There were no blog posts for November 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th and December 2nd, 9th, and 16th
I’ve missed several opportunities to keep everyone up to date on all that has been happening at Calvary over the past two months. I’ve missed posting seven blogs since the last one posted on the last Monday of October (28th). Do you want to hear my list of excuses? I thought not.
Anyway, the past two months have been unusually busy. After Pastor Jeff declined to partner with Banner Christian Assembly of God in Portland, Calvary took it on and we appointed Michael Burk (right) from our church to be interim Pastor until the District decided what to do. As a result of an amazing turn around at Banner Christian under Pastor Mike, our Superintendent has decided that Banner can remain as a District Affiliated Assembly and he is coming to Banner Christian on Sunday, January 26th to officially install Pastor Mike as the permanent Pastor of the church in Portland.
I could go on and on about how great a job they are doing and how the people of the church are enthusiastic once again, but let me just say, looking back it is obvious what God had planned. Pastor Mike and his wife, Angie, have really invested themselves into making it work. We are already hearing of salvations and people returning to church who have not been there in a long time. Continue to keep Banner Christian, Pastor Mike, and Mike’s family in your prayers. God is doing great things for us in Portland.
At Calvary we have had a really rough time with the health of some of our people. Deep concerns for them have led us to pray in a new way. I have learned to take prayer a step at a time. As a result, all the little answers add up to big miracles. Our people are coming back stronger and stronger. Some are still struggling and some have passed on to glory. It is that season at Calvary when many long standing members are facing their final years of service here on earth. Continue to keep them in your prayers also.
We had a great response to our Operation Christmas Child shoebox collection this year. We filled and turned in 23 shoeboxes for kids around the world. This will be a permanent part of our annual outreaches here at Calvary. Next year we have set a goal for 30 shoeboxes.
One thing I’ve come to realize, we are a generous church. Along with this program we also gave eight blankets to the Rock Solid Ministries homeless blanket program in Richmond, we donated over 100 bars of soap to our local nursing care centers, and we just sent a check for $500.00 to our Indiana District office for parking lot repairs at our Campgrounds in Hartford City. Finally, Calvary took up $600.00 to go towards the purchase of a new car for Pastor Robert and Alice Milam of The River Assembly of God in Cambridge City, Indiana. God’s blessings upon our lives will be abundant as we continue to freely share of what he has given us (I pause a moment to thank God for our people and pray blessings upon their lives).
One of the greatest events of November was having Pastor Richard Crisco from Rochester First Assembly of God with us for a special event called The Value of Volunteers. We opened the event up to local churches and hosted a Pastor’s breakfast with Pastor Crisco. We had over 80 people attend the Sunday evening service and four Pastors and their teams joined us for the Monday morning breakfast. It was a well received addition to our ministry and outreach. So look for this to happen again. God is going to bring some tremendous ministry to the Union City area through Calvary.
Our Annual Church-Wide Christmas Pitch-In Dinner was another great event we enjoyed over the past couple months. Over 50 people came out and brought a great amount of delicious food. There is never a lack of food when we all get together.
In mentioning that, I want to tell you about our Seniors Ministries. Donna Burk heads up this ministry to our seniors and has expanded the ministry to include the Hoosier Place on Oak Street. This facility provides income assisted housing for our local seniors and has a lunch program funded through LifeStream. Donna, and her husband Steve, serve the lunches to the residents and all seniors 60 years of age or over in our community. Recently Donna retired and is increasing her commitment to ministry for the seniors of our church and community.
To mention a few other things that happened over the past two months, Angie Burk and Dollie Larison (right) completed their first level of studies at ISOM (Indiana School of Ministry) and were among the highest scorers in attendance. Pictured is Dollie, who is so proud of her achievement — and we are too! We have had seven people go through the ISOM program in the past few years. It is exciting!
Howard Collins (above), our Head Usher, turned 88 years old this year. Since his birthday fell on Sunday, we had a little birthday party for him after church in the foyer. I made him some sugar-free cakes, which everyone else seemed to enjoy also.
I do want to pause a moment and mention that one of our other ushers, Jim Horne, passed on to his reward this year. He was very dear to us and faithful to the Lord. I always had a great time talking to him about the Bible, which he studied every day. He will be greatly missed. Pray for his wife, Marge Horne, who continues to be one of our most faithful members at Calvary.
I don’t want to fail to mention the great Chili Cook-off we had this year. Especially since I won two awards myself. It was a great time of fellowship. Along with all the chili entries, people even brought corn bread, desserts, and other side items.
We love the times we have together. We are looking forward to great times of fellowship with each other and in the presence of the Lord in 2014. We are greatly encouraged that we will continue to be able to press forward into all that God has for us to possess and to do for him. I will be sharing more about that this coming week as we cast a greater vision for our leadership here at Calvary and plan for expanding our reach into the community. God has given us a great course to follow. We pray for the strength of spirit and mind to be faithful to what we have accomplished in this short amount of time and to continue to become bigger and better people in the coming year.
One final note: In our Christmas service I delivered a hard-hitting message about the lostness of our world. Especially our young people. I used the illustration of what the world does with young people in Hollywood and the damage it causes them in their lives. Nevertheless, we must realize that young people just like that are all around us and no less damaged. May God cause us to be a healing balm for them. Also in our Christmas Service, Susan and I sang the song Where Are You Christmas, which was the theme of the service. Susan is pictured here representing the Cindy Lou Who character from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
My apologies for neglecting the website for so long. It’s constantly hard to keep up with all the technology, Facebook, media, and the like. Pray God send us some of those young people. They understand all this stuff.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16