Come to the Summit and learn how your life can count for all eternity!

This coming Tuesday at 6:45 pm we will have our Thanksgiving Meal! I am really looking forward to a special time together, testimonies, food and fellowship.

Dec. 18th (Thursday Night) - Evangelist David Smallwood will be preaching! You are going to enjoy very much that service–I promise you!

January 1-3rd (Thursday - Saturday) - Our Generation Summit–I been telling you about this one and you will be sorry if you miss it!

January 4th (Sunday) - Deputation Send Off for Mark Tolson. Missionaries from our church taking off on deputation–we want to have a super special service!

January 28th - 30th (Wed. - Friday) - Baptist History Conference with Dr. Bob Dalton

April 23rd - 24th (Thursday - Friday) - Special Meeting with Pastor Steve Roberson from Calvary Baptist Church

God bless you Philip-you inspire me to want to never let my dreams die!

I just made a trip back to my old school early this week to recruit people for the Summit, Student Leadership Conference, and Our Generation Training Center.

I went to college dumb, naïve, and hungry. And college was a simple and straightforward - not a lot of complexities to get distracted with and in that environment my dreamer went wild. I was growing every day, I asked more questions every day, I loved God more every day, and my desire to see Him work in my life kept me pursuing Him and what He wanted me to step out and do.

And there always seemed to be opportunities to step out and do. So at the beginning of semesters I would grit my teeth, grimace and sign up for the hardest classes I could find. And all year I was pushed to learn. Every summer, or break from class, I made myself sign up for something that would put me in places where I could see Him use me.

Every few months I had to choose. And I went to college and saw a bunch of students at the conjunction.

And it reminded me that if I’m not careful that I will think that I’m smart, comfortable and satisfied. Choices don’t seem so obvious any more. They don’t show up as a class schedule or internship opportunity. They are disguised as a call to make, a place to go, or some other form of extra work. That doesn’t sound very exciting.

But I remembered this week that dreams die because dreams are starved. And dreams survive on the extra stuff.

I had a wonderful time today planning the Summit and a message I believe that God wants me to preach! We were working out some of the skits and activities that go with the message. I truly believe that God is going to do something wonderful.

Have you made plans to come–free up your calendar! Plan on coming-you will have a blast and most of all God will do a work in your life and impact you for the cause of World Evangelism!

Register here!

Also I’ve been looking into modesty and issues pertaining to that because of Abbie. I’ve found some good books you might want to pass along. Secret Keepers (for 12 and up) – by Dannah Gresh, also have Secret Keeper Girl (for 8-12 year olds); Your Girl, by Vicki Courtney, a must read for any mother with a daughter under 18. Little Pink Book – for 12 and up , by Cathy Bartel. Just thought I’d pass some on.

I want to challenge you to get these books and check them out. This is a great recommendation from a mom of a young girl!

This Sunday we will be giving our Thanksgiving Offering that John Pearson mentioned several times this month. Betty and I prayed it over and came to an amount. We are so thankful to God for what He has done in our lives through Vision Baptist Church!

This is going to be a great Sunday and then our Thanksgiving time is going to be great-I have already heard more than one comment about how they were looking forward to a special time of worshiping God and saying a public thank you to Him for all that He has done.

O God, I have tasted thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed.

-A. W. Tozer

source

I am reminded of the Student Volunteer Movement which between 1850 and 1950 sent out nearly 10,000 missionaries. Many of them left their home with their belongings packed in a coffin aware that 80% of them would never return.

Allow me to leave you with an excerpt from a sermon by Paris Reidhead:

“Two young Moravians heard of an island in the West Indies where an atheist British owner had 2000 to 3000 slaves. And the owner had said, ‘No preacher, no clergyman, will ever stay on this island. If he’s ship wrecked we’ll keep him in a separate house until he has to leave, but he’s never going to talk to any of us about God, I’m through with all that nonsense.’ Three thousand slaves from the jungles of Africa brought to an island in the Atlantic and there to live and die without hearing of Christ.

Two young Moravians heard about it. They sold themselves to the British planter and used the money they received from their sale, for he paid no more than he would for any slave, to pay their passage out to his island for he wouldn’t even transport them. As the ship left its pier in the river at Hamburg and was going out into the North Sea carried with the tide, the Moravians had come from Herrenhut to see these two lads off, in their early twenties. Never to return again, for this wasn’t a four year term, they sold themselves into lifetime slavery. Simply that as slaves, they could be as Christians where these others were. The families were there weeping, for they knew they would never see them again. And they wondered why they were going and questioned the wisdom of it. As the gap widened and the housings had been cast off and were being curled up there on the pier, and the young boys saw the widening gap, one lad with his arm linked through the arm of his fellow, raised his hand and shouted across the gap the last words that were heard from them, they were these, ‘MAY THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERING!’”

The next great wave of missions, starting about 1850, was to inland areas, led by Hudson Taylor with his China Inland Mission. Taylor was a thorough-going nativist, offending the missionaries of his era by wearing Chinese clothing and speaking Chinese at home. His mission was one of the few that actually began to persuade Chinese to follow Christ. His books, speaking and examples led to the formation of numerous inland missions, and the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM), which from 1850 to about 1950 sent nearly 10,000 missionaries to inland areas, often at great personal sacrifice. Many early SVM missionaries to areas with endemic tropical diseases left with their belongings packed in a coffin, aware that 80% of them would die within two years.

source

source

I just got the above cartoon in a blog and thought it was sure appropriate for this week as we prepare for a special Thanksgiving Offering at Vision.

Did He get all of you?