May 2018 From the Pastor s Desk In our family recently, we found ourselves going around the dinner table with gripes and complaints about all of the bad things that happened in the day. It was MISERABLE. So, we stopped. Instead, everyone took their turn and we went around the table sharing something good that happened that day. Then we went around again and shared something we were thankful for. As I write to you today, many of the things for which I am thankful are the good things that are going on in our church. Here s a list of some of the things I am most grateful for. Praying women. Over and over again, as I listen to stories of changed men, I hear the stories of faithful, loving, praying wives who didn t give up. Faithful men. The number of men who God is calling into leadership roles within our church amazes me. People outside of our church probably get tired of hearing me talk about how many men (especially young men) God is raising up in our church. Vibrant children s ministry. Rhonda Adams and all of those who invest in our children make this a great place for kids and families. Amazing volunteers. Right now I am amazed with the volunteers in our student ministry. In the absence of a student pastor, they have stepped up to the plate big time. A great staff. I am so grateful for our staff who care well for the Klock of God here at Malvern Hill. Six different men preached in April. Let that sink in. Six of our own church members preached here in April and there are others who are probably chomping at By Craig Thompson the bit. Financial health. God continues to bless our church Kinancially and I am grateful to him for that. Incredible facilities. I love our facilities so much, I want to Kind even more ways for them to be utilized. Incredibly supportive senior adults. The age of our church continues to trend younger each week, but we stand on the shoulders of seniors who have prayed and sacrikiced for this church for many years. My wife. She is a gift to me, and as such is a gift to our church. I am grateful that she loves Jesus and our church and that she is willing and able to carry so much of the load in our home so that I can serve here as your pastor. God is doing great things at Malvern Hill, but now is not the time to slow down. We must lean in to Christ. Go, invite someone to come with you to church this Sunday as we work together to love God, love others, and change the world. Inside this Issue: Children s Ministry........................ 2 Missions Emphasis....................... 3 Prime Timers Ministry................... 4 From the Church Library.................. 4 Upcoming Events.......................... 5 Student Ministry.......................... 6 Discipleship Ministry..................... 6 Calendar, Birthdays, and Anniversaries.... 7
Children s Ministry I think from time to time we need to step back to determine why we do what we do. I think that is just as important for the church. We tend to do things because they are tradition instead of effective. One of the things we need to look at is Vacation Bible School. It takes a lot of resources to put on a good, effective VBS, both in people and money. Though it has changed tremendously and may even be difkicult to recognize in present day from the past, many churches have done VBS in some form or other for generations. I believe it is still a useful tool for the church to spread the gospel but only if it is done well and intentionally. The following are the reasons I believe VBS should still be a major program for churches. It is an opportunity to share the gospel with kids. Many of the children in our community are not churched. Parents will not take them to church on Sundays or Wednesdays, but they will drop them off for Vacation Bible School. Where else can we get that many children in one place in an environment in which we can share the gospel? It is still a great outreach opportunity. Many unchurched adults today need more than one exposure to the church in order to attend even a Sunday morning worship service. I believe that we have to provide more than one opportunity each year for that exposure to happen. VBS is one of those times. Parents get a chance to hear the gospel. Because of the way that we do Family Night, parents get a chance to hear the gospel without being distracted by their children. Kids love it. The frenzy that Vacation Bible School brings makes me laugh every time I think of it. I have heard, I m so excited, I just can t stand it!, and that was before VBS even started. Kids love it because it s fun. When a child is having fun, they are more relaxed. When they are more relaxed, they are able to learn more easily and retain what they have learned. It makes Malvern Hill kids proud of their church. This is one of the reasons I am willing to put in the number of hours I do for VBS. I want our kids to be proud of their church because this is a memory that will be ingrained in them as they reach adulthood. What we are proud of, we want to be a part of. It gives everyone something to invite people to. I believe one of the responsibilities of church leadership is to provide opportunities for church members to invite unchurched family and friends. It is a lot easier to invite someone to a special event and have them accept the invitation than to invite them to a Sunday worship service. 