by Pastor Rick | Apr 26, 2024 | Click Date to Respond
Hey MABC family & friends,
Thank you for the prayers regarding Sherry’s health yesterday. After spending the day at home in bed she was able to make the trip to Dallas today to the Church Leaders’ Conference. It is a great place for learning and sharing ideas with other pastors and church leaders. There will be a total of 3200 of them here! During breakout sessions and at meals you are encouraged to sit with people you don’t know and exchange thoughts and ideas with others. Plus, the praise and worship and food are excellent!
What a great day yesterday with Tessie’s baptism! At some point, with her permission, we will share more about her journey to Jesus. It is a decision she didn’t make lightly as there may be a high cost for her to follow Jesus. Continue to prayer for her spiritual protection and prayer for her family.
I hope our message yesterday about being able to recognize a “rooted” or mature believer gives you something to think about in your walk with the Lord. As I said, many people go home after Sunday worship either unchanged or unmotivated to make changes in their life. Look, none of us will have it all together until we get to see Jesus face to face and that includes me. Just ask Sherry! I am still a work in progress myself. As I worked on that message during the week I asked myself the very question I asked you to ask of yourself: Are people’s faith stronger for having interacted with me? James 3:1 says those that teach will be held to a higher standard! That’s why I don’t take my preaching and teaching lightly.
There is a story told about President Abraham Lincoln going to church one Wednesday evening with one of his companions. He was always allowed to sit in the pastor’s study with the door open so he could hear the message without having to interact with the crowd. After the message as they walked back to the White House, the companion asked the president what the thought of the message. President Lincoln said “It was brilliantly conceived, biblically relevant and well presented.” The companion replied “So it was a great sermon?” “No,” the president replied. Iit failed.” It failed because the pastor did not ask us to do something great.’
Please know this. I will always challenge us to do more and do it better. Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great” says that good is the enemy of great. Why you ask? If you think you are good enough, or our church is good enough, we will never be motivated to achieve greatness. Kasey Kasem was a radio show host of The Top 40 Countdown. He would always close his show by encouraging his listeners to “keep their feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.” From what I can understand from reading about him, he meant keep it real but don’t get complacent.
Have you gotten complacent in your faith? Are you roots deep in Jesus or just below the surface? Wide maybe but not very deep? Is your foundation solid? Or are you building on shifting sands?
Have a great week. I know that Sherry and I will have one. It is so fun to get with other leaders and hear what is going on in the Kingdom Church.
Pastor Rick
by Pastor Rick | Apr 15, 2024 | Click Date to Respond
Hey MABC family & friends,
Sherry and I hope you had a great day of worship yesterday. Thank you for the time away with our granddaughters in the KC area. It was a busy weekend with recital practice, recital, and a couple of rec league volleyball games. Sandwiched in there was Sunday worship with one of our granddaughters. And other than a “little” Kansas wind, the weather was beautiful. As you know, our current method for working together was based on having the time to do just that in my “retirement” years – spend more time with family.
On the Sunday after Easter, I shared with you the importance of church membership and what I thought the commitment of a church member should be. I told you that I have a vision for every church member of one hour of worship, one hour small group of some sort and one hour of service weekly. If we tithed on our time to the Lord that would be 16.8 hours. Three hours hardly seems like much compared to that. I have a great way for some of you to join me in getting in your one hour per week of service and be engaged in some outreach.
Lawrence Elementary School is just down the road a piece on Maple. They are needing volunteers to come and make an impact in their school. They can use help in the Library shelving books and maybe reading to children. You may just show up for an hour at lunchtime and visit with kids in the cafeteria. If you are more active you can go out to the playground! If you don’t like kids (gasp!) but want to serve, they will make arrangements to work in the office and make copies for teachers. I have met with Cindy the principal and she is excited to see how we can be a part of what they are doing. Next year will be a busy year as they absorb some students from Payne Elementary located on Harry and Meridian. It is one of the schools being closed down as part of USD 259 budget cuts. It is easy to volunteer. I am including the link to the volunteer sign up. It is of no cost to you and takes very little time. I filled out the form Wednesday about 3:30 pm after meeting with Cindy and was approved the next morning. Just click on the “Fill out form” link in the colored box. Use the side bar to scroll down on the form.
