Family News and Notes
REMINDER Youth Trip Friday evening, April 1. We will be taking the young people who want to attend the Youth Forum in Mabank. The theme will be "Everyone's Not Doing It". We will leave in a caravan from our building at 4:00 PM and will return late, between 11:00 PM and Midnight. If you plan to attend please sign the list in the foyer today so we can plan enough transportation. There is also a Flyer about the Youth Rally on the table by the sign-up list.
Building Fund Sunday is next week, so if you are able and wish to contribute to the fund you may do so on that day. Thanks.
We know the following three items are old news, but perhaps you have not yet made plans to attend any of these events and you need to mark your calendar
Saturday, April 2, 2005, beginning at 10:00 AM OUR Ladies Day here at the building. All ladies are encouraged to attend. Mark your calendar. Sister Sarah Fallis of Fort Worth will be guest speaker. We will have a salad luncheon.
AND THEN Area Wide Singing on Saturday, April 09, 2005 from 7:00 PM9:00 PM at North Jefferson Church of Christ. Everyone is invited.
LADIES DAY AT PITTSBURG CHURCH OF CHRIST April 16, 2005 from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM. Lunch will be served. Guest speaker will be Sarah Fallis from Fort Worth, Texas. If you have any questions you can call:
903-856-2115 or 903-856-5355
Hallie Lang had tests last week because of soreness from her recent fall. She should get the results this next week. She is still not getting around very well.
Hollis Lee is waiting for the pathology report from the removal of the growth on his arm. Hopes to hear early this week.
Billy Carter recently had surgery and he also is waiting for the pathology report to come back.
Winnie Patton has been dismissed from the hospital and is now back at home after her bout with pneumonia.
Billye Campbell is feeling a little better after taking all those tests last week and she hopes to be at services today.
V. G. Strong, neighbor of David and Janice McCain, has been in ICU at Titus Regional Medical Center. He was scheduled to be moved to Tyler Friday or Saturday.
Ralph Phillips has been moved to: Mission Manor Nursing Home
501 Yates
Mount Vernon, Texas 75457
Room No. 21
As mentioned Wednesday nite, Sister Hazel Phillips passed away in Tyler on Wednesday afternoon. Ralph was not able to be with his wife of 57 years when she passed away. Hazel's funeral will be conducted by Harvey Funeral Home, at their chapel, at 2:00 PM, Tuesday, March 29, 2005. There will not be an "official" visitation.
THANK YOU "To My dear Christian Friends Words cannot express how much I appreciate the love shown me by your calls, cards, and especially your prayers, during my illness and tests. I hope to be back with you soon. I love you all very much
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PRAYER LIST:
Justin Barker, Rachel Barker, Louis Bell, Annah Brown, Sue Browning,
Billye Campbell, Billy Carter, Perry Cooper, Zenith Hargrove, Howard Horton,
Ruby Lawhon, Hollis Lee, Joyce Lee, Glenn Parham, Winnie Patton, Ralph Phillips, Helen Roper, Dorothy Sargent, Alva Mae Sheets
ALSO: Ercell Fetters, Marie Holloway, V. G. Strong
Overcoming The Grasshopper Complex
The twelve spies had just returned from their forty-day scouting trip into Canaan. Ten of them concluded the Promised Land was just a foolish dream. "It's a great and bountiful land," they offered, "but it can't be conquered. The cities are walled, and very great, and the men are giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, as well as theirs." Sadly, this "grasshopper complex" had reduced the ten "faithless" spies to whimpering jellyfish.
However, two of the twelve spies were possibility thinkers. Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, could see, by the eye of faith, that the land was theirs for the taking. They said, "Let us go up at once, and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. ...Neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us, their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not" (Num. 13:30, 14:9).
Have you ever considered what caused these two groups of men to give such conflicting reports? It's simple! Two of the men walked by faith, while the other ten walked only by sight (II Cor. 5:7). The ten "faithless" spies could see only the giants peering over the walls of their great cities, whereas the two "faithful" spies, Joshua and Caleb, through the "eye of faith," could see those walls come tumbling down.
No, their faith was not the proverbial "leap in the dark," but rather was the faith founded upon the evidence (Heb. 11:1) of God's blessings and protection in the past. Once before, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle had stood in the way of their journey to the Promised Land. But, if God could open the Red Sea all the way down to bone dry ground, then He could surely shake down a few walls and squash a few giants. That's why Joshua and Caleb in essence said, "let's go eat them for lunch" ("they are bread for us" - Num. 14:9).
Wanted: Faithful, fearless, visionary men like Joshua and Caleb of old.
Must be willing to exercise the eye of faith to think outside the box.
Willing to lead by example a plus. Little pay and few thanks but fantastic
retirement program. Apply at your local church of Christ, Anywhere, USA.
Oh, how we need men and women of faith like that in the Lord's church today! Too much of the time, I fear we must disappoint and anger God greatly, by sitting around whimpering and whining about all the things we're incapable of doing in His service. Sometimes it must make God ill to listen to all of our excuses of why we are too few, too poor, or too lacking in talent, to do what we know is right, and fair, and good, and that He has commanded us to do. It's high time we quit letting the faithless, the fretting, and the fearful stand in the way of our own "Promised Land" of heaven. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (II Tim. 1:7).
Away with the nay-sayers, the nit-pickers, the malcontents, the weak-kneed, Casper Milquetoast members who drag us down to the status of "wilderness wanderers." Instead, bring on the brethren who will lead us to envision the great works God has planned for us to do. The Lord's church doesn't need "wall-surveyors'' and "giant-measurers," we need bold, visionary men, like Joshua and Caleb, who will point to the "land of milk and honey, just over Jordan," and who will then set about looking for a way to cross and conquer. We need more brethren who are "people-oriented" and "soul-conscious," We need elders, deacons, teachers, preachers, and members who will eat, drink, sleep, talk, and dream souls and goals. We need more godly leaders who will challenge us to work harder, to do more, and to reach more people with the precious Gospel of Christ.
Yes, Lord, please help us to overcome the grasshopper complex by raising up a new generation of faithful and faith-filled leaders in your church who will be more like Joshua and Caleb, to help lead us all the way home to our own Promised Land of heaven.
David McCain
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MASKS
Author Unknown
(Borrowed from Bangs Church of Christ Bulletin
Don't be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a thousand masks, and none of them are me. Don't be fooled, for goodness sake, don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure, that confidence is my name and coolness is my game, and that I need no one.
But don't believe me.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in aloneness, in fear. That's why I create a mask to hide behind, to shield me from the glance that knows, but such a glance is precisely my salvation.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance, if it's followed by love. It's the only thing that can liberate me from my own self-built prison walls. I'm
afraid that deep down I'm nothing and that I'm just no good, and that you will reject me.
And so begins the parade of masks. I idly chatter to you. I tell you everything that's really nothing and nothing of what's everything, of what's crying within me.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying. I'd really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me. But you've got to help me. you've got to hold out your hand.
Each time you're kind and gentle, and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings, feeble wind, but wings.
With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding, you alone can release me from my shallow world of uncertainty.
It will not be easy for you. The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back. But I'm told that Love is stronger than strong walls, and in this lies my only hope.
Please try to beat down these walls with firm hands, but gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive.
Who am I, you wonder? I am every man you meet, and also every woman that you meet, AND I am you, also.
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