2 By Rhonda Adams It gives Malvern Hill kids a chance to spend time together. This, I believe, is so important because the friendships forged in children s ministry can help a child feel as though he/she belongs to something greater than themselves. We all need to feel like we belong to something. It gives us a sense of purpose. It gives the adults working in VBS a chance to build relationships with the children. We tend to want to be around those we have close relationships with. It can help adult VBS staff in their relationships with God. You may Kind that remark funny or strange, but for those who have worked in VBS for many years, you know what I am talking about. VBS is one of the hardest things I do, but it is also one of the most rewarding. There s a phrase in children s ministry that most who work in children s ministry understand. When someone says or writes, I m not just tired, I m VBS tired, we all know what that means. It is what is difkicult in life that either brings us closer to God or further away. When we stretch ourselves in service thus relying on God for strength, we grow closer to Him. It can help adult VBS staff develop relationships with each other. When we look at each other, laugh, and say, Well, we survived another one, we re only half joking. It helps build camaraderie as we deal together with situations that we may not encounter otherwise. Last but certainly not least, I think Jesus is pleased when He sees that many children gathered in one place learning about Him. According to Barna Research, 30% of those churches in 2012 who did not offer a Vacation Bible School gave the reason of not having enough volunteers. I pray that as long as VBS is effective for us, this will not be the case for Malvern Hill! There is a place for you in our VBS! Even if you cannot work directly with the kids, you may Kind your place in gathering with others to pray during VBS, you may Kind your place in helping with registration, you may Kind your place in helping in the kitchen, etc. So much to do, so many opportunities to serve! Upcoming Dates To Remember Sunday, May 13, 10:30 AM Children will recognize the women of the church Sunday, May 20, 4:00 PM VBS Meeting Friday, June 1 Deadline for online Camp Longridge registration June 4-7 Vacation Bible School Friday, June 8, 6:00 PM Family Night July 9-13 Camp Longridge Sunday, August 26, 10:30 AM Children s Sunday
Missions Emphasis: VacaBon Bible School Missions and evangelism are in the DNA of Christianity. Ultimately, we are called to only three things: love God, love our neighbors, and change the world with the gospel. Vacation Bible School presents a fantastic opportunity for us to live out all three of these callings. We serve in VBS because we love the Lord, because we love our neighbors, and because we want to see men, women, boys and girls come to know Jesus through His gospel. I hope that you are volunteering in VBS, we need all the help we can get. I also hope that you are committed to praying for VBS. God works in response to the prayers of his people. Please spend time praying for God to bless our VBS volunteers with patience and wisdom. Pray that God will prepare the hearts of the children to receive the gospel and that the gospel will be clearly presented throughout the week. Pray especially that the gospel will be clearly presented and understood on Wednesday night. Pray also that I will be able to share the gospel in a way that can be understood on family night, Friday. Finally, 3 By Craig Thompson pray for the follow-up and discipleship that is necessary in the weeks that follow VBS. Jesus commanded us to make disciples, not converts. We must labor to disciple new converts and see them baptized into faithful membership in a local church. Missions and evangelism are not options for believers. You are commanded to share the gospel. If you are not sharing the gospel, pray that God would burden you for evangelism and that he would give you the courage to share. Pray that God would present you with opportunities for evangelism. But, even as you pray, get busy. Do not wait. Evangelism is a command of the Lord and commands are meant to be obeyed. Pray that God will help you, but until you feel more evangelistic, you are still called to be obedient. May God bless you as you seek to obey his command to, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).
From the Church Library How should we approach our reading? As a person who loves books and spends a great amount of time and money investing in books, here are a few rules by which I try to live. Read regularly. I usually set a reading goal at the beginning of every year and in so doing think carefully through how many books I want to read each year. To read a lot of books, there isn t a special secret you have to spend lots of time reading. Be found often with a book in your hand. If you are like me and can get bored easily, read two or three books of different kinds at a time. Read widely. I love reading books on preaching, on theology, and on the church. But, those can sometimes get very dry and my people tire of hearing my preaching illustrations about preaching. Reading in other disciplines expands my mind, opens the door for new illustrations, and gives me insight into the way others within our culture may be thinking. Read narrowly. This is not contradictory. As important as it is to read widely, you should also identify a couple of areas that you want to master. During certain seasons of life, I narrow down to focus Prime Timers Ministry Our spring season has been very unpredictable. People keep asking me how my garden is doing. I have been answering that it doesn t know to come up or go down. One day will be spring-like and the next day it s like winter again. That s kind of like life, one day things seem to be going Kine, but the next day life is turned upside down. That s why I m glad we have a God that never changes. By Craig Thompson on particular areas. After your formal education has ended, don t stop learning. Read wisely. I heard John MacArthur talk about his reading habits a while back. He reads about 15 commentaries on a passage of scripture before he preaches it. He also claims to have books all over his house because he reads in several different places, but he cautions against