Sending out a huge thank you to Harold Messer and his team for their hard work at replacing bricks on our steps out front that had become chipped and broken
Ruby Daniel Group
The Ruby Daniel WMU Group will meet on Tuesday, July 11th, at 1:00 p.m., in the Mission and Fellowship Center. Peggy Revis will lead the group in creating beautiful handmade cards that will be used for sharing when a special "thinking of you" is needed. Anyone interested in helping is invited to attend. Please bring a bottle of glue and scissors. Also, please bring personal care items (deodorant, soap, etc.) for the Clean Slate participants.
Invitation to the Ordinance of Meghan Beddingfield
Mission Bite 39: The Gift of Giving and Receiving
"We first met Todd years ago, when one of us was wandering the neighborhood with a backpack full of lunches on what we called the 'roving feast.' Soon we became regular guests on Todd's stoop and in his apartment. A few months back, we celebrated Todd's birthday. Todd got seconds at his birthday meal, but only after checking with everybody to see if they had already gotten some and if they wanted seconds, too. He was anxious not to take more than his share, even as we insisted that he should. Todd has learned something over the years that he continues to teach us as we share life, work, and prayers with him: the work of our hands in community isn't just about giving. Todd's hands are teaching us how to receive, as well."
- Jessica and Joshua Hearne, CBF field personnel in Danville, Va.
Shining Stars Project
On Mother's Day, WMU launched our Shining Stars project with a two-fold objective:
1. To collect money for a variety of statewide missions projects for the Heck-Jones
WMU NC Offering and,
2. To honor those people who have been "Shining Stars" guiding, modeling, and
mentoring us in our Christian walk.
Today, I am happy to report that through your generous giving, our church's contribution
to the Heck-Jones Offering was $1,576.00 with a $1000 match from an anonymous donor, the total amount comes to $2,576.00.
And.......over 75 women and men were remember for the important role they played in the lives of many in our congregation. Please take time to look at the bulletin board outside the choir room where you will see the Shining Stars honored through the project.
Daniel 12:3 says: "And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."
Thank you!
Power of Produce Club Event
Generosity’s Arch-Enemy: Indifference
“The most important (commandment),” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31
Loving your neighbor means being generous to one another. Just as God has showered us with blessings, Jesus commands us to return the favor with those who live in our community.
Maggie Ballard, a resident of Wichita, Kansas, took Jesus’s commandment seriously and her efforts at loving her neighbors bore fruit. Quite literally, I might add. In much the same way that neighborhoods all over the country have created cabinet-like boxes with books inside for people to borrow and read, Maggie took the spirit of this generous effort to a new level. She, like many others around the country, has created a ‘box of blessing’ that serves as a small food pantry for the people in her neighborhood.
Maggie’s box is filled by her family and the broader community with food items, personal care items and even diapers. What makes their pantry unique, however, is the sense of anonymity that accompanies the gesture. People who are in need do not have to fear the shame that often accompanies food insecurity. Most visitors, Maggie reports, come during the evening.
"On Christmas Eve,” for example, “she watched as a family of three opened (their) box to find a bag of bagels and started eating them right there."
Maggie and her neighbors saw a need. And then, they devised a way that they could be charitable, fulfilling God’s commandment from Micah 6:8 to “love kindness.”
Of course, if we do not see the needs of our neighbors then how can we address them? When Jesus is asked to define who a neighbor is, Jesus tells the story of the generous Samaritan and the man who was in need. As the Bible tells us, the Samaritan saw the need, decided to help, shared his resources and even dedicated his personal finances to making sure that the wounded traveler was returned to health and wholeness.
This, brother and sisters, is what it looks like to ‘love kindness.’ This is what it looks like to be generous. This is what is looks like to love one’s neighbor.
But, not if we don’t see them.
Oh, we see them all right…that is, if we take the time to actually consider their plight. With so much need, and so much pain and suffering, the task of helping our neighbors seems hopeless. So, we turn our eyes--sometimes with judgment and with the internal suggestion that they are reaping what they’ve sown—away from our hurting neighbors.
