child, he lived on a plantation with his parents and his grandmother, who was devoutly religious.
When Cary was 24, his master sent him to Richmond to work as hired slave labor in the Shockoe tobacco warehouse.
His hard work earned a promotion to a supervisory position. In that capacity he earned more than the regular wage that slaves were required to give over to their owners. Cary began to save as much as he could. His goal: to buy freedom for himself, his wife and his two children.
Cary was baptized at the racially-mixed First Baptist Church in 1807 after hearing a sermon based on the third chapter of John.
He yearned to read the passage himself, so he learned the alphabet by studying the Bible. With help from his co-workers and a white business owner who attended his church, Cary learned to read and eventually to write.
In 1813 Cary bought freedom for himself and his two children. The price: $850. His wife had died some time earlier. He would later remarry.
About 1815 Cary became a minister. He learned about efforts to expand Christian missions in West Africa. He helped create the Richmond African Missionary Society that year.
Four years later, he was accepted for foreign service by the predominantly white Baptist General Convention.
On Jan. 23, 1821, Cary and 27 other colonists sailed for Africa on a ship chartered by the U.S. government.
Before he left, he said:
”I am an African, and in this country, however meritorious my conduct and respectable my character, I cannot receive the credit due to either. I wish to go to a country where I shall be estimated by my merits, not by my complexion; and I feel bound to labor for my suffering race.”
Cary and his group made the passage to West Africa and colonized Liberia (which means ”Place of Freedom”). Cary established Providence Baptist Church and was its pastor.
He set up schools and served as Liberia’s health officer.
In September 1826, he was elected vice agent of the colony. In August 1828 Cary became acting governor of Liberia when the previous governor died after designating Cary his successor.
Cary was killed in an accidental explosion of gunpowder as he prepared to defend the colony against an attack by African natives in November 1828.
His mission and memory have been kept alive through the work of the Lott Cary Baptist Foreign Mission Convention based in Washington.
The church he founded in Monrovia celebrated its 175th anniversary last year. Cary’s great-great-great grandson, Ned Cary, traveled to Liberia in January 1996 to inaugurate the yearlong celebration.
Ned Cary, a native of James City County, has founded the Lott Cary Historical Foundation and hopes to build a memorial near Cary’s birthplace.
A highway marker, erected in 1993 at state Route 155 and Lott Cary Road in Charles City, honors the missionary.
The following information comes from here! The writer is Terry Whalin! I found it to be very interesting and want to challenge you to be a reader!
Reading the right books could do a great work in your heart and life.
Over a year ago in these entries, I gave some reading statistics from bestselling author Harvey Mackay’s newspaper column. They are disappointing:
“* Only 14 percent of adults with a grade-school education read literature in 2002.
* 51 percent of the American population never reads a book of more than 400 pages after they complete their formal education.
* 73 percent of all books in libraries are never checked out.
* The average American watches 32 hours of TV every week.
* The average American reads only eight hours (books, newspapers, magazines, Yellow Pages, etc.) every week.
* The average American annually spends 10 times more on what he puts on his head than what puts into his head.”
With these statistics, it is little wonder that parts of the publishing business are struggling (and even predicting the struggle will continue for some.)
Consider these additional statistics from Harvey Mackay:
* “If you read just one book a month for 12 straight months, you will be in the top 25 percentile of all intellectuals in the world.
* If you read five books on one subject, you are one of the world’s foremost leading authorities on that subject
* If you read just 15 minutes a day — every day for one year — you can complete 20 books.”
We had the privilege of having several missionaries with us tonight, Chris Gardner, David Gardner, Mark Coffey, Mark Tolson, Jeremy Hall, Aaron B, and Tony Howeth. They all gave a word of testimony and it was a blessing to have them.
Then Adrian Burden preached and did a great job. I think the entire church enjoyed the time with him very much.
We are a blessed church. God has done so much and I am so grateful for all the hard working, faithful, servants of God that we have.
Special thank you’s to Jonathan Clapp for getting the van lettered and Sam Paxin for getting magnets for the vans. Things are really starting to look up.
Great offering, great attendance, great meeting, someone getting baptized on Sunday from the Spanish ministry–what can I say-God is really pouring it on us.
Today after Robert Canfield got out of his class he grabbed a quick lunch he brought from home and then we headed to Scottish Rite hospital to see a couple of children from our church.
Olivia Wampler-daughter of Joe Wampler-has had brain surgery to remove 2 tumors. She is now taking radiation treatments. She is a precious little girl and needs your prayers as do Joe and his wife. You can keep up with her progress here http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/oliviawampler.
Also Robert and Katrina Hardin used to attend our church. Their daughter Amber is in the hospital and they are running all kinds of tests to see what her problem is. They think that it may be Cat Scratch but are trying to rule out the possibility of MS. Will you please pray for them.
Also I wanted to thank God for Robert Canfield. What a blessing. He had to have put in at least a 12 hour day today without complaining one bit. He did his classes, visited with me, cleaned the church, picked up kids, did ministry, took kids home–thank God for a great group of hard working people at our church.
