Parents Night Out will be held on Feb. 10 from 5:30 - 9:00 PM. Sign your kids up for a night out with your valentine!
Sign up on our website here: http://firstbaptistsylva.com/giving/
Confessions from a Recovering Worrier
Don’t let my steely-eyed, non-anxious presence fool you. I worry. Sometimes, quite a lot.
Corrie Ten Boom defines worry as a “cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear.” I define worry as fixating on what might or might not be.
Recently, I found myself pondering my inclination to worry during a time of devotion. The Bible passage I was studying was familiar, but one of Jesus’s questions rang in my ears: “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”
In the moment, I wanted to take Jesus on. I wanted to tell Jesus that if I didn’t worry, nothing would get accomplished. I wanted to tell Jesus that worry was productive and necessary to cross things off my list. I wanted to say to him, “C’mon! Easy for you to say! You’re the Son of God!”
And then I sought to prove it to Jesus. So I got to thinking about the times in my life when worrying about something helped me out. I thought and I thought, eager to throw my defiance around like a farmer throws out slop. I wanted to show Jesus that he was wrong. I wanted to justify my worries.
As I looked back on my life, I was struck with the realization that worry—by itself—had done me no favors. Nope. Not one.
I think I’ve told you before that I was an anxious child. There was nothing too small in the world for me not to worry about. Everything was fair game. At the heart of my worry was fear. And the root of my fear was distrust.
I worried because I didn’t trust that I would be okay.
And to be particularly candid, let me point out that in life we’re often not okay. As a child, I had a hunch that this was the case just as I am confident of it now. I worry because I am fearful that I won’t be okay. I worry about not being okay because I don’t like pain. I suppose that my worry is a revelation that I don’t really believe what I say; that I trust God.
Here’s the bottom line. We cannot trust God and also worry. We cannot do it. Trust and worry are mutually exclusive.
I have wasted obscene amounts of my time in life worrying. How much of my life have I wasted worrying about something or another? Is it 10%? Is it 25% Oh, I shake my head in disgust to consider the truth of the matter. What a waste.
Worrying bears no fruit. As Corrie Ten Boom calls it, worry is centered on fear and it is an inefficient use of our time. Like the only saying goes: worry is like sitting in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.
Actually, that’s not quite true. Most of the time in my life, worrying has made things worse. Sometimes, much worse. My actions, made in reactivity and anxiety, have been the cause of my biggest blunders and mistakes in life.
Jesus knew that worrying could be this dangerous. Jesus warned us about this in his Sermon on the Mount. He included this passage on worry alongside the same revolutionary teachings as loving your enemy and even knowing how to pray because Jesus knew that worry was a symptom of distrust and fear. He knew that when we worry, we are not trusting God.
In truth, Jesus is quite plain spoken about it (go back and reflect on the passage in its entirety—Matthew 6:25-34). Jesus talks about worrying about things great and small, justified and petty, necessary and silly. But in the end he concludes with a proverb that is as down to earth as it is true: “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
Here’s a spiritual exercise for you. In the same way that ancient mystics encouraged the faithful to meditate on the image of their own dead and rotting bodies in an attempt to help them value the sanctity of life, let me invite you to meditate on your past. When you find yourself worrying about something—anything—think back in your life to a time when you were worrying. Then ask yourself this question: Did it help?
If it did, if worrying bore fruit, then by all means, keep it up! But if, perchance, worrying did not help you then, why in the world would you think it will help you now?
Stop the cycle of worrisome madness. Try a different tact: Trust God and save your energy for more consequential matters.
Summer Explorers Camp 2017
We're excited to announce summer camp information for this coming summer!
Camp will begin one week following the end of the Jackson County Schools' calendar year and will end one week before Jackson County Schools' calendar year begins in August.
Summer Explorers campers will participate in a variety of activities, including faith development through Bible study and chapel, trips to the pool, library and other various places.
Wee Explorers Preschool will be a half-day camp from 7:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Cost: $250 per month
Summer Explorers Day Camp (K-8) - 7:30 AM - 5:30 PM
One Child $650 ($100 dollars of tuition due by March 3rd)
Two Children $1,000 ($200 dollars of tuition due by March 3rd)
Three Children $1,400 ($300 dollars of tuition due by March 3rd)
All payments are non-refundable. Accounts must be paid in full no later than May 26, 2017.
*Breakfast, lunch and snacks will be provided.
Sign up here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqPUCy4whnnAZDkrtbftU4F7XehiZpOxOOofl2alGkiGswVQ/viewform?c=0&w=1
Upon acceptance to Summer Explorers Camp, your family will receive an email confirming your child's acceptance.
Wednesday Night Meals
Just a reminder that the deadline for purchasing Wednesday Night Meals is 4:00 PM on Tuesdays! The order is called in at this time every week, so any orders placed after this time will count towards the next week's meal.
