Parents Night Out Care

Over the next few months we will offer several Parents Night Out events. We hope you will take advantage of one of these opportunities. We do ask that you sign-up for them by the Wednesday before to avoid having to pay an extra $10 per each child! 
 

Fees: One Child: $25; Two Children: $30; Three Children: $35

January 12: Dinner will be pizza and fruit! Participants will create snowman mobiles!
February 2: Dinner will be spaghetti and breadsticks! Participants will create paper plate heart wreaths!
February 16: Dinner will be Grilled Cheese and Fries! Participants will create heart crystals.
March 16: Dinner will be Pigs in a blanket and chips! Participants will do marshmallow shamrock stamp painting.
April 6: Dinner will be Pancakes and hash browns! Participants will create shaving cream eggs.
April 27: Dinner will be hot dogs and Fries! Participants will create cloud and rain water wind stocks!
May 4: Dinner will be tacos! Participants will create piñatas!
May 18: We will have a sub bar! Participants will create paper plate umbrellas!

You can sign up here: http://firstbaptistsylva.com/giving/

Asking the Right Questions

Jesus asks a lot of questions. Have you noticed?

In scripture, we meet a God who wants to engage us. We know this because Jesus frequently asks questions of his listeners. Jesus’s inquisitive posture is a dominant feature in his life and ministry. When his disciples are perplexed by something, he asks them a question. When individuals want to know more about his teachings, he asks them a question. When people ask Jesus a question, he often responds with a—you guessed it—question. Depending on the criteria you use, Jesus’s red-letter statements in the Bible include dozens and dozens of questions.

Some of the questions point out our hypocrisy: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3)

Other questions reveal our lack of strength and fortitude: “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26)

Then, there are the rapid-fire questions that feel like an inquisition: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:46)

Still other questions speak to the deepest corridors of our soul and convict us with their honesty: “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6)

We get it, Jesus. You want us to be reflective. You want us to consider the world from your point of view. You want us to grow by challenging us.

We can’t help it. As humans, we naturally strive to make meaning of our lives and the world around us. Regardless of the circumstances, we try and make sense of what we’ve experienced. In truth, we’re not very good at it. But that doesn’t stop us from trying! We try and find patterns. We want answers, not further ambiguities. And when we don’t get the conclusions that satisfy us, we are perplexed and often paralyzed by the anxiety and grief that the cul-de-sacs in our imagination present us with.

When we deal with hardship and suffering, answers—at least fulfilling answers—are in short supply.

When answers are not forthcoming, perhaps it’s because our focus is misplaced. Instead of yearning for resolution that never seems to come, maybe we should take a cue from Jesus and search more thoroughly for the right questions.

Yes, a well-positioned question can reveal more truth than a pat response.

Jesus: “Why are you troubled and why do doubts rise in your minds?” (Luke 24:38)

(Our answer: “Because we really don’t trust you.”)

What question is God asking us? Which inquiries from Jesus are we ignoring?

Oh, we seem to have plenty of questions for God. And if we’ll stop to think about it for a moment, we’ve got to concede that God must certainly have some questions for us, as well. Do we dare field them? Or, would we rather stonewall God like a well-disciplined press secretary?

Discerning and asking the right question requires courage and creativity. It requires us to be open to conversation so that the door to our heart will be cracked open. Determining the right question for ourselves, and for others, can yield a break-through moment. A well-considered question can change the trajectory of our lives, and ultimately help to inaugurate the Kingdom of God.

Jesus: “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” (Matthew 9:28)

Hmmm. Good question. 

Arrangements and Obituary for Sarah Beddingfield

Sarah Fogarty Beddingfield

                  Sarah Lee Fogarty Beddingfield, 68, of Lillington, NC died December 25, 2017 from injuries sustained in a Christmas Eve fire at her home. 

            Born at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama on March 9, 1949, Sarah spent most of her childhood living on the family land in nearby Prattville.  She graduated from the University of Alabama and Troy State University and did post-master’s work at Southern Connecticut State University. 

            A public school teacher like her mother, Sarah also had an adventurous spirit and taught for a few years in Mexico and Ecuador.  She retired after 33 years of teaching middle school language, social studies, and remedial reading in Cumberland, Warren, and Jackson counties in North Carolina.  She was elected teacher of the year on several occasions.  Her best and most rewarding work was helping underperforming students rise to their potential.  In retirement she worked at the public libraries in Fayetteville and Lillington.