reading anything that casts doubt on the authority of Scripture. John MacArthur, one of the great pastor/theologians of our day carefully avoids books that might cause doubt to creep into his mind regarding the authority of Scripture. Not everything that has been written needs to be read. Practice discretion with your reading. Read corporately. I love getting alone with a good book, writing in the margins, wrestling with the text, and being confronted with the arguments. I often get even more from a book when I take that same book into a room with others and wrestle together with the claims the book makes. Books make for great training and equipping tools, they also create wonderful discussion guides to direct group learning. The full article, The Pastor and His Books, can be found online at craigthomspson.org. May Prime Timers Events By Buster Morris Lynch Mission Trip - April 30 - May 4 Karesh Wing Ministry - May 10, 2:30 PM Prime Timer Picnic - May 17 10:30 AM - 2:00 PM Springdale Ministry - May 24, 2:30 PM God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? Numbers 23:19 (NLT) How comforting it is to know that everything our God promises is true and never-changing, even as we see our world is in constant change. Let us rest in His unchanging grace. Speaking about unchanging. God has blessed us. This will be the thirteenth year of our senior adults and a couple of adopted seniors going on mission to Lynch Kentucky. We were blessed to go and share God s love, compassion and good news with those in need physically and spiritually. Thanks for the support and prayers. 4
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GeneraBon180 Student Ministry Parents, does your teen seem depressed, anxious, or overwhelmed? Consider these statistics from a 2017 study on teen mental health by the organization Mental Health America: 12% of youth report suffering from at least one major depressive episode in the past year. 1.9 million youth experienced severe depression. Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56% more likely to say they are unhappy. Teens who spend three or more hours a day on electronic devices are 35% more likely to have a risk factor for suicide. There s a difference between anxiety and depressionas well as how you should handle them. This month s Parenting Teens magazine addresses teen anxiety and how you can know when it s time to seek professional help. If you do not currently receive Parenting Teens, ask your LifeGroup leader to request it for you. Discipleship Ministry It s now May. If you made a New Year s resolution for any reason, chances are that you ve long given up by now. Maybe one of those resolutions was to do better about reading your Bible or praying. Maybe it was to give up that little pet sin you ve been hanging onto for years. You did okay for a couple of weeks in January. Then it got hard. You missed a few days. Missed a few weeks. And by now you realize there s no way to catch up, so you ve just quit. Some things are worth persisting over. Some things just need a fresh start. The problem with resolutions is that they tend to be patches or course corrections of already faulty things. In the case of our faith lives, we try to patch new spiritual habits onto our lives or course correct toward a better spiritual health. Yet, it rarely seems to work. Why? Without getting into too much psychological detail, our brains are hardwired to make predetermined connections between decisions. When we try to patch something new, what we are essentially trying to do is train our brain to reroute an old, deeply rooted, 6 By Keven Newsome connection. That s like trying to pull a wagon out of deep ruts. Sometimes the solution is to go back to the beginning and create a new path, a new road, one that goes the correct direction to begin with. As a good friend told me recently, sometimes God wants to shuck us to the cob and rebuild us the way he wants. So if you re struggling with those resolutions or feel stuck spiritually in a bad place, let me encourage you to stop trying to patch things. Instead, be willing to go back to the beginning with God. Start with the very basics of life and spirituality and let God build a brand new road for you to travel. Take a brief moment to forget everything you ve learned about praying, reading your Bible, or being the right kind of Christian, and then Kind the resources and mentors that can help you relearn those things from scratch. Sometimes this kind of fundamental renewing process is just what we need to get our lives in the place that God wants us to be.
MAY 2018 sunday monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Finance Committee Mtg. Deacons' Mtg. Senior Mission Trip to Lynch, KY Mission Bible Study Mission Prayer Group Karesh Wing Ministry 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Baptism Service Senior Gen 180 Love, Serve, Give Picnic Nerf War Mother s Day Happy Birthday May 4 ShawnTarte May 6 David Simmons May 7 Thomas AusGn May 9 Tara Truesdale May 10 Dick Haudenshild SloanThompson May 11 Sandra Hunter George Dixon SarahNewsome May 13 John T Arledge Wya9 Thompson May 14 Rhonda Adams Wanda Milliski Elijah Johnson May 15 Virginia Morris May 17 Leroy Boykin May 19 MacKenzie Sparks May 20 Leigh Gunter May 21 Diana Taylor May 22 Nathaniel Johnson May 25 Janice Joyner May 26 Courtney Young May 27 Amy Williams Jimmy Lantz Dianne Dixon May 28 Tristan McReadie May 30 Charles Bristow 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Senior Sunday VBS Meeting Next Steps Class Youth Sunday Rehearsal Springdale Ministry Men s Bible Study 27 28 29 30 31 1 2 May 13 May 19 May 24 May 29 Happy Anniversary Jim & Mary Mathis Merci & Farrell Hair Johnny & MeredithMorris Keven & DeAnna Newsome Youth Sunday Memorial Day 7
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