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We Need Your Help

Help us create a prospect list!! Fill out the prospects cards found in your Sunday School Room. Think of inactive members, coworkers, neighbors, family members, or casual acquaintances.

Our first Visitation will be Sunday night, March 19.
Meet in the Fellowship Hall
at 5:00 PM.

On Thursday, March 23, we will give out popcorn and cookies during the movie shown to the community during the Fire Ant Festival. This is a great time for us to embrace and interact with our community. Please let Jonathan know if you can make cookies to be given out. You will need to have the cookies at the church on Wednesday, March 22nd, before family night so that we can package them.

We also need volunteers to help distribute popcorn and cookies at Heritage Park from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM. Let Jonathan know if you can help with part or all of this time.

7 FOR 7 PRAYER CARDS

Remember to continue praying for your seven different people or families. Remember, each week, we desire for you to pick a different person or family and pray for them leading up to Easter. Of course, we hope you always remember your church family in prayers, but we desire you to pray for someone who does not attend church regularly or a member who has become inactive. Please commit to praying for this person or family every day.

Besides putting the seven people or families down on your prayer list, fill out the yellow prospect referral cards in your Sunday School class and turn them in. There are extra prayer cards outside Nikki’s office and on the back table of the sanctuary.

Don’t forget to invite them to church.

Witness Traning For Fire Ant Festival

The Turner Baptist Association gives out walking sticks each year as a witnessing opportunity at the Fire Ant Festival. They have a tent set up where we can share the meaning of the salvation beads that are attached to the walking sticks. Our church will help staff the outreach tent on Saturday, March 25, from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM. Please see Bro. David, if you have any questions.

There will be a training for those willing to help on Saturday, March 18, from 10:30 AM-11:30 AM at Morningside Baptist Ashburn.

Giving as of March 14, 2023

Budget for 2023 . . . . . . . .  $348,707.00
Tithes Needed to Date . . . . . $73,765.01
Received to Date . . . . . . . . . $51,302.12
Needed for weekly budget . . .  $6,705.91
Tithes Received this week . . . . $4,636.20

MID-WEEK DEVOTION

Don’t forget to check out Brother David’s Mid-Week Devotion in the book of Psalms. They are uploaded each Wednesday on the sermon page.

From Our Family and Music Minister

As we read through the familiar stories of the Old Testament, how often do we wonder how these individuals could be so stubborn? From patriarchs that waivered in their faith to a whole nation of people who would see God’s hand work and then, in a short time, completely turn their backs on Him, we see stubborn hearts.  Before we judge and do not seek to learn from their mistakes, we must remember how many times we have failed God. There were times when God was speaking, but we didn’t want to hear, or when we saw His hand moving and didn’t want to get involved. How often have we forgotten to let God guide us because we wanted to follow our stubborn ways?

Pharaoh had let his heart become so hard and stubborn that he could never truly submit to the will of God.  Even though we read in Scripture that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, we cannot say that God doomed Pharaoh or took away his will to choose God. Instead, Pharaoh’s heart was hard due to his many choices over the years. Time and time again, he made decisions to do wrong. He found it easier and easier to reject God and give in to the desire of the human flesh. Like so many people today, the more wrong he did, the easier it was for him to do more and more wrong. Pharaoh chose on his own to brutally enslave people, worship false idols, and live against God’s will. His heart was hard because he was too stubborn to change.

It is easy for us to read through the plagues that God sent on Pharaoh and the Egyptian people and wonder how he could remain so stubborn with all of this evidence, discomfort, and misery. But when we read the story, we see that Pharaoh was often willing to free the Israelites. However, when the current plague or uncomfortable circumstance was over, Pharaoh would change his mind and refuse to release the Israelites. How often do we cry to God to rescue us from some terrible trial? We make promises to God to obey and do exactly what He commands. But then, when times get better, we forget the promises that we made and return to our stubborn ways.

The definition of stubborn is “having or showing dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so.” So really think about the last part: “especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so”. We know right from wrong, and we know God’s will. We are just being stubborn not to do it. We can try to justify as much as we want why we aren’t truly following God’s commands. But no matter what, we don’t have a good argument or reason to do so. As we read through the Bible and learn about people in scripture, we need to be willing to learn what God is trying to teach us through the heroes of the faith as well as those who chose to reject God’s grace and forgiveness.