            Sarah was also a pastor’s wife who preferred doing the work of ministry to living in the limelight.  She touched the churches where she was a member by singing in the choir, teaching thoughtful and compelling adult Sunday School classes, keeping the nursery, visiting the elderly, and being involved in mission projects from the local veterans’ hospital to disaster relief to building houses in Kenya.  She has been remembered publicly as a person of compassion, kindness, and humility.

            A genuinely self-giving wife and mother, Sarah is survived by her husband of 42 years, Ed Beddingfield, of Lillington; two daughters, Shannon, of New Haven, CT and Meghan, of Dallas, TX; a nephew, Rusty Fogarty, of Prattville, AL; and numerous cousins, fellow church members, coworkers, and dear friends.

            She was preceded in death by her parents, J. P. and Alice Langford Fogarty; her brother, John N. Fogarty; and a nephew, Rafe Fogarty, all of Prattville.

            A memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 13 at Memorial Baptist Church, 271 Leslie Campbell Ave., Buies Creek, NC 27506, with Dr. Derek Hogan and Dr. Michael Cogdill officiating.  The family will receive friends in the fellowship hall after the service.  Guests are invited to bring notes of their particular memories of Sarah for Shannon, who remains hospitalized and cannot attend the service.  Other remembrances may be posted to the obituary at the funeral home website, www.oppfh.com. 

            In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Cuba Mission Fund at Memorial Baptist Church, P. O. Box 485, Buies Creek, NC 27506.

            Arrangements entrusted to O’Quinn Peebles Phillips Funeral Home and Crematory of Lillington.

Wednesday Night Activities Resume Jan. 10!

Wednesday Night activities will be starting back on Wednesday, January 10th at 5:30 PM. If you would like to join us for dinner (remember: Children and College Students eat free!), please RSVP by 4:00 PM today! You can RSVP for dinner in the church office or on our website here: http://firstbaptistsylva.com/giving/

Our SHINE Children and Youth activities will be back this Wednesday as well. SHINE is an opportunity for our children to learn how to praise God by singing, acting, dancing, and creating art to be used in ministry and worship.
P.S. - If your children are not a part of our After School ministry and would like to attend our afternoon mission education experiences (RAs—Royal Ambassadors, for boys, GAs—Girls in Action, for boys), please contact the church office by 4:00 PM on Tuesday so we can make that happen cost-free for your family. 

Our Adult Bible Study also resumes on Wednesday night at 6 PM. Please join us as we watch and discuss the movie, The Way, from a faithful and Christ-centered perspective during the month of January. The Way is the story of a grieving father whose path unfolds on a pilgrimage with strangers who will become soul friends. 

Adult Bible Study Begins January 10 at 6:00 PM

Join us as we watch and discuss the movie, The Way, from a faithful and Christ-centered perspective during the month of January. The Way is the story of a grieving father whose path unfolds on a pilgrimage with strangers who will become soul friends. 

Table Fellowship Class Party

The Table Fellowship Sunday School Class celebrated the 12th Day of Christmas with a Sunday School party in the Gathering Place. There's room at the Table for you! Join them at 9:30 AM in their second floor classroom on Sunday mornings.

The Path Unfolds Before Us

What makes for a good hike?
 
Is it the destination that makes a hike great? Or is the journey along the way the determining factor? Maybe the duration of the hike enables you to immerse yourself in the wild for an entire day, while a shorter walk might make the experience more accessible.
 
And then again, some of us may define a good hike as one that never gets started.
 
The best hike I ever experienced took place in Glacier National Park when I was 25 years old. I was alone and travelling through the West that summer. I had never been to the mountains of northwestern Montana and I was thrilled at the alpine ecosystem in which I found myself.
 
I had awakened that morning in my little yellow tent. Even though it was early July, I was chilled and rekindled the evening’s fire. I had charted out a 15-mile day hike from my campsite, and I was eager to get on the trail.
 
The pine trees that lined the well-worn trail were a rich green. The sky was cloudless and radiated the most comforting blue imaginable. The meadows that unfolded on my left and on my right had tall grass, and the wide canyon that I hiked deeper into gave me a vision of indescribable grandeur.
 
I lost track of time. The sun crept higher, but I hardly noticed. The water from my pack tasted sweet, and the snacks that I munched on provided the perfect amount of energy I needed to hike farther and higher into the mountains.
 
In time, however, I met backpackers on the trail. One of them asked me a perfectly ridiculous question.
 
“Why are you hiking alone?”, one of the hikers asked me.
 
Flummoxed by the question and shaken out of my rocky mountain high, I stammered on about the fact that I was from North Carolina and just happened to be traveling by myself.
 