http://www.usd259.org/volunteerregistration
Let me know when you sign up! We also have the opportunity to make an impact on the staff! May 6-10 is Teacher Appreciation Week. I know how much you all love desserts as witnessed by the room full of them when we had the lunch for Sherry and me. I will have a sign-up sheet out in the foyer and would love to inundate the teachers and staff with goodies for the week. They do not have to be individually wrapped for the faculty/staff lounge. Let’s end the school year on a big note and signify that we are ready to partner with LES in making a difference in our community.
We also have an opportunity for “in-house” service with our tech team. We need additional people to learn sound and audio/visual production for our worship services. As we look to expand our production for outreach purposes, we will need your help. Reach out to Phil or Stacy Roenne if you want to know more.
Thanks again for the Sunday away. Look forward to our new series on the “Growing Christian” this Sunday.
Pastor Rick
by Pastor Rick | Apr 10, 2024 | Click Date to Respond
Good Morning MABC family and friends,
I hope you are preparing for an interesting day as we await the “total eclipse” later this morning and early afternoon. I think in our area we are to expect around 87% of total eclipse. The next opportunity for us in America to view another total eclipse is 2044.
Yesterday’s message focused on Jesus’ question to Peter there on the shore of Galilee. It had been some time since the two had seen each other and Jesus knows His time on earth is coming to an end. He has business to attend with Peter, the one whom He has chosen to be the leader of the Church moving forward. After the events of Holy Week, Jesus needs Peter to affirm his love and trust in Him. Jesus knows that things are going to get tough for those who chose to follow Him after He returns to His Father in Heaven.
Do you love me more than these? We aren’t sure what “these” Jesus was talking about in Peter’s case. Jesus asks us the question as well. What is the “these” in your life that keeps you from being “all in?” What is it that holds you back from total surrender? Does Jesus have every part of your day except at work? Are there things you say and do at work that those who sit near you in church might think are questionable? Do you flirt with line between honesty and dishonesty? The so called “gray areas?” Men, when you are out with the “boys” what is your conversation like? Your jokes? Your stories? Ladies, when you are gathered with your friends, who do you talk about?
All of us battle something. Satan is a wary adversary and he knows our weaknesses. He loves it when he gets us going in the wrong direction, saying the wrong things, and doing things which might cause others to question the sincerity of our faith life and damage our witness. He loves when he can get us isolated and alone. That is why we need each other. We need community. We need the church. Not the building but the people.
Most importantly, we need Jesus. Until the day we enter into our eternity we will fight this battle with “these.” The battle goes a little easier when we follow the plan of our leader, the Lord Jesus. He has a plan for us and his ways are good. And, He has already defeated Satan at Easter and is coming back to make all things right. Put your trust in Him in Him and Him alone.
Your “these” will come and go but Jesus has promised to be with us always.
I will not be in the office this morning. I will be over tomorrow for the pastors’ cluster meeting and an Evangelism/Missions team meeting.
Have a great week. Don’t look at the eclipse without protection!
Pastor Rick
by Pastor Rick | Apr 1, 2024 | Click Date to Respond
Good morning MABC,
Wow! What a great morning of celebrating the resurrection! It was so great to meet some of your families including children and grandchildren. The church looked good with some of the updates, the breakfast fellowship was wonderful, and then we started taking photos! It was exciting. We even had some more photos after worship was over. As we posted pictures on Facebook they became some of our most viewed and liked posts. Now, continue to share the posts to your personal page and invite your friends to like or follow our church page. The more likes and follows the more our page gets noticed and gets better placement in searches. This gives us more opportunities to expose people to the Gospel and help grow the Kingdom. Our focus should be Kingdom growth. When we do that, I believe God will grant us favor and give us what we need as a church whether that means more resources or even more opportunities to share the Gospel with those in our community.
