If you are interested in buying an Easter Lily in memory or honor of someone please let the church office know. The Lilies are $16.00 and will need to be paid for at time of order. The lilies will be available for you to take home on Easter Sunday. The deadline to purchase lilies is Sunday, March 10th!
Church League Softball
Interested in playing Church League Softball with us this spring? Call our church office, or email fbcsylva@gmail.com, and sign up!
Raise the Roof Campaign
Remember the Raise the Roof Challenge!
Children's Missions Day -- March 23rd
Children and adults are invited to participate in Children's Missions Day sponsored by WMU on Saturday, March 23rd, from 9:30 a.m. until 12:00 noon. The focus this year is on spreading love to our church's shut-ins. Call the Church Office to sign up for this special event. See next week's Church Chimes for more details!
Try a Morsel of Mercy-Infused Ministry, Won’t You?
When I was a child, I loathed shopping trips to the grocery store with my mother. She would linger too long at the produce. She would read each label in the canned food aisle. She would hem and haw, and I would do gymnastics on the grocery cart.
The one redeeming quality of these grocery trips, however, was the promise of getting samples from vendors set up at the end of the aisles. It was there that my mother and I were introduced to more exotic food items than we were accustomed to consuming. From fancy mustard to pasta salad, and from linguine with pesto sauce to fruit roll-ups, I lived for the moment when someone in an apron in front of the bread aisle would offer me a bite-sized morsel of tasty, goodness.
What’s more, the samples frequently succeeded in getting my mother to place a new product in the cart and to add a new meal to her repertoire.
The science behind samples is sound. When given the chance to try something new, the likelihood that someone will have a good experience with it goes up ten-fold than if a consumer simply relied on its attractive marketing. The basic premise of offering samples goes something like this:
“Our product is so rich and so extraordinary that if people just try it they will be hooked!”
Thus, free samples continue to reign supreme in our grocery stores. There are risk-free trials for cosmetics and health gadgets. There are 7-day free periods for apps on our devices and the first few chapters of the New York Times bestseller are available for free on a digital platform. Samples, put simply, work.
Giving people the chance to experience something new firsthand is a much better proposition than trying to convince them of the superiority of one’s product with words.
The ‘Have Mercy Challenge’ that we introduced in worship this past Sunday is trying to tap in to this phenomenon. That is, we want you to experience a morsel of mercy-infused ministry to whet your appetite for bigger mission projects in the future.
As you may recall, the ‘Have Mercy Challenge’ offers the chance for you to participate with others to provide mercy or loving kindness to the people groups mentioned in the Bible and explicitly referenced by Jesus.
In the Old Testament, Zechariah 7:8 states that God’s people should show mercy and kindness to one another, and to not harm the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, or the poor. In other words, the prophet of ancient Israel wanted God’s Holy Nation to care for the most vulnerable among them.
In the New Testament, Jesus states that when others provide care for the hungry and thirsty, those who are poorly clothed, the stranger, the sick, and the imprisoned, they are actually doing it for him. Care for the ‘least of these’ becomes the qualification for entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
The ‘Have Mercy Challenge,’ therefore, invites you and your family to identify but one of these people groups to which you would be willing to provide one act of mercy in the coming weeks and months. In response to this invitation, the vast majority of our congregation identified one of the people groups on the bulletin insert we provided and placed it on the communion table as an offering to God. In the weeks to come, teams will emerge from your willingness to serve, and each team will be directed to imagine a specific way that you can show mercy to that group of people, whether you selected the orphan, the prisoner, the sick, or the others that God specifically identifies.
We are providing this ministry opportunity as a sample blessing that we will experience when we seek to be obedient to God’s command that we love kindness. And we are so confident that this experience will change your life, and the lives of those you serve, that we are offering this opportunity free of charge!
Supplies are limited and time is running out, so act now!
No, this mercy-infused ministry is not a product on aisle 4, and it is certainly no gimmick. Just the same, feel the urgency that God’s words elicit and sign up to serve sooner rather than later.
Michael Nichols Memorial Service and Concert
Jackson County has lost an outstanding musical ambassador, whose career and community involvement have touched the lives of many residents. The event will take place at 2 PM on Saturday, March 2, in the sanctuary of Sylva First Baptist Church. Several ensembles will present music in honor of Mike’s memory, representing some of his interests. The tributes will include the Sylva Bells, the Carolina Consort, the Christian Harmony Singers, a solo by life-long friend, Diana Fisher, and a choir drawn from the memberships of the Sylva FBC Sanctuary Choir, and the Western Carolina Community Chorus. The public is cordially invited to attend. A reception will follow in the Mission and Fellowship Center, where the family will greet friends.