“Don’t you know that this is grizzly country?”, he insisted. “There’s a grizzly and her cubs up ahead,” one of the other hikers reported. “If you don’t want to return with us and if you don’t have bear spray, I’d recommend that you sing.”
 
Sing? I chuckled. Was this to appease the grizzlies who were partial to musical theater?
 
They didn’t appreciate my sense of humor and said something about it helping me to warn bears of my approach.
 
I thought about their invitation to return to the campground with them, but I couldn’t tear myself away from the trail that had hypnotized me with its charm and transcendence. So, I ventured on alone. But after about 100 yards, I began singing.
 
In all truthfulness, I was a bit nervous about the grizzlies. Okay, fine. I was scared. Grizzlies tend to be aggressive and will maul you to death. Yes, this was a bit unnerving. But I wasn’t so scared by the prospect of meeting a grizzly (or three) that I was willing to sacrifice the beauty of the journey for my own personal safety.
 
So, I hiked on. And I sang. And to my surprise, I would find comfort and reassurance in an unsuspecting way.
 
But that’s a story for another day…
 
As I recall, there wasn’t any one particular feature of the hike that made the day so memorable. True, my day hike had a river, cascades, deep forests and alpine meadows. But, it wasn’t the promise of my destination that kept me moving on. It was simply the achingly beautiful scenery and the way that it made me feel.
 
In 2018, our church will be journeying along the Path in the hopes that we can find ourselves walking humbly with God. The Holy Scriptures are replete with metaphors of journey and pilgrimage for God’s people, and they can help us to better understand our lives in the context of travelling and moving along a path. Like the experiences and seasons we endure, the path on which we find ourselves will oftentimes be dark, rocky and difficult to discern. But our path will also be littered with mercies and graces, beauty and majesty, alike.
 

Jesus once said: “I have come to give life, and give it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
 
Perhaps the best hike is an abundant one, filled with any number of frightful and extraordinary elements. A rich and bumpy trail is really the best kind of path for it reveals the world in all its raw power, promise and potential.
 
And besides, the path and the journey we find ourselves on becomes all the sweeter when we know that we do not travel alone.
 
As we’ll see this year, we most certainly do not. 

Updated: Help for the Beddingfields

As many of us are aware, the house of our former pastor,  Ed Beddingfield, burned down in a rapid and terrible fire on Christmas Eve. Tragically, Ed's wife, Sarah, died in the accident. Their daughter Shannon suffered burns and is in ICU in Chapel Hill (Most recently, we have learned that Shannon is in stable condition after having a successful procedure on Sunday to improve the functionality of her lungs). Both Ed and Meghan did not sustain any injuries and have abundant support from their church family and their friends.

In addition to lifting them up in prayer, there are three things that you can do to help the Beddingfields: 
1.) Give. Most, if not all, of their possessions were destroyed in the fire. While donated items will be available to them, their most pressing need is money to purchase basic needs. You can help the Beddingfields by giving a love offering to them. Monetary donations may be made directly to the Beddingfields. Mail to: Memorial Baptist Church, PO Box 485, Buies Creek, NC 27506.
2.) Search and Share. The Beddingfields’ pictures have been destroyed in the fire. One thing you can do is search through your own photos for pictures of the Beddingfields when they served at First Sylva in the 1990s. Once you find them, bring these photos to the church office and we will turn them into digital files by scanning them so that we can share them with Ed. Our church office will be open Wednesday the 27th and Thursday the 28th, and will reopen after the holiday weekend on Tuesday morning, January 2. 
3.) Send a Card. Condolences can be sent to Rev. Ed Beddingfield c/o Memorial Baptist Church  PO Box 485, Buies Creek, NC 27506.

Lastly, a service for Sarah is not imminent as Ed wishes for their daughter Shannon to be out of the hospital and able to attend. If these plans change, we will promptly let you know.

Decorating Team Volunteers Needed

The Decorating Team will be taking down the Christmas decorations at 9:30 AM on Saturday, the 6th. If you would like to help, contact Carol Hennessee at 508-6912.

Letter from Cindy and Raye Parker

Dear Church Family,
I would like to thank our Church Family for all of your prayers, telephone calls, beautiful cards, gifts, flowers, visits to Mission Hospital and Smoky Mountain Health/Rehabilitation Center in Waynesville I received during my recent illness. 
Your thoughtfulness and kindness was very much appreciated. May God bless you and we wish you a Healthy and Happy New Year – 2018.
Thanks again,
Cindy and Raye Parker