Seeking God’s Vision

The proverbs have always been a place where God’s people have found strength and courage to follow the Lord in paths of righteousness.  Paths that bring honor to the name of the Lord and blessing to the people of God.  We at the Minden Church of Christ are no different.  It is our earnest desire to be pleasing to God, his Son and his Spirit.

We read from God’s word, “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Proverbs 29:18, KJV).   Where so many churches seem to be perishing or slowly dying out we want to be happy and prospering spiritually and numerically.  Please keep Keith and our men in prayer as they seek God’s vision.

Welcome Home Christopher Robinson!

What a joy it is when a family member has the opportunity to return home after a long stay abroad.  Such joy is ours as we anxiously look forward to the return of Christopher Robinson from Japan.

Chris will be here with us next Sunday morning as we share in worshipping the Lord together with him.

You will enjoy a special time during the Bible School Hour as Chris will share with us the challenges, excitement and the joy he has witnessed while serving as a missionary for us in Japan.  I am sure that you will also want to ask Chris many questions about the hardships he faced following the earthquake and hear from him how the Lord has provided for him and those he served to meet their every need.

Also, Chris will be delivering the Sunday morning Address from the pulpit on Sunday, February 12, 2012.

Chris will also be bringing his future wife with him so that we will have an opportunity to meet her and welcome her to our fellowship.

There will be a pot-luck to follow worship services while Chris is here so you might have the opportunity to sit down across the table and visit with this fine young man.

So please remind your friends and family members to come and give Chris a great big warm and loving welcome next week

A special collection will be taken up next week to help support Chris’ work in Japan.

Welcome home from,

Keith and your entire church family!

Come and Learn about America’s Christian Heritage

There is a lot of talk in the news through the past several years about separation of church and state, if America is, was or ever should be a Christian Nation.  Come and learn the truth to these questions from the very words penned by the Founding Fathers of these United States.  Learn what George Washington thought about God and country.  Learn what other presidents, congressmen, and supreme court justices thought during the birthing of and the early years of our great nation.

You may be suprised to learn of the depth of devotion that these men had for the founding of these United States upon the principles of Holy Scripture.  You will learn that the separation of powers: Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government were inspired from God’s word.  You will learn how that the United States Capital and the Treasury building served early on, not only as buildings of government, but even as church buildings.  You will discover that it was the church that began the public school system.  And you will discover that Congress was the first American Bible Society.  Such was the intent of the great men that helped to shape this great nation.

Let’s not let our legacy of greatness and goodness pass us by.  Let’s learn the history of our nation and the men that helped to shape this great nation.  It was considered that if one spoke against Christ, one spoke against these United States, and it was considered treason. Let’s be drawn into the great drama of defending our faith in God and this nation that was built upon the principles laid by in store in God’s Holy Book.  In challenging times such as these we must learn to defend two great documents, one being the Bible, the other the Constitution of the United States.

Join us then on Wednesday evenings at 6 PM as we consider what it means to be a Christian in America.

God bless America,

Keith

Summer Adult Bible School Series

Life can be challenging enough, that is for sure!  And there seems to be more and more friends and family members I know going through increasing amounts of challenge.  What are we to make of it all?  If we don’t have the proper perspective during the dry and difficult seasons of our lives things can begin to feel pointless.  But with a proper understanding we gain a new and fresh perspective on life, our place in it as well as a deeper relationship with God.  With this thought in mind the Minden Church of Christ invites you to our Adult Bible Study Series “Making Sense of It All”.

Our Sunday Morning Bible class will be asking the question, “Are We There Yet?: A Journey From Grumble to Humble“.  We will be taking a look at the journey God has us on in this life and discover there is much to appreciate.

On Wednesday Evenings we will begin a longer and more intensive study “Celebrating the Wrath of God” (a book by brother Jim McGuiggan).  The effort here will be for us to have a greater understanding of what is going on around us in a world that is filled with what seems to be increasing natural disasters and personal tragedy.

