Announcements
THANK YOU: We want to thank our church family for the outpouring of love, prayers, and thoughtful cards following the passing of my mother. Each message brought comfort and strength during a difficult time. We are deeply grateful for the kindness we felt and are truly blessed to have such a loving church home (1 John 4:7). Love In Christ, Rob & Terri Ward
VBS AND TEEN REVIVAL: Both take place Sunday, July 13 through Thursday, July 17. Registering your child for VBS can be done through the Church website or at the Welcome Desk.
COOKIE DONATIONS NEEDED: We are in need of cookies (no nuts) for VBS. Please sign up at the Welcome Desk. Cookies need to be dropped off in the Church Kitchen by Sunday, July 13.
MISSION TRIP: The teens left yesterday for their mission trip to Puerto Rico. They will be returning on Monday, July 7. Please keep them all in prayer while they are gone.
From My Heart
THE MEASURE OF A MAN’S MINISTRY
By Dr. Curtis Hutson
Can a man’s ministry be measured? Yes, it can. A study reveals that Christians of outstanding success through the ages have been those who were the great soul winners, men with a strong, almost consuming passion for the lost.
See, first, the example of Jesus. Never was there such a compassionate winner of men! He saw people as sheep having no shepherd and “had compassion on them.” He wept over Jerusalem. He sought the fallen woman to forgive her; the publican to make him an example.
O Saviour, teach us so to love sinners, to weep over them, find pillows hard, food tasteless, and life not worth living until we get them saved! Send us out with compassion and tears to win the lost!
Then we have Paul. How he wept over sinners! He so longed for the salvation of his countrymen that he said, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” A stoning...a shipwreck...a Philippian jail could not quench Paul’s tears for lost men.
D. L. Moody may have well been the greatest evangelist of all time, in a 40-year period, winning a million souls. He was sold out to soul-winning. He determined that daily, he would personally witness to at least one individual about his soul. And he did.
Soul winning was the heartbeat of John R. Rice. In a Christmas letter, dictated a few days before his death, he bared his soul-winner’s heart: “I still, from my armchair, preach in great revivals. I still vision hundreds walking the aisles to accept Christ. I still feel hot tears for the lost...I want no Christmas without a burden for lost souls, a message for sinners, a heart to bring in the lost. May food be tasteless, music a discord, Christmas a farce if I forget the dying millions; if this fire in my bones does not still flame. Not till I die or not till Jesus comes will I ever be eased from this burden, these tears, this toil to save souls.”
“...but every Christian holds in his hand the Gospel of pardon for whosoever will accept it. Tragically, so many die without that pardon because we fail to tell them the gospel story.
This message has been adjusted to fit this space.