MEETING CANCELLED - Friday September 1st

Dear Friends,

After some careful consideration, John and I have decided in the light of the bad weather reports for Fletcher in the evening (the lingering effects Hurricane Ernesto), and a number of other factors to cancel the bible study for this week. We'll meet again in two weeks. Please continue to pray for our next study on September 14th and for our planned outreach event at Smiley's market on the 15th.

In Christ,
Chris and John.

Tomorrow's Meeting - 6:30 PM Fletcher Park

Please pray for better weather. Currently, we are watching the forecast very carefully regarding tomorrow's study. The effects of (tropical depression) Ernesto off the coast of the Carolinas is predicted to dump quite a bit of precipitation in the area. Right now the weather forecast is quite uncertain (50-60% chance of thunderstorms). Please keep checking back here for information on whether or not the meeting will take place. We will make a final call around 3:30 PM tomorrow.

If you have any questions near the last minute, please call Chris' cell phone 864-420-2739.

3rd Meeting Wrap-Up

Dear Friends,

We had an encouraging time last night in Fellowship, singing and the study of God's Word together. We were privileged to have Glenn and Helen S. join us for fellowship and service. Glenn is a deacon at Grace Baptist. We were also pleased to welcome Pat and Leslie and the whole family. It was also the first time we ran our children's program led by Kristy for the "under 10 years old" crowd.

After a sweet time of singing and fellowship, we were privileged to have Patrick S. lead the study last night for the first time. Patrick focussed our attention on Jesus and what He accomplished on the cross for our sins from Mark 15:33-39

33 And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 35 And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” 36 And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” 37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Holy Bible, ESV)

Patrick emphasized how this was indeed the greatest event in all of human history, because it is where our seperation from God because of our sin was addressed. According to the Bible, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 6:23). If you examine your life you know that probably within the last day you have committed many sins. Simply put, sin is, as we discussed last night, rebellion against God in thought, word or deed. The Baptist catechism helps us here by adding: "Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God," Now if we examine our hearts on any day of the week we have all transgressed one or all of the Bible's 10 commandments by holding things more important than God (idolatry), taking His name in vain, dishonouring our parents, hating someone in our heart (which Jesus equates to murder), looking lustfully at someone (which Jesus equates as committing adultery in the heart), coveting someone else's possessions or any of the other of the 10 commandments or the imperatives of the Bible for our lives.

The Good News of the Gospel, which Patrick pointed us to, is that in Christ's death, the curtain (the symbol of our seperation from God's holy presence) was torn - rent in half. Through Jesus Christ, and Him alone, we have been given access to God to the Holiest of the holy. If we look to Jesus as the only way to have our sins forgiven, we can have peace with this awesome, mighty God. He is no longer just our Judge, if we have peace with Him he is our friend! What a blessing.

After the study we had our usual time of fellowship in the park followed by some fellowship at the local Sonic. In God's providence we met someone there who was having some car trouble and tried our best to help (which despite our numbers didn't amount to much other than alot of advice as none of the four cars we brought had jumper cables!). Alvin, if you're reading this, we hope you got home safely!

Prayer Requests:
1) That God will continue to give us opportunities to speak about Jesus to people in the area. That God would change and renew hearts and minds.
2) That we will be able to find a fall/winter location to meet. We have several locations we are considering at the moment, but no clear, definite location. We're looking for the "rent free" kind :-)
3) That God will bless our upcoming effort, tentatively planned for the 16th of September where we will be renting a table for the day at Smiley's Market and handing out literature and speaking with people.

3rd Meeting, Friday August 18th, 6:30 PM

Hi all,

We're getting ready to meet this Friday, August 18th at 6:30 PM for our third meeting in Fletcher Park (off Hwy 25 in Fletcher, NC, on Howard Gap Road map here) this year. We're very excited about this meeting and we hope to see you all there. Patrick Shealy from our Ministry Development group will be speaking this week continuing our Introduction to Christianity series of studies in the Bible's Gospel of Mark. Patrick is a graduate from Reformed Theological Seminary and has pastoral experience in a Southern Baptist church. He's currently working as a project manager and has become a member of Grace Baptist with his wife Christy while he prayerfully considers his next move. We're thankful that he and his family have devoted so much to the Asheville project and we're excited to have him speak for us.

For a pleasant change, the weather is looking to be great compared to the rest of the week. As always we ask that you continue to pray for the meeting that the people we've met (and other new people) would come out and that God would be glorified by our worship of Him. Here's a new slide show that shows visuals of our location in the Park. Hope you enjoy it!

The Slide Show

Second Meeting Wrap-up

Yesterday was our second official public bible study!(our real second meeting was cancelled due to forecast thunderstorms). We were originally a bit worried because the forecast was not very good - in fact it was the same as the day we actually cancelled the study two weeks ago. But, knowing that God was the God who created the earth and who controls the weather we decided to go ahead with our plans, expectantly praying that God would keep the rain and thunderstorms back.

Pre-Study Book Table
So, John, Jared (one of our friendly and enthusiastic young persons) and myself went up to Fletcher Park earlier in the afternoon to set up a literature table to meet people and give out bibles and material. Here's a picture of where we set up (John (right) and Jared (left) behind the table):

(What's the key to meeting people in a park? - setting up by the bathrooms!)

