Single Focus

I wanted to tell you about the next couple of things you can be planning for….

This Saturday we are going to a Drum line to see Spence in competition. Never been but it is supposed to be pretty amazing and it is only $8. It will be at Central Forsyth High School.

Then Next Saturday we are having the big Whirlyball competition (like lacrosse in bumper cars) against the Couples class, the teens, and the International Bible Fellowship. Should be no problem to win against them, huh? Show up at 1:00 at the church and bring $20 for that.

Finally, back by popular demand, we are going to play Paintball. We got a good discount and it should be no more than $10, but I will say $15 so you wont get mad if I’m wrong.

Those are our weekend afternoons. Also, visitation is at 10am Saturdays. We will have a special singles visitation next saturday the 8th, before the Whirlyball. Come and we will go.

Hope you can make it for all this. The more the merrier.

Sunday was exactly what we need for Celebration Sunday. We had 10 people, 3 first-time guests, and everyone passed the test on the book of James:) That is what I would like to see in our class: people being faithful, bringing new people, and learning the Bible.

But if we hit our goal on accident, we ought to be able to exceed it on Celebration Sunday. I hope you are making sure you are going to be there that day. We are handing out invitations like crazy, a robot is calling non-stop bugging people, and I hope you have someone in mind that you are praying will be with us that day.

This isnt pre-mature, so maybe it doesnt go in this post, but we are right on track raising money for Jason Holt in Chile. We just tallied it up and we have $100.33 so far. That means we are lacking just $49.67! Pretty good for a bunch of poor folk.

Im proud of you guys and am glad to be involved in this great class.

Memorizing verses doesnt do a whole lot if you only remember them for a week. So I wanted to come up with a way to review and remember them. I learned a lot from others, but here is what I do.

That way I can review them by just glancing at the references and not cheating by looking at the first few words of the verse. Once I can say the reference and verse without error, I file the card for the day.

Here is what my file box looks like:

This box is divided into 3 sections: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly

Every day I review the cards in the daily section. They stay in that section until I have no trouble with the verse or reference. Then they move to the weekly section. I review them once a week, and the same rules apply before they move to the monthly section.

I memorize any verse I want. Sometimes multiple verses together. Whatever the Lord speaks to me about in my reading time. No set pattern. No numerical goal. I just memorize what the Lord uses to speak to me with and I never run short for verses to memorize.

Take this method and use it, or use another one, but however, I encourage you to continually be placing truth within your heart!

Memorize verses!
This is one of the greatest habits to get into. Once you saturate your mind with the Bible, memorizing and thinking on it, you turn into a walking concordance. Everything will start to remind you of a verse you know, you begin to gain a little spiritual insight into situations, and it makes it a lot harder to sin! I hope you keep it up.

Study your country.

Here are the ones that I see…

Study your own English country (that is where we are in the world) and come tell us 2 min about it!

We are celebrating our 2nd Anniversary March 16th. One of the biggest and most exciting days on the calendar. We are having a special singing group in, the Daybreak Quartet, and following the service we are all going to the park for free food and games!

What could be better than that?

We have set a very attainable goal for that day in our class of 10. The class time is actually going to be shorter than normal because of all the things going on. I really think it will be great, and if you can at all, be there! Bring and friend and lets see the class grow.

Dont forget about money that we are raising for Jason Holts land in Chile! We still have a ways to go up to $150 and 2 weeks left.

See you Sunday.

Well, I just got home from the service tonight and like I said in the message, while others are busy caring for the things of this world tonight, here I am free to do whatever I want!

We preached on dating tonight to a lively and exciting crowd and it went really well. People paid attention, asked questions, commented, participated, and hopefully learned. Though talking about dating is usually fun, this is one of the most critical times in our lives as we make that all-important, forever-life-altering choice about a life’s mate.

So, once again, here are the all too familiar, to some, 7 Steps to Perfect Dating:

1. Its better to wait and know it, than to date and blow it. - Ps 27:14
2. Don’t look for the right one; be the right one; and you will get the right one! - Ps 84:11
3. How you get them is how you must keep them - Mat 7:24-ff
4. Dating should be a delight not a duty - Prov 5:18-20
5. What they are now, they always will be - 2 Cor 6:14
6. Every date is a possible mate - Prov 5:3-6
7. Postpone possibilities until parents are perfectly pleased - Rom 13:1-2; Eph 6:1

There were about 17-18 tonight, 2 brand new guests, a few that just come every once in a while, and lots of involvement. Despite a raspy, nasty voice, we had a good time.

Thursday is Valentine’s Day.

Im actually not going to say much about it, BUT we are going to have a special special service on that day only! While the married folks do their own “romantic” thing in the auditorium, WE are having our full and complete service that has nothing to do with love and marriage.

We may be preaching on Korah’s rebellion Thursday and it should be an all-around good time. Make sure and be there! Hey, you can even bring your date! The story is a lot like a movie you would watch. It ends up with the earth swallowing up Korah and fire coming down for 250 others.

See you then!

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It is better to give than to receive. I promise, its true. And we have a great chance to see it!

Jason Holt has more people around him in Chile that want to serve and worship God than can fit in the building he currently has. That’s pretty exciting! His limitation is not the work that he puts in, the people that are wanting to come, or how much God wants to do there. Right now, it is the really unspectacular limitation of SPACE. So we want to help him.

I know Jason Holt doesnt read this blog, and he may never know, but our goal is to be able to give him $150 from Single Focus when he comes in April. So far, we are at $19.50!

I think that is definitely attainable. We have 3 weeks. If only 5 people gave $10/week over the next 3 weeks, we could do it. Or 10 people could give $5….

Lets do it.

Ive just been listening to “OG Radio” with Pastor Gardner interviewing a few missionaries over in Africa and it just makes my heart burn hearing missionaries in the middle of it all.  I imagine that they are largely unaware, probably, of how the mess they go through is anything spectacular.  But it just seems a lot more obvious sitting here in beautiful America hearing the junk they have to go through.   

Now, I know the ministry is not all bad conditions and funny smells, but it sure seems the greatest blessings usually lie just on the other side of a wall of difficulty.  And if we would start to see it that way, it would probably get better at counting it all joy when we fall into these different trials. (Jms 1)  

Maybe we could come up with another name for them.  ”Trials” sounds so negative…