Joy Sunday School - UCM Challenge
Joy Sunday School Class is providing 30+ lbs. of potatoes for UCM this month to help celebrate the 30 years UCM has offered assistance within our community. They challenge other classes to provide 30 of something that can be used by UCM.
Making a difference across the border
Our work on the border is all about collaboration and partnership! Students at the BSM at University of Houston put these food packets together for us. We delivered to Cynthia Aulds with our partner the Coalition to Combat Human Trafficking in Texas. She included information about human trafficking in each bag and delivered them to Laredo. Our friends at Pastor Lorenzo’s church will deliver to displaced peoples on the other side of the border.
Later, Cynthia wrote us to tell us how the food packets were making a difference!
She received a text from one of Pastor Lorenzo's helpers: "We took some snack bags to the children and families on the bridge of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. There are families from Uzbekistan, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Thank you and everyone for these snack bags. The children were so hungry. Thank you again. We truly appreciate these bags."
Displaced people are vulnerable to human traffickers. Each food packet has a list of questions that recipients can read and perhaps self identify as a victim. Later this month, we will be meeting with first responders in San Antonio to talk about tools that can help them identify victims. We also are working on a video that can be played on a loop in areas where displaced people may be, such as homeless shelters, care facilities and detention centers. And all of this is in partnership with others.
Butch and Nell Green, CBF field personnel in Houston, Texas
When the Way Forward Demands a Look Back
To get there, I will first have to take the Caledonian sleeper train from London to Crianlarich in Scotland. From there, I’ll take another train to the town of Oban. A short walk to the ferry terminal will prepare me to board a boat to the Isle of Mull. From the port at Craignure, I will then board a bus that will transport me from one side of the island to the other. Upon arriving there, I will board another ferry that will take me to the island of Iona.
Why in the world would I go to such lengths to visit a small island off the western coast of Scotland this spring? The short answer is because the island’s history and place in the Celtic Christian tradition is profound.
Founded in the 6th century by St. Columba of Ireland, the monastery that developed on the small spit of land among the Inner Hebrides of Scotland became the center of an expression of Christianity that helped to reintroduce the faith to a people that was descending into a dark age.
Iona is what they call a ‘thin place’ in the Celtic Christian tradition. That is, it is a location that is set-apart, sacred and holy because the membrane between this world and heaven is thin. For centuries, faithful followers of Christ have visited this island to connect with its rich history and to be in a space that is powerfully transcendent.
I will be spending a few days at Iona later this spring walking the coastline and visiting the ancient monastic ruins and the modern-day, intentional Christian community.
My doctoral work this spring focuses on the power and significance that place occupies in the Celtic tradition. My research will involve learning more about how the ancient Christians in Ireland believed that particular places were intimately connected to their experience of the faith. My trip to Iona will be the capstone to my work this spring as I’ll have the chance to experience firsthand what I’ve been learning.
My studies will then shift this summer as I prepare for the project phase of my program. This fall, I will be testing an idea that I have been developing these last months. I’ll need your help to execute it. Just as the early church in Ireland incorporated in their Christian communities, and just as we see in the disciples who experienced the resurrected Christ on the way to Emmaus, I believe that the practice of spiritual friendship strengthens our faith. Rest assured, brothers and sisters, you will hear more about this in the weeks to come. I hope that you will consider being a part of this journey of discovery with me.
In the spring of 2020, I will write about my findings with the project and will share what I have learned with you and the fine people at Campbell University Divinity School. I’m curious as to what we might learn together.
In the meantime, I will continue to learn how our ancient brothers and sisters in the faith lived out their call to be followers of Jesus. We are not the first to walk down the roads that we are traveling. We are not the first to experience the hardships, challenges and difficulties that a life of faith frequently presents. As such, I am energized by the prospect that the faithful from a different age might be our most helpful guides as we walk deeper into the 21st Century.
I’m grateful for your support, your encouragement, and your presence as we walk and learn together.
A Note from Blue Ridge Health
Dear Faithful Friends:
Pat, a recent widow; Kenna, a bouncing baby girl; Pamela, a cancer survivor… and many others… live, work, attend school and have brighter smiles because of your thoughtful donation to Blue Ridge Health. Thank you so much for your kindness and this special Christmas Offering!
On behalf of all our patients, we thank you.
Most sincerely,
Richard Hudspeth
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Medical Officer