A Note from Our FCA Partners
Mission Moment from North Carolina
Our Church is pleased to support CBF Global Missions in moments like these where unity and love are modeled and shared.
"After helping a new Afghan refugee family coming to Raleigh settle into their home, one neighbor brought over a home-cooked meal for the whole family to enjoy. When the mother saw that her neighbor was an Afghan mom just like her, she began to cry. We believe they were tears of happiness. She and her family are now home, safe and sound after such a long, long journey. In those covered dishes, her new neighbor gave her much more than food."
- Kim and Marc Wyatt, CBF field personnel in the North Carolina Research Triangle
Christ’s Anchor Holds
According to a report out in the late last year, ‘post-truth’ was named the 2016 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries.
Post-truth? Yes. Welcome to the 21st Century where we contemplate how the truth matters less and less.
In case you are wondering, the dictionary defines 'post-truth' as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
I must confess that I think there’s something to this.
Take my preaching as an example. There’s rarely a Sunday that goes by that people do not surprise me by what they heard in my sermon. Individuals from widely different backgrounds and perspectives will hear my sermon and come to very different conclusions about what they heard me say.
In full transparency, I often find myself thinking: “You heard me say what?!”
I am no different, y’all. I frequently hear what I want to hear.
Matt Sapp, a pastor in North Georgia, calls this confirmation bias--“the idea that we are more likely to uncritically accept ideas or opinions as true if they tend to reinforce what we already believe.”
I don’t think it’s a stretch to identify this as a problem. We cannot simply resort to calling facts and truth that don’t align with our hunches and predilections, ‘alternate facts.’ This will not do.
We need a stronger anchor in our lives than the fragile, and elastic tether of our confirmation biases. Without something to hold us in place, the waves and winds will likely lead us into some dark and terrible waters.
Jesus Christ is our anchor. And his anchor holds.
Jesus said… “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6)."
Followers of God’s Son profess that Jesus is the way. The Greek word that we translate as ‘way’ connotes a road, a journey, not unlike Isaiah’s prophecy: “A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray (Isaiah 35:8).”
Jesus is the way that we know the Father. We know God—and His story, His commandments, His love, and His promise—through Jesus, His son. Jesus is the way we understand ourselves, the way we interpret events and circumstances around us, and the way we know how to respond to them.
Jesus is the Truth. Earlier, the Gospel writer told us that Jesus is the Word of God. This reassures us that our God wants to be known, wants to be encountered, wants to be understood. Jesus, then, is the explanation of God. Awareness of God and His plan for us is liberating. “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free (John 8:31-32).”
Remember, as Baptists, we covenant with one another to read and understand scripture in light of Jesus. But we cannot stop there. We should seek to understand our world through the authority of Jesus, which he defines as the Kingdom of God.
Jesus is life, both for eternity and in the here and now. Jesus is the one who tells us right from wrong. Not our own inclinations. And certainly not what is driven by our own self-interest or loyalty to a particular tribe or way of thinking. Jesus is the true north in our world.
If ever there was a time to profess the Lordship of Jesus, it is today. We need to be anchored to something far stronger than the forces of persuasion and deceit that is present in every aspect of our world. For if we allow ourselves to interpret and experience our culture according to someone else’s vision, we will be powerless to where they might want to lead us.
Without Jesus as our anchor, there’s no telling where we’ll end up and what we’ll look like when we get there.
Don’t just hold on loosely, people. Cling to Christ with everything you’ve got. He is our life, he is our way forward, he is what is right in a world full of wrong.
Charlie's Challenge
You are invited to a Fundraising Event to benefit Jackson Neighbors in Need. Neighbors in Need is a part of Mountain Projects and is a voluntary organization consisting of a group of local churches, organizations and individuals who work together to keep vulnerable individuals and families warm during the cold weather months. We do this in three ways:
1) provision of a cold weather homeless shelter, 2) assistance with heating bills, and 3) weatherization of homes.
Please respond as indicated on the invitation to let us know you are attending. We hope to see you on January 28.
Can't come but want to help? Please send donations to Mountain Projects, 25 Schulman Street, Sylva, NC28779, writing JNIN on the memo line of checks.
New Website Domain Name!
Our website has a new domain! Our website is now at www.firstbaptistsylva.com . We hope that this domain name is more representative of our church and easier to remember!
"Shine" Children's Program
"SHINE" is 1st Explorer's new Wednesday night experience for children and youth!
Beginning TOMORROW, January 11th, children kindergarten through 5th grade will have choir practice from 6:00-6:30 PM in the choir room. Babies, toddlers and preschool children will meet in our nursery. Then at 6:30 PM, School age children will get the chance to SHINE by doing one of three activities that we will introduce the first Wednesday: art, interpretive movement, and drama.
Youth will have their own experience, they will meet around 5:00. A pizza dinner will be provided at 5:30pm, then from 6:00 to 7:00pm youth will get to learn more about their Identity.
More info to come!