Two Sundays ago, the GA’s handed out envelopes and information on the Heck-Jones Mission Offering. If you have not returned your donation, please do it as soon as possible by placing the envelope in the offering plate on Sunday or leaving it in the office with Janice. The WMU office in Greensboro uses these donations to be self supportive of Cooperative Baptist Woman’s Missionary Union. The staff uses these funds to help with education for the churches in NC. They do a wonderful job!
Mission Circle Meeting
All ladies are invited and encouraged to come to the Mission Circle Meeting on Tuesday, March 14 at 10:30 a.m. Amanda McCoy, who is with The Sufficient Grace Ministry in Swananoa, will be speaking to us about human trafficking. Please plan to attend. We will meet in the Gathering Place Room.
Hurray for Our Nursery Workers of the Week!
Thank you Judy Henderson and Mary Lou Millwood for working in the nursery last Sunday. We appreciate the two of you working together.
On March 12th, Melanie and Rob Stokely will be in the nursery. Thank you!
There is still room on the schedule to serve “the least of these”
on Sunday mornings. It is a blessing to see their smiles and enthusiasm as you spend
time with our infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
Please contact Cheryl Beck (cabeck@ncsu.edu) if you would like to help.
Church Service at Hermitage Nursing Center
The ladies of the church will be leading a church service for the residents at the Hermitage Nursing Center on Sunday, March 19 at 3:00 p.m. The GA's will be assisting with the service also. This is a very special time of ministry to these dear folk. Please come and be a blessing.
Youth Newsletter
Click HERE to view the spring youth newsletter!
Learning, Sharing, Listening, Growing
Beginning TONIGHT, March 8 at 6:00 PM
in the Gathering Place Room
Join us for a season of discovery as we learn how our personal narrative has shaped and influenced our lives. With the help of the enneagram and the book, The Story of You: An Enneagram Journey to Becoming Your True Self by Ian Cron, we will learn the joy of knowing that God helps us write a new and healthier story to live by. This multi-week experience will serve as both an introduction and enrichment to the enneagram as a tool for better understanding ourselves in relationship to the world around us. Please RSVP by Monday, March 6 at noon for childcare in advance by contacting our church office: 828-586-2095, fbcsylva@gmail.com.
Run and Tell!
Children in grades 1-5 and their families at Sylva FBC have started a 40-day Lenten journey to be more like Jesus everyday. Families have received a RUN AND TELL! kit with family devotionals, a 40-day scratch off calendar of activities, flower seeds, and stickers. There is even a recipe for Resurrection Rolls which Lucie Moore and her mom made on Sunday afternoon.
If you haven’t received your RUN AND TELL kit yet, let Cheryl Beck know and she will get it to you. Run and Tell!
Urgent Need for Volunteers!
The 1st Explorers After School Ministry college staff will be on Spring Break, March 6-10. Luckily, Jackson County Schools will be closed March 9th and 10th, too. Help is needed for the first part of the week when the program will be short staffed. If you could help on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday (1 or more days) of that week from 2:45 p.m. to 5:15 p.m., please let Cheryl Beck know. You can enjoy interacting with the children,playing on the playground, helping serve snacks, being a friendly face from our church, etc.
You will be blessed, and the children will, too!
UCM Walk-A-Thon
Sylva FBC children and their families are invited to participate in a Walk-A-Thon event at the Recreation Park in Cullowhee on Saturday, March 18, from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. There will be prizes, a raffle, music, and a contest for the best dressed green costume.
The Children's Ministry Advisory Committee is forming a team to walk that day and all children, teens, and adults are welcome to take part in this special fundraiser for United Christian Ministries.
The registration fee will be covered for children but adults pay a $20.00 fee. Participants will seek pledges to raise more money for UCM.
Please let Cheryl Beck know by March 5 if you can join us on the walk.
Five-Day Forecast
By Dr. Jeff Mathis
It will surprise only a few that I prefer the mountains to the beach.
But on a Saturday afternoon this past January, I felt at home on a sun-blasted beach on Cuba’s north shore.
We had known several weeks before visiting our sister church in Holguin, Cuba, that our presence would enable Kerygma Baptist Church to have a day at the beach. The drive from Holguin to the shore took about 90 minutes, and the bus maneuvered through light showers and increasingly bright sunshine.
When we arrived at the coast, the sky was clear, and the breeze was intoxicating. Warm beyond measure, we made our way to a spot on the beach where we would have a baptism for six candidates.
As we kicked off our socks and shoes at the water’s edge, Pastor Ernesto told me he wanted my help with the baptism. I had been told to expect this, but I wasn’t sure what was expected of me. Perhaps a prayer, I mused.
Imagine my surprise, then, when Ernesto told me that the two of us would take turns saying the ancient, Trinitarian words of baptism and would share in the duties of immersing the candidates.
It would be a high honor to assist with the baptism, saying, “In obedience to our Lord and Savior Jesus, I baptize you my brother in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” and to help dip the candidate into the water. I was not the candidate’s pastor. I did not even know the candidates’ names. It didn’t matter. Ernesto wanted our two churches to know that even though our countries were not friends, our kinship in Jesus Christ transformed the crystal-clear water into the waters of baptism.
“Esta frio,” Ernesto said as he made our way into the water and away from the congregation. I chuckled and said, “Esta caliente!” As one familiar with our mountain rivers and streams, the water felt like bathwater. Apparently, it was a bit too nippy for my Cuban friend.
Looking north out to sea, I marveled at how we were due south of the Cape Fear River inlet and Wilmington. For most of my life, Cuba felt like a world away. But at that moment, with the water as clear as a mountain spring, I felt a connection to our friends in Cuba that only the Holy Spirit could inaugurate.
We baptized our friends and smiled when the congregation sang and applauded on the shore. The pulse of the tide and the shifting sand beneath my feet made me feel right at home with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
We are baptized because of community and within community. When we enter the waters of baptism—whether at Deep Creek, in our baptistery, or on a beach in Cuba—the water swarms with a host of people who have witnessed to us. When immersed beneath the waves, love flanks us on either side. When we come out of the water to breathe fresh air, we do so to hear our family singing, laughing, and celebrating alongside us.
Yes, I suspect you would have been a beach person at that moment, too. Though, the baptism at the beach was quite the mountaintop experience.