Today

Today brought many new faces to our worship gathering at the Warner Theatre. We had a total of 51 people in attendance bringing our monthly average to 59. This is an all time high attendance average.

Next Sunday marks our 30th month into this church plant. We continue to see God working in the lives of people, and lives being changed. But, we still have such a long way to go. At this present time we are facing some creativity issues with the way we do our worship gatherings. Coming from a very conservative background, sometimes we tend to revert back to what we know. This is sad!!! When I was in Seminary, one of the professors would say, "The methods change, but the message never does."

The more I think about this statement, the more it screams at me to be CREATIVE!!! Jesus Christ was creative. He went to the people and used methods that would provoke them to respond to the message. Lost people, unchurched people, and new babes in Christ desire to hear messages that are Biblical and Relevant. They are tired of hearing the facts of the Bible, they are wondering how the Bible can apply to their lives.

As a preacher, and a communicator, it is my job to give people the facts of the Bible, but also the application. If we simply give people the facts all they have is knowledge, but when you give people the facts, and the application, you have WISDOM. Wisdom is understanding what we read or hear and applying it our daily lives. James 1:22-25, "22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." (NKJV)

Life Transformation Groups

It always excites me to see people excited about Life Transformation Groups. LTG's are a huge part of our vision for StoneBridge. We desire that every person in our church be active in a LTG. LTG's are where we do life together. It is where transformation takes place among other believers. And, it is where these small groups, eventually become HomeTeams, which in turn could eventually be the start of a new church.

Multiplication has always been a part of our vocabulary. We desire to see God multiply our LTG's, HomeTeams and church. One of the key verses for our vision is found in 1 Thessalonians 1:8, "8 For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything." (NKJV) We pray for God to use our church to accomplish great things for Him. We realize that with much power, comes great responsibility.

Selah

Selah...Stop and think about what you just read! That's what the word Selah means in the book of Psalms. Tonight, Bro. Scott Bourland preached from the 57th Psalm. He did an outstanding job. Our trip to Point of Rocks went really well. I enjoyed seeing old friends, as well as meeting new ones.

The Missionaries that were present were: Scott Bourland, Nineveh, Indiana, Tim and Janet Simms, Thailand, David and Kelly Helmick, Kosovo and of course, Russell and me. We had a wonderful time of fellowship, plus Heritage Baptist Fellowship gave us an extra $50.00 toward our support fund.

Many times the dreaded trips tend to turn out the best. I have to admit that it was a long trip (approximately 3 hours), but God allowed the trip to go by pretty fast. Russ and I had a good time discussing future events and the progess of our church. Thank you, Lord for keeping us safe and allowing us to give thanks to one of our supporters. Please forgive us when we whine and cry!!!

Point of Rocks

Today, Russell and I are traveling to Point of Rocks, Maryland for a Mission's Conference. We will be leaving around 1:00 pm. We are supposed to meet Pastor Devin in Martinsburg, WV for Chinese. I am not particularly excited about attending this conference, but will use this opportunity to thank the people at Heritage Baptist Fellowship for their monthly, financial support.

One of the good things about this conference is the speaker. Pastor Scott Bourland of Nineveh, Indiana will be the guest speaker for the week. I have known Scott for several years. He has planted three churches and eventually will be looking to plant his fourth. He has done a great work and has the vision of seeing lots of new churches planted in the State of Indiana.

StoneBridge's vision is to see churches planted up and down the I-79 Corridor. We pray for God to use our church to plant a number of churches that will be able to associate together. We pray for God to raise up church planters within our congregation to plant these churches, or for God to send other planters to plant these churches from around the world.

StoneBridge HomeTeams

God has really been blessing our time of fellowship at our HomeTeams. There have been some exciting things taking place. 1) We are seeing our people truly grasp the concept of taking their faith serious. 2) They are actively inviting and investing in the lives of people in Morgantown. This is a good thing.

Tonight, we had a total of 21 people in attendance. We had 12 adults and 9 kids. Our house was filled with noise. My dog was barking, kids were screaming and the ladies were going crazy (because of the kids!!!) :)

We have been studying William Fay and Ralph Hodge's book Share Jesus Without Fear. It is a Video Series on how William Fay shares his faith without fear of failure. This series is teaching all of us new techniques on how to share our faith with others. There are a series of questions and steps to point people to Christ. Russell and I feel led to take our people back through the curriculum again. It is so serious that we must not rush through this information. We desire to memorize the questions and learn the verses so that we can effectively lead people to Jesus Christ.

Another good thing that is taking place in our HomeTeams is growth. We are about to multiply our groups. If we do not multiply, we will eventually dry up on the vine. So, in the next couple of weeks, it is our goal to start moving toward multiplication. Until next time....

Family and Friends Day

Yesterday was an amazing day in the life of our church. God rocked our world. We were so excited to see 99 people in our services. Our goal was 80. As far as we know, there were no salvations recorded, but we heard wonderful comments. Some of the comments were, "Thanks! This is an awesome ministry." "If we lived closer we would definitely come to this church." One person from out of town said, "If you will give me some brochures I will spread the word about your church." We were pumped!!! Thank you, Lord for answering our prayers and for giving us a shot in the arm. We needed that!!!

There were only two negatives: 1) We could not find the projector stand. 2) Russell's computer cord went bad, hence, leaving us with no Media Shout. That was a bummer, but David (our worship leader) pulled it all together and did a fabulous job.

We continue to look forward to what God is going to do with StoneBridge Baptist Church. We are so thriled that God has called us to this wonderful place. Our mission is to Share God's Love with the People of Morgantown and the world in such a way that they have the best opportunity to become fully developing followers of Jesus Christ.

Well, it looks like I'm going to call it a night. It is now 12:41 a.m. I am absolutely worn out. Oh, I almost forgot. Today (actually yesterday), I was educated in Ramp Digging. Ramps are wild onions used for a variety of things. Tonight at our HomeTeams Mr. Ed is going to cook us up some Fried Potatoes with Ramps. I can't wait!!!