You'll notice the signs we pain-stakingly made out of poster board and vinyl lettering. We made three of them - two with those "stick in the ground" American flags taped to the back of the sign so that we could actually put one by the park entrance (temporarily, of course). Here's Jared again with the sign at the front of the park. The rather ornate arrow - which is barely visible in this long distance shot - was a result of my directional confusion - it was actually originally pointing the other way. So, with some creative cutting and pasting, we managed to get the arrow to point in the right direction. Sadly, you cannot see the sign in the picture to the right very well but considering all the effort it took I felt compelled to share the saga of the signs.

The sign was actually effective in bringing someone into the park to meet us. She lived down the road and had gotten a copy of our brochure in her mailbox. Sadly, she had to work that night, but she had seen our sign as she drove by and she decided to drive in and talk to us. We were able to talk to her and give her some literature and an ESV bible. We have every hope of seeing her at our next meeting. We also distributed literature to a number of other folks that stopped by our little table.

The BibleStudy

As the afternoon progressed, John and I started to get flashbacks to last week where it was raining all the time we were up there. We heard thunder and saw some amazing lightning displayes in the distance just as we were all setting up for the study. You can see the weather transition in this picture which contains one of the most ominous thunderstorm clouds that was forming in the distance jut as the bible study was about to begin.

After the study Patrick told me that as he and Kristy and the children were driving up they were praying two things: that the Lord would hold back the rain and and that He would bring just one new person out to the study. We are happy to say that the Lord answered both those prayers as we had a dry study and we welcomed two new people to the study; a friend of Greg's from work and her nephew who was visiting her from Texas.

The Bible Study got underway with some singing around 6:40 PM and we started our first study around 7 PM in the Gospel of Mark entitled "Who is Jesus?" Chris was leading the study this week after John led us last time with the introduction and overview. The study last night was the first part of a six part study that we have started to answer the questions "What is Christianity?" and "What does it mean to be a Christian?" as part of our introduction to Christianity series. Appropriately, last night we dealt with Jesus' authority as the Son of God, the King of heaven. We placed Jesus' coming into the Bible's storyline pointing back to God's creation and the fall of humanity creating the preconditions and need for a Redeemer, Jesus to buy us back from our bondage to sin. Jesus came with His Father's authority (Mark 1:11) and we looked at how He had been given authority to: cast out demons (Mark 1:27), heal the sick (Mark 2:12) power over the weather (Mark 4:39 and as we saw in answer to our prayers for the study!) and most importantly His authority over people (Mark 1:17-18) and His power to forgive our sins (Mark 2:5). We talked about how many people emphasize the miracles of Christ but forget that these miracles had a purpose - to testify to Jesus' real focus and emphasis - His ability to forgive us our sins. The story of the Paralytic in Mark 2:1-17 is a powerful demonstration of this.

Jesus was the focus of our study because to be a Christian actually means to be a "follower of Christ." The contrast we drew was that even the demons in Mark 1:24 actually knew who He was and even called Him by name. Many in our day do that too, they confess the name of Jesus, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything practically in their lives. Jesus is not interested in people knowing His name or who He was - He is interested in people repenting and following Him and doing as He taught in His strength and enabling power. Without Christ people are slaves to sin, following the desires of their heart that lead to emptiness and ultimately to destruction. Wth Christ as their redeemer they become His servants and live for a different purpose to please and glorify Him in all their lives. That's the "good news" of the "Beginning of the Gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark 1:1).

After the study wrapped up around 8 with some more singing and prayer, we stood around and chatted some in the park, feasted on Lisa H's cookie bars and played some ball sports. Then we headed to Hardees for some of the best chocolate shakes around and had some more fellowship time.

Overall, it was a great time of study and fellowship and we were truly encouraged. We would like to once again thank all our supporters for their prayers for us, the bible study and the people of Fletcher/Asheville. Keep praying for Asheville. We're truly excited about what God can do there.

This Friday's Meeting - Fletcher Park August 4th, 2006

***Quick Weather Update*** as of Thursday evening, the Biblestudy is still on. Even if it is raining a bit we will still meet as we have canopy tents to cover us. John and I are still planning to go up early to meet some folks in the city center and later in the afternoon in the park before the study. See you at the study!

Hi Folks,

Thank you for your continued prayers for the Asheville study. We are planning to meet this Friday at Fletcher Park at 6:30 PM for the Biblestudy. I will be continuing the study in the Gospel of Mark that John began last month. The weather forecast is a bit uncertain right now with showers predicted, so please pray that it will improve. John and I hope to go up and set up a table in Asheville city center to distribute literature and speak to people in the early afternoon on Friday. By late afternoon we plan to shift our focus and move to the park. Please pray that God would open hearts and minds.

As always, stay tuned for weather updates, and pray for dry weather! :-)

In other news, one of the fruits of our rain-sodden trip to Asheville last Saturday was discovering the Smiley's Flea Market just down the road from Fletcher Park. We hope to rent a table (only $12 for a rain-proof table inside!) on a Saturday sometime in August to distribute free literature and meet people in the community.

This picture is an aerial photo of what the market looks like on a busy day. It's a great opportunity and we're pretty excited about it. We'll keep you posted on when we're planning on doing this. Another event for prayer!