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