Speaking of our community, we have some opportunities coming up to make an impact. I have been made aware of some opportunities for us at Lawrence Elementary School for the remainder of the year. A couple of the opportunities are very doable for us. The first is something simple. They are looking for volunteers to come in for one hour a day to help in the Library. Simple things like placing books back on the shelves or even reading to the students. The other is Teacher Appreciation Week the first full week in May. How great would it be to shower the teachers and staff with a variety of snacks and goodies during that week We can do big events like Easter but I believe we will make the most difference with consistent little efforts. I am hoping to meet with the principal at Lawrence Elementary on Wednesday to find out the process for volunteers getting approved.
As for upcoming messages, I feel led to dig into discipleship. Our mission as a church is “To Make Disciples.” We have spent the first three months of my time with you talking about the need for revival and evangelism. Both of those are key to making disciples as the first part of the Great Commission is to “go.” Then Jesus said to “teach these new disciples.” As we help people come to know Jesus as their Savior, we need to help come to understand His lordship and what that looks like in their lives. Still trying to sort it all out but it will fall at a good time on the calendar as we have a baptism on April 21st.
As to calendar, I am not in the office this morning but working for home. Tomorrow we have an Evangelism/Missions meeting and men’s lunch gathering so I will spend some time in the office tomorrow morning. Sherry and I will be out of town the weekend of April 14th. We have some friends in the KC area we need to check up on but most importantly we want to spend some time with our “grands” up there and be at some of their activities. We have a music recital to go to on Sunday and some volleyball matches to attend. I believe Pastor Fred will be back to share with you all that Sunday.
Remember, Easter is more than just a day! See Les’ email update. It is a spirit we live in throughout the year.
Pastor Rick
by Pastor Rick | Mar 25, 2024 | Click Date to Respond
Good Monday morning (afternoon?),
It’s been a busy morning in the office and I am getting around a little later than usual for our Rewind!
Wasn’t yesterday a great morning of worship! The choir did a great job of sharing the story of Holy Week in their cantata titled “A Living Hope.” I know they worked hard on this for you all. When I started in January they were practicing! That’s almost 3 months! It was a blessing and I hope that as you see them in church you thank them personally.
This Sunday is Easter and it will be another wonderful day of worship. We are preparing for “rain” as I like to say. Extra greeters, nursery workers, children’s church and more. I have been asking you to invite your “three” and for some of you the work paid off. Your invited guests showed up. It may have been uncomfortable to ask but it pays off. We must continue to get out of our comfort zones just as Jesus did in heading to Jerusalem for Passover week. Scripture says he “resolutely set out for Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51 NLT). Resolutely means purposeful, determined, and/or unwavering. He knew what was ahead – terrible pain and agony – yet he ventured forth. Our little uneasiness at reaching out and inviting others to come hear the message of Jesus is nothing compared to what Jesus endured.
Keep working on your “three.” If you had one of your “three” come this past Sunday, reconnect with them, ask them what they thought and invite them back to a “regular” service. Don’t forget you can throw in the bonus of biscuits and gravy, muffins and fruit at 9:15 am before worship! If your “three” didn’t come, don’t give up…be purposeful, determined, unwavering. Billy Graham tells the story of a lady in England that failed her driver’s license test 37 times but she showed up for number 38!
I will ask you to do one more thing for me and it is a relatively easy way to share Jesus and invite others to join you at Meridian Avenue Baptist Church. When you go to Facebook and see a post or video on our page, don’t just like it. Click SHARE so that others in your circle of friends and acquaintances who don’t follow our page can see what is going on here at MABC. We have 209 followers. If each of you had at least 100 friends and half of you shared…that would give us the possibility of 10,500 exposures. Let me check my math…1/2 of 209 is about 105 x 100 friends = 10,500! Not bad for a Health/Wellness instructor turned pastor! Now, not everyone will see your share but then again if even half of them did it would be awesome.
Have a blessed Holy Week. I am looking forward to seeing what God is going to do in us and through us this week.
Pastor Rick