Family News and Notes
We still need Volunteers to help clean the building for the month of SEPTEMBER. If you are willing and able to help with this good use of your talents please sign the sheet on the table in the foyer.
REMINDER: Today is the first Sunday. If you are able and have made plans you may contribute to our Building Fund today. Thanks.
Men's Business Meeting next Sunday following evening service. All men are encouraged to attend.
Visitation Team No. 1 (Jim Duncan's team) will meet on Sunday September 12, 2004 following the morning services.
Jonathan and Benjamin McCain left this past week for their trip to Bangor Northern Ireland and Tanzania, East Africa. We need to pray for these young men during their missionary endeavors and for their safe return home.
Linda Jones has been in the local hospital this past week undergoing tests to determine the cause of discomfort she has been experiencing. She was dismissed from the hospital late on Tuesday and is now back at home.
George O'Neal's mother, Alice O'Neal, has been in the hospital in Houston and he went down to be with her. She was able to return home on Monday and is doing good.
Bonnie Horton fell in her driveway this past week and had to have a couple of stitches in her head. She was able to return home following her treatment.
DEAR BRETHREN Please accept our heart-felt thanks for the many calls, cards, personal words of encouragement, and the many impromptu gifts of financial support that you showered on our boys the last few days they were in town before leaving for 37 days on the mission fields of Ireland and Tanzania. We were all overwhelmed by your kindness towards them, and we know it encouraged them in the work they are trying to do for the Lord. Please continued to keep them in your daily prayers for successful kingdom work and a safe return to their already lonely parents! In Christian love, David and Janice McCain
DEAR BRETHREN AT NORTH JEFFERSON:
We are all moved in here in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, although still a little bit away from being "settled." We appreciate so very much the help that we received from so many of you during our move. Once we got unglued from the side of the Interstate, all went smoothly for the most part.
Your many acts of kindness toward us while we were in Mount Pleasant, particularly in our last days, did not go unappreciated.
The kind words expressed toward us during this time, and at the thoughtful GOING-AWAY PARTY you had for us left us speechless as did your excessive generosity given to us in the "MONEY TREE." We love you and miss you all greatly. Thank you for everything!!!
Yours in Christian Love, Lee and Kelley Jo
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PRAYER LIST:
Justin Barker, Louis Bell, Annah Brown, Sue Browning,
Josephine Cooper, Perry Cooper, Zenith Hargrove, Bonnie Horton, Howard Horton, Ruby Lawhon, Elna O'Neal, Winnie Patton,
Dorothy Sargent, Ola Mae Simpson
ALSO: Tom Dooley, Lavon McClish, Kelsey Meyers, John Moses, Marty Newman, Lynn Parker & his family, Lois DeWahl
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"Riding For The Brand"
(Note: Recently, as I've announced about our boys' mission trip to Ireland and Tanzania, you've heard me mention the name of my great friend, Ken Upchurch, who met Jon & Ben in Detroit Wed. night, and is traveling on with them on their journey. Ken is the "missions minister" and a deacon for the Kensington Woods Church of Christ, in Hattiesburg, MS, the congregation which has the oversight of Cy & Stephanie Stafford and the "Tanzania 2000" mission program. This ambitious effort is a 20-year plan for evangelizing first the nation of Tanzania and ultimately all of Africa, by training native preachers to faithfully proclaim the Gospel, and by helping to develop godly, faithful, and capable leadership for a self-sustaining church planting effort in years to come. Also, by means of what are affectionately called "Safaris for Souls," American brethren have worked side by side with Tanzania brethren in many two-week evangelistic campaigns and Gospel meetings for the purpose of distributing Gospel tracts, signing up people for Bible correspondence courses, and conducting home Bible studies. As a result of these efforts, hundreds of thousands of Tanzanians have been introduced to the Gospel and the Lord's church, several thousand have obeyed the Gospel and are continuing to do so in almost daily conversions, and over 30 congregations of the Lord's people have been established in the last 3 and 1/2 years. The spiritual fields are indeed white unto harvest in Tanzania. The following article, written by brother Upchurch is taken from the Tanzania 2000 Newsletter. I hope it inspires you like it did me! D. McCain)
As a boy growing up in Texas I was by birth and circumstances almost in love with cowboys from the first breath. They were heroes of the first magnitude in my young mind. They did exciting things, carried guns and ropes, wore chaps and spurs, and most importantly, had their own horses and rode off into the sunset of adventure and danger. Doesn't get any better than that for a young boy with dreams!
They had an expression then; it's still around today but not used as much as it once was; called, "Riding for the Brand." That meant, as long as you were working for an "outfit" then you owed them loyalty, honor, faithfulness and the best of your courage. A code existed within the "Brand," unwritten, and passed on from generation to generation of "hands" that rode for the "Brand." You didn't steal, lie or cheat the "Brand." You didn't do "just enough" but always a little extra for the "Brand." You were quick to take the part of the "Brand," and defend it with your life if need be.
Got to thinking about working for God's "Brand" and it occurred to me, those are the same things God expects from His "wranglers:" faithfulness, honor, honesty, courage, loyalty to His cause, a willingness and desire to defend the "rightness" of His leadership with our very lives if needed.
How special it is for Christians today who "ride for the Brand" with God. He has written down the precepts, posted guidelines, and surrounded us with the fence of His protection, the church, to keep us on the "range" of righteousness and duty, and provided us with a map, His Word, for traveling on the road to Glory. What a blessing He has given us! What an opportunity to serve in His Kingdom! What a wonderful design and plan He has for us!
You know, that may be the best thing we can do for God, just keep doing what He has told us to do in all Honesty, Faithfulness, and Courage, whether it is working in Tanzania in person, or helping to send others, or helping to provide some "bricks and sticks" for the work, or praying for the success of the Kingdom worldwide, it's all important and it's something we can do. Keep "riding for the brand!" just Ken
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When the Undertaker Died
(Guest Article from Jacksonville Church of Christ)
by Jim Faughn
I was still pretty young when one of the funeral directors in my home town died. To a young mind, that seemed so strange. He was always supposed to be there when other people died. Now, his family needed the services of a funeral director.
Have you ever wondered who cuts your barber's hair? To whom does your doctor go when he gets sick? Who puts the fillings in the teeth of your dentist (in case he doesn't follow the advise he gives you and gets a toothache)?
Those who usually serve need, at times, to be served. This is just as true in the church as it is in the world. Remember that Paul admonishes us, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2).
What about the person you usually rely on for support? Do you try to observe moments when you can serve and support him or her? There are those times when they need you, you know. All of us, including elders and preachers, and their families, need somebody to talk with, cry with, laugh with somebody who has no particular talent other than the ability to care.
"but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." -Galatians 5:13,14
Visitation
Well, I went to visitation
Against my will, I guess.
I was hot and tired and troubled.
And I wasn't at my best.
But they told me I was needed
So I knew I couldn't rest,
With my conscience making comments
About how I'd failed the test.
First, I went to see a shut-in;
She's been one quite sometime.
oh, how she missed the brethren,
But she tried hard not to pine.
Next, a brother who'd been absent
Several Sundays in a row.
He thought nobody missed him,
And he said next time he'd go.
Last, I called upon a couple
Who's just moved into town.
I invited them to visit,
And they said they'd come around.
Back home again I pondered,
Why, I was feeling fine
Recalling those gladdened faces,
The pleasure was all mine!
"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." - James 1:27
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(AM)........Weldon Miller
