Growing in Grace

God continues to bless the efforts of Good News Baptist Church here in Hamilton. We are excited to see the church body growing in numbers, in spiritual health, and in vitality. Many dear friends of our family are praying earnestly for us and for this ministry, and we are very thankful to see God’s blessings here.

Scott has completed his Sunday morning series on all the ‘tions’ you could possibly think of, and maybe a few more (propitiation, reconciliation, adoption, etc). He is wrapping up his series on salvation with several messages on the destiny of man. One lady was very pleased for her teenage son to hear a sermon on hell. The lady commented she didn’t believe her son had ever heard such a message. After the message that same young man commented to Scott that it was a very interesting sermon. We trust God will continue to do a work in that young man’s life.

New Zealand society does not recognize itself as a pagan society. Many Kiwis have commented to us that they find it comical to hear of another country sending missionaries to New Zealand. However, there is much to demonstrate the need for the gospel here. A pizza chain which has arisen is named “Hell Pizza.” They are a fast growing company despite their explicit attempts to make a mockery of the reality of hell. Their advertisements are enough to make you furious or weep. It is just too offensive for us to publicly list a portion of their advertising leaflet here. Their pizza combinations have such names as: sinister, underworld, damned, and brimstone. They have sought to mock every stereotype or biblical idea of hell. Unfortunately, this pizza chain is growing at a remarkable rate. The New Zealand people need Christ and the truth of the Bible.

Please remember to pray for Marj. She has recently been discouraged by Satan’s attempts to prevent her from attending our Bible studies. She continues to learn the Word of God and we believe she will be gloriously saved as the light of the gospel illumines a mind and heart that have been clouded by false religion for so many years.

Our children are still adjusting to being back in New Zealand. Heidi is amazed at the vast difference in vocabulary. She was incredulous that a Kiwi friend did not know what fuzz is. Upon doing some detective work with a few other Kiwis, we didn’t find any who knew what fuzz is! Apparently they don’t have it here! The best comparison using a word from both cultures is lint. Trying to figure out any difference between lint and fuzz is futile.

Today we enjoyed a fun activity with the children who attend church. A number of them live in a very small apartment with no yard or grass. They enjoyed joining our family for some organized games and a picnic instead of playing their computer games and watching more TV. An old-fashioned sack race was their favorite game. These children enjoy their teaching time at church, and we pray that each of them will be well-grounded in God’s Word.

We are looking forward to a good Lord’s Day here. May God reward you for your faithful prayers on our behalf.

Scott, Lori, Heidi, and Daniel

An Important Prayer Request from Jack Mitchell

Hello Pastor Bob,

It was good to talk with you the other day! We thank the Lord for giving
us a safe trip back home from BJ and now we are frantically packing for
our ministry to Cameroon, leaving Wednesday.

Jennifer and I pray for you all at Morning Star Baptist Church regularly!
We appreciate the ministry there very much and we are thankful to the
Lord for bringing us all together in service to Him.

Thanks for being willing to have us with you on Sunday, March 25th. We
will plan to arrive on Saturday afternoon the 24th, but since we will be
driving out this time, we could come earlier if there was any other way
we could contribute to the ministry there. Just let me know.

We would appreciate your prayers for our ministry to Cameroon as there
are still a few unresolved issues, as it seems there always is. We were
hoping to have some additional paper work to help us through customs, but
that has not arrived. We received a note from one of the missionaries
there who recently took the same flight we are taking and related several
difficulties associated with it. As always, we are trusting God to go
before us. He is a faithful God and He is in control! We rest in that.

As you may remember, Grace Dental Mission recently celebrated 10 years of
ministry (which is surely another evidence of the faithfulness of God).
There is a reporter from our local newspaper who attends our church who
has written an article related to the anniversary service for the paper
which will be published today. We have not seen it, but we are trusting
it will honor God and be used of Him in a great way. My unsaved family
will surely read it, but just as surely, won't even mention it to us. We
pray, however, that as other people comment on it to them that there
hearts may be softened and more open to the gospel.

Well, thanks again so much for your kindness to us and for your much
needed prayers.