This spirit of indifference that occasionally assaults us is not of God. And it’s something that we need to reckon with.
In 1999, acclaimed Holocaust survivor Ellie Wiesel gave a speech on indifference to the powerbrokers in Washington, D.C. Indifference, he suggests, means literally ‘no difference.’ He further defined indifference as “[a] strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.”
Wiesel suggested that indifference can be seductive. “It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest.”
Indifference, he argued, is more dangerous than anger because anger can birth a creative and necessary response. Indifference, however, is never creative.
“Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor—never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees—not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.”
Loving our neighbor as Christ commands us to demands that we be creative; that we literally create a response to the needs around us.
And if you have trouble seeing the need, keep your eyes peeled for Christ. For where we see pain and suffering, we’ll find the Son of God. He’s already there with them. And he’s waiting there for you and for me.
Although She Was a Hen, They Called Her Edward Glenn
Angela Priester Mathis has donated a book to our church's children’s library. Having her book, Although She Was a Hen, They Called Her Edward Glenn, published has been Mrs. Mathis’ lifelong dream. A retired elementary school teacher living in Asheville, Angela Mathis is happy to share her story and Annette McAlister's richly illustrated pictures with us. It is the true story of a pet ‘house hen’ who made it into the lives of her grandparents on a farm in rural North Carolina. For those who might wish a paperback or hardback copy, you may purchase one from Amazon.com or from her son, Jeff Mathis.
Enneagram Group Meeting
Join us on Sunday, June 25th at 4:30 PM in the Gathering Place for our second Enneagram group meeting. The Enneagram (which means nine-sided figure) is an ancient Christian tool that can help us to better know ourselves and to be gracious with others.
All are welcome to join, even if you missed our first meeting! The book that we will be using, while helpful, is optional. We will be offering childcare for our 90 minute experience.
As the authors of our book (The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery) Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile will articulate: "The purpose of the Enneagram is to develop self-knowledge and learn how to recognize and dis-identify with the parts of our personalities that limit us so we can be reunited with our truest and best selves, that “pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven,” as Thomas Merton said. The point of it is self-understanding and growing beyond the self-defeating dimensions of our personality, as well as improving relationships and growing in compassion for others."
First Baptist Church Ministry at Rest Homes
Our church has provided worship experiences for many years at Skyland, Blue Ridge on the Mountain, Morning Star, and The Hermitage. On the first Wednesday of each month, we visit Morning Star at 10 a.m., and go to Skyland following that. Usually, Jeff offers the message, and I lead the hymn singing, with Barbara Vance serving as pianist. Of course we have to call on others to help out from time to time, when one of us can not be present. We are very fortunate to have several wonderful church members who can fill in, and they do it with joy. A number of our choir members and other church members come to help lead in the music, and we usually sing the hymns in harmony, with a pleasant and full quality. The residents greatly appreciate our visit each month. Several other churches participate in this ministry.
In addition to this monthly ministry, we are part of a large group of churches which offer worship services on Sunday afternoons for all four of the care facilities. For these five or six annual services, the WMU and the Baptist Men share the responsibility, again tapping the resources of our talented and gifted membership for music and devotions. We try to use lay people for leadership of these services.
This Sunday afternoon, June 25, the men are in charge of a 3 p.m. worship at Morning Star. Charles Proctor will give the devotion, and I will be leading music and offering a solo. Linda Stewart will accompany the music. We would love to see others join us for this service. Extra voices always help to make the music more joyful, and the residents love to see people, and to receive a hand shake and a smile.
I would guess that none of us would "choose" to live in a care facility, if the choice was ours to make. I know that if I were a resident at a rest home, I would greatly appreciate and look forward to church services that were offered. I'm glad that FBC Sylva is providing this significant ministry, and that I can be a participant.
Bob Holquist