Our Church’s Softball Team in the City League

Our church put together a softball team and entered our city’s co-ed rec league.  We played our first game this past Friday and won 16-4!

I love:

• that we are in a city rec league instead of a church league
• that someone from the other team last Friday night said, “We’re playing a church. We can’t cuss.”
• that our team shirts have our church logo and phrase “where the cross is central” right on the front, along with our website address
• that every player’s shirt has their favorite Bible verse reference on the back between their name and number
• that we pray before and after every game
• that we have great fellowship with people in our church outside of our church
• that there is a good number of our younger people coming out (probably only 5 people on our 20-person roster are above 35 years old)
• that we are encouraging each other during the entire game

I think being part of our city’s rec league

Recap of the Popcorn Festival Outreach

I realized that I haven’t posted anything recapping the weekend our church served at the Baby Comfort Area of the Marion Popcorn Festival. Last week was so busy making final preparations and then serving, and this week and the next couple are full of more exciting opportunities for our church to reach out to people in our community through Back to Church Weekend and the Awakening 2010 events.  I just didn’t do this yet!

Overall, I consider the Baby Comfort Area and our efforts at the festival a success!  We have areas to improve on for doing it again, but it was a great first run with chances to learn from mistakes and improve it.

Here’s the recap:

Why VBS Is a Major Outreach Tool for Our Church

Every year many children come to Central Baptist Church for Vacation Bible School and have a great time hearing Bible stories, singing and dancing to songs, creating crafts, eating snacks, and playing games.  After a week of being with them and meeting their families, what do we do about the unchurched families that we have met?

This questions was seriously considered this year, and I am excited about our VBS Follow-Up Plan that will help us reach out to unchurched families through personal connections for the remainder of the year, not just doing a quick follow-up phone call or visit and then hoping the families will see the need for Christ and a church family on their own.

Why is VBS a major outreach tool?

Monday Morning Rewind: Engaging Our Culture with Truth (Acts 17:16-31)

What are Monday Morning Rewinds?  Click here to see my original post explaining them.

Yesterday’s sermon was the fifth sermon for our 2010 focus for the church: Live Intentionally.  This sermon dealt with the scripture text of Acts 17:16-31.  You can listen to this sermon here.

In yesterday’s sermon, I sought to answer this question:  how can we stand firmly on God’s Word in the midst of the ungodliness around us? With that, the question stands: How can we engage our culture with truth?

I gave some definitions of these words because when you start using these words, people wonder what you’re really talking about.  Engage means to occupy the efforts or attention; Culture is a very broad word that means the ways and makeup of a community- its people, customs, beliefs, possessions, activities, etc. Truth can be easily defined as Jesus did in John 14:6 by saying “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Truth is found in the person and teachings of Jesus Christ.

So, in other words, this message was about how to occupy the attention of people in our community with Jesus Christ.

We started by looking at 2 Corinthians 5:20, a supporting text to our Live Intentionally focus:  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.