Yours in Christ,

Jack

News from Wilkins

The Basque Bulletin:

There are a multitude of reasons for the smiles on Cristina and Karen's faces today! God has provided a teacher for our children in order for Karen to return to language studies, ministry responsibilities, and taking care of Randy. Cristina is enthusiastic about serving the Lord in Spain. God has provided about 50% of her financial support for this school year and she is trusting Him that more will accumulate these next few months. To those who are giving, THANK YOU! Not to mention that she's just plain happy to see a familiar after a flight delay in Atlanta which resulted in a missed connection in Madrid! She took it all in good missionary stride, sweetly and without a single complaint. Special thanks to Andy and Mimi for their usual gracious help in getting Cristina from the airport in Bilbao while Randy is unable to drive.

Piper Parties!

We would like you to see this message. John Piper delivers an excellent address on the character and ministry of William Tyndale. You'll love it!

We are so in to making it convenient for you to see/hear this good message that we have concocted a way for us to have good fellowship as well as a great time of edification. Actually three ways.

Next Friday (October 20th) the Berrymans will be hosting the first Piper Party in their home with Pastor Mark Garard. The starting time is 7:30. Click here for a map to their house.

On Friday, October 27, the Myers will host the next Piper Party. And the following week it will be hosted by the Gordons. In other words, the east, west, and north are covered.

You may choose to go to one, two, ALL, or none of the Piper Parties, but I hope you choose to go to at least one! Mark has told me that he intends to go to all of them! I don't know if that is because he wants to see the message that many times over, if he wants to fellowship with us that much, or if he knows something about the dessarts that I haven't heard yet.

Morning Star Baptist Church is now podcasting

We have recently added a new medium for getting the message of the gospel out to the Rockford area and beyond.

Sermonaudio.com is, to my knowledge, the largest online repository of sermons available on the internet. It contains over 100,000 free audio sermons. The site receives over 7 million page views per month, and has more than 141,000 subscribers. Visitors to the site can search for sermons by topic, speaker, bible passage, and date. Even better, visitors to the site can search for local churches by geographic location.

In addition to downloadable links to our sermons, our page on sermonaudio.com provides the visitor with contact information for our church as well as links to our church website and a Google map to our church. To access the Morning Star Baptist Church page on sermonaudio.com, simply click on the sermonaudio.com icon at the top of this post. We also have the icon permanently located on the sidebar of this blog.

And for those of you that subscribe to podcasts, you can drop this link into your podcast receiver(such as iTunes) to automatically download new sermons as they are made available.

If you’re not sure what podcasting is, the simplest way to explain it is that podcasting is a way to subscribe to digital media. Just as you can subscribe to a magazine or catalog and receive the document in the mail when it is published, subscribers to the Morning Star Baptist Church podcast will receive new sermons as they are uploaded to our space on sermonaudio.

When a person subscribes to a podcast, iTunes (or whatever podcast receiver you choose to use) will search for an update to the podcast and will automatically download it into your application for you to either listen to directly or transfer to your digital media player. You don't need an iPod (or any other type of portable digital media player) to subscribe to or listen to a podcast. Programs like iTunes will allow you to listen to the podcasts directly on your computer. (I know I've mentioned iTunes several times in this post. That's only because it's the one that I'm most familiar with and because I know that it's free.)

If you don’t want to bother with the podcast feature, you can simply download the sermons directly from our site on sermonaudio.com. And we will still be making audio cd's available to those who prefer to listen to the sermons on their cd player or in their car.

The best part about all of this…it’s free to download and subscribe. Happy listening.

New Zealand, a vegetarian, and the Silsbee family

from Lori Silsbee:

My mother recently sent me an email with the subject declaring “busy beyond words.” I assumed she meant them regarding her own household, but I’ve wondered, too, did she mean my house? We are challenged by the amount of things vying for our time, but then we don’t know many people who aren’t in that same struggle. The struggle remains manageable so long as we remember to make decisions based on our purpose for being on this earth.

