Where Did The Power Go?

Yesterday we had a gully-washer! At least that is what we called it in Georgia. It rained so hard and so long that I was afraid we were going to have to begin a new "Ark-Building Ministry." Just before supper, the power went out and stayed out until later last night. I was amazed when church time came that we had about as many sitting there in a dark auditorium for church as we normally have on a Wednesday night when the power is on. We sang and had a great time as I preached by flashlight. As I thought about the power outage, I realized that we were aware the entire time that there was no power. We still sang like usual but we had no power. We made announcements as usual but we had no power. I preached as usual but we had no power. Do you see where I am going with this? Many churches meet every service as usual and they go through the same rituals week after week, but there is no power. The saddest part of all is that they do not even realize there is no power. I pray that there will never be a time at Community Baptist Church that we will meet and not have the power of God on all that we do. I do not want to look back one day and say, "Where did the power go?"

Jesus Was Our "MAINE" Mission

As you know by now, we just returned from our Teen Mission Trip to Maine where we spent a week helping our missionary, Bro. Todd Bell, and the Calvary Baptist Church of Sanford, Maine. It was a tiring week but, to God be the glory, by the end of the trip we had seen many saved and others who were interested in the church, there. I was able to lead two teenage girls to the Lord and the next day one of them brought her cousin and SHE got saved! We spent the mornings visiting for VBS and the evenings knocking on doors inviting people to the Gospel Tent Meeting held each night. Bro. Bell is doing a terrific job there in Maine. It is a tough area and many are cold toward the gospel. Visitation there is much more difficult than in the South where people are a little more receptive. But God showed us He can even work in the tough areas, too. While out visiting one afternoon, we came across three teenage boys all dressed in black. At first glance they looked like the last ones you would expect to come to a tent meeting. But to our surprise they showed up! In fact, they even came back the next morning to VBS and my oldest son, Tyler and another young adult in our group, Bro. Travis, led two of those boys to the Lord! We have posted a DVD of our trip on our church web site. If you would like to see it, go to www.cbcsilercity.org and click on the "Photo Galleries" page and you will see a link to watch the DVD. What a blessing it is that God would use us to reach people in an area we have never been to. This trip has fired us up to come back and reach Siler City to the Lord. So, we plan to make it our "MAINE" mission down here, as well.