From the back cover of Jim’s book, “Just by living, we see and experience how agonizing life can be.  We are surrounded by child abuse and neglect, starving families, premature deaths of those we love, natural disasters, and global disease.  How could a God worthy of respect and worship allow such a world to exist?”

Furthermore we find, “There are no simple answers. But there is hope.  Author Jim McGuiggan believes that suffering may in fact be the last thing we expect — an expression of God’s wrath, which in turn is nothing other than his relentless, loving pursuit of us.  If this is true, then suffering is a vital part of God’s work to redeem his creation.  Give this claim a hearing, and you just might see the suffering world in a new way–a world shot through with glory and hope and assurance.” (Back Cover of Jim’s insightful book)

So please, come join us on Sunday Mornings (9:30 AM) for “Are We There Yet?”, as well as Wednesday Evenings (6:00 PM) for “Celebrating the Wrath of God” (using the Bible and Jim’s book as our texts).  I know you will be blessed.  Looking forward to seeing you there!  May God bless you on your journey of faith!

Sincerely,

Keith

Post-Flood Worship Service Sunday Morning

It will be so good to see everyone in worship Sunday morning to praise the Lord.  It feels like it has been a month since we have all seen one another.  I am looking forward to seeing all the smiling faces and hearing the laughter as we gather together and join in fellowshiping and encouraging one another tomorrow.

While all the water has been removed, there remains work to be done with new carpets, new baseboards and some repair to the family bathroom.  Soon all this will be completed and we will be moving towards our Easter Service.

So, bring your family, bring your friends and let us one and all sing praise to the Lord.

Living big in Jesus,

Keith

Water Damage & Restoration Prevents Wednesday Evening Classes

The leadership looks forward to seeing everyone at services this Sunday (April 3, 2011).

Most of you are aware that Saturday afternoon there was standing water inside much of the back of the church building as well as in half the auditorium.  Services were held this past Sunday at the Northside Church of Christ.  We owe our brothers there a debt of thanks for welcoming us into the fold to worship the Lord.

Presently, all the machinery, blowers and dehumidifiers remain in place in much of the first level at the Minden Church of Christ building preventing the use of the facility this Wednesday.

Soon this equipment will be removed and the remaining restoration will take place.  Both the nursery and the cry room will be getting new carpet.  Also, the 2nd and 3rd grade class room will be getting new carpet.  All three bathrooms downstairs will get new flooring.  There will be a few walls getting new baseboards as well.  The remaining red carpet will be cleaned and deoderized.  The lower portion of some walls have been treated to prevent mold and mildew to insure structural integrity and keep allergy sufferers from having any concerns.  Please be patient as the restoration continues for a couple of weeks.

Again, we do look forward to seeing everyone in service at the Minden Church of Christ this Sunday morning.

Your brother,

Keith

Back to the Basics, a Little More Fruit Please!

The Minden Church of Christ is like a lot of churches in the United States.  She has seen both spiritual and numerical growth in the past.  She has sent missionaries around the world.  She has had a thriving youth ministry.  Still today, there are men and women on several continents that have had close ties to this great church.

But she has also seen a decline in each and every one of those areas.  It’s really no big surprise because many mainstream churches in the United States have faced these same challenges.  And this has increasingly become a concern for the leadership for the church in Minden, Louisiana.

So what’s a good church to do?  Could there be a relatively easy fix (well, with a good dose of discipline)?  I believe that is the case.  We don’t have to rewrite church history and church doctrine; we just need to revisit it.  We simply need to go back to the things that have made the church great throughout the centuries.  Much like any great sports team, we need to go back to the basics!

We need to be a people who practice repentance and humility once again.  We need to have a passion for the simple things that the Lord asks us to share in each and every day.  Things like “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control.“  The Apostle Paul said these things are “the fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22-23. 

Mom always said, if I wanted to grow strong, one of the main things I needed was a basic diet filled with good fruit.  And that is true of the church today just as it was yesterday.  So let’s ask the Lord to pile our spiritual plates full of the fruit of the Spirit.  A little more love, joy, peace and patience please; after all it does a body good!

Living big in Jesus,

Keith C. Brown