We continue to meet weekly with Marge, our former Hare Krishna Filipino friend. She is so much fun to teach, and Scott does a fabulous job. I get to sit and enjoy watching the Holy Spirit at work. Marge likens herself to a young child in her Bible knowledge and is convinced our daughter Heidi knows more about the Bible than she does. We invited her to have dinner with us before our Bible study last week. It was the first time I ever prepared a strict vegetarian meal. I was so proud of myself coming up with a full meal, without any animal products, including pudding made with soy milk for dessert (don’t try it!). From a vegetarian pamphlet I’d picked up somewhere, I chose cashew mushroom fettuccine. As I put it on the table, I realized with horror that the noodles were not vegetarian noodles and contained eggs! Marge graciously forgave me and ate a small portion anyway…and then filled up on tossed salad. She then proceeded to ask if we could spend the Bible study time addressing the whole vegetarian/don't animals have souls question that had been nagging her. Scott took her to Genesis 1 and read through chapters one and two, explaining it verse by verse. The late hour kept us from continuing to Genesis 9 and onwards. There is so much more to be studied this week, and in weeks to come. That night Marge said she had never heard before that we are made in God’s image, yet she understood it when clearly presented from Scripture. As I was taking her home, she said, “God has been so good to me. I have been searching for the truth for so long, and now He has given me someone who can explain the Bible so clearly. I’ve never had that before.” She mentioned studying with the Jehovah’s Witnesses for a while but she felt that their explanations of Scripture didn’t make sense. Continue to pray for Marge.

A number of visitors have attended the church services. We are delighted to have a new family who came in search of preaching that isn’t shallow fluff. We do ask that you would pray that God would give wisdom as we seek to minister to those who visit. There are many strains of Christianity here, and not all types would be healthy additions to the church family. In a small church (we have about 30 people), the temptation exists to embrace any warm body that presents itself. Scott needs direction from the Holy Spirit to discern teachable sheep among the many who show up claiming to be believers but lacking a church connection.

We do appreciate every prayer made on our behalf. We often sense Satan attacking our family. He isn’t dumb and likes to come around on Sunday mornings, especially! Perhaps you know the feeling. :) If you happen to think of us on Saturday afternoon, that is a good time to pray for our family and ministry.

Joy in France

In the car yesterday I was singing, "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" when Patience said, "Daddy, please don't sing that! It makes me miss Joy!"

Well, for those of you who miss Joy, be sure to check out her blog.

We know that my parents are glad to have her there. Let's pray for Joy as she seeks to serve God in the school where she is teaching English as well as in my folks' church.

Pray for Randy Wilkins

Recently we prayed for the Wilkins' daughter in our morning worship service. Shortly after that (a day or two) Randy injured his leg. I'm not sure of the particulars, but we need to pray for a recovery that is supposed to take several months. Truly, they are being tried during this time.

Remember to pray for Randy and Karen Wilkins as well as their daughter, Hillary.

Our other missionaries:

The Bob Bixbys in France
The Matt Bixbys in Mexico
The Dan Sehesteds in Romania
The Jack Mitchells (missionary dentistry)
The Scott Silsbees
The Duane Scotts

Breakfast Schedule 2006-2007

September-January-May
*Margaret Metras
Laurie Hilbert
Lacey Berryman
Florence Gordon
Robin Hayes
Martina Kilburn
Kaye

October-February-June
*Jennie Bixby
Jenna Boeke
Judy Goodwin
Nancy Hunt
Anouk Scott
Heidi Scott
Connie Walsh

November-March-July
*Jane Cook
Karen Metras
Julie Ascher
Grace Musgrave
Becky Holmquist
Linda Lee
Kathy Johnson

December-April-August
*Bev Garard
Deb Myers
Mel Geismann
Karyn Heath
Faith Sanchez
Jan Miller
Robin Foster

 

October - December 2006 Nursery Schedule

Click here to see our nursery schedule.

Flame of Fire recap

By now many of you have already heard the reports from those in our assembly who attended the performance of Flame of Fire last Friday night. Morning Star Baptist Church was well represented (34 people) at the play and those who attended enjoyed the dramatic rendering of the story of Nate Saint, Jim Elliott, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Peter Fleming and their burden to take the gospel to the Auca Indians in Ecuador. Joy McCarnan saw the play before she made her way to Bordeaux and wrote this review. The show's limited run in Itasca has now ended, so those of you who missed it will have to be content with this vicarious experience. Based on the response, however, we may very well take in some of the future productions from Overshadowed Productions.