New Blog Home

This blog has now made the jump to wordpress. So, head on over to our new home - http://msbclife.wordpress.com.

See you there!

Books Mentioned from the Pulpit Recently

Mentioned by Brian Hanson

Mentioned by Pastor Miller

Mentioned by Pastor Bixby

Farmer Update

Dear gospel partners,

Home in Wisconsin

At the end of August, we returned to our home in Wisconsin for the first time in almost a year, and for over a month now, we’ve enjoyed being in one location. During this time, we’ve met with four different churches where we have friends from our years at Northland. We’ve especially enjoyed some extended time with our home church in Norway, MI.

In addition to these meetings, one of our biggest accomplishments has been to pare down the rest of our stuff – currently stored in a friend’s basement. Hopefully, by the time we leave Wisconsin in a week, everything in their basement will be packed and ready for a flight to Cambodia.

Visa miracle

In other news … some of you have been following our updates about the visa situation. To catch everyone up to speed, below is an email excerpt from our future co-worker, JD Crowley, in Cambodia (dated 9/10):

You’ve been praying for over a year now that we would be able to renew our official agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (equivalent to our State Department in the U.S.) so that we could remain in Cambodia as an official International Organization. What we lacked was a letter of support from the Ministry of Religion, something that had never before been required and that the Ministry of Religion rarely provides for anyone. Yesterday I was allowed an audience with the Minister of Religion to explain our work and situation. He was quite friendly and agreeable, write a letter of support for EMU, but would enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with EMU, officially placing us under the jurisdiction of his ministry. He has done this for only a few organizations.

I’m supposed to go back to his office on Monday to do the paperwork. Please pray that everything would work out. If EMU has this MoU with the Ministry of Religion, it would be the final document that Foreign Affairs needs to renew our MoU with them and stay in the country. This is a significant breakthrough.

Thanks for your prayers.

So far, it appears that the Lord is continuing to direct the king’s heart in a way favorable to us. This answer to prayer has served as a great encouragement to our faith. Please be sure to praise the Lord for this miraculous work in our behalf, and continue to ask that no further problems arise in the process of receiving the MoU.

Departure for Cambodia

We have now been on the road for 16 months. In all honesty, the first year of our travels was a time of great blessing and contentment – visiting strong churches who share a similar philosophy of ministry, communicating our vision for mission in Cambodia, enjoying fellowship of friends, old and new. Well, we are officially in the discontented stage! I think it’s primarily SIL that is to blame. After 9 weeks of focused study on language and culture acquisition, we really are chomping at the bit to get our feet on the ground in Cambodia. Along that line, the Lord is encouraging our hearts with your eagerness to join with us in this mission. We recently crossed a major “threshold” and now have approximately 55% of our needed support. We are praising the Lord for this encouraging development; we thank you for your partnership in this mission; and we are earnestly praying that he would enable us to leave the States in May, 2011. Please join us in asking him to do this.

Thank you again for your continued support. May the grace of Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Jeremy Farmer
Missionary to Cambodia

New MSBC Blog

I'm pretty excited about this. We have a new blog/website that is going to be hosted by the pastoral leadership. Kevin Thompson has been doing an excellent job at maintaining the church blog and I encourage you to look at it often. This blog will overlap some of what Kevin is doing but it is different. It will be a blog where the pastoral team tries to communicate with you about everything pertaining to the church as well as things that we think would be of interest to you. Some features about this blog.

1. Sunday's music will be available to you shortly before and after the Sunday service. Click on the tab that says "Liturgy [date]" and you will be able to see what we are planning on doing or what we did. We will provide whenever possible a link to the music so that you can hear it or download it. Check out the music we plan to use this coming Sunday.
2. Comments on messages that we have preached or intend to preach.
3. We'll give insights that we have had in our devotions that we feel may be a blessing to you.
4. Sometimes we'll state our philosophy for a particular direction and you'll be able to see it in writing before your eyes.


The site is still in construction. Pastor Jess is not hooked up yet, but you will find that there are things there already. If you don't know how to use a blog reader that automatically notifies you every time there is something new then I strongly suggest that you suscribe for an email alert every time something new is posted. There is a subscribe button available on the site. Just put your email in there and you're set.


The reason we are doing this is because we are persuaded that we cannot over communicate about anything. We are trying to utilize all the tools at our disposal to be informational and helpful. Check out the site and go there regularly!


http://msbcstuff.wordpress.com/


Thanks to Shannon Brown who is helping us with the construction.

See You at the Pole Organized by MSBC Youth

See You at the Pole is an annual event led by Christian young people accross the country. It their opportunity to openly display their faith and share their testimony at school by gathering around their flag poles for a time of public prayer. This year, our own Callista Miller organized a local See You at the Pole event at AC Thompson Elementary School.

Missions Update - Bixbys Celebrate 10 Years

From Our Missionaries in France...

The Bixby Family

Established September 23, 2000

We are grateful to God for the 10 years of covenantal companionship He has graciously given us so far. Though the waters of our God-given love may not be as swift and vigorous as the energetic brook of the first days, it is very true that the passage of time has only made the river’s current run deeper and stronger as we have experienced more and are learning better how to rely on our Savior’s grace in every stream of life. Truly His grace has abounded to us, and we are more contented in His gift of companionship than ever before. We are determined by His grace to commit ourselves anew to the vows we made 10 years ago today:

I, Timothy, take you, Ruth,

To be my companion and my wife by covenant;

And I do solemnly promise before God and these witnesses

To love you as Christ loved the Church,

Giving Himself for her:

To be your head, even as Christ is the head of the Church,

Leading her, protecting her, and providing for her,

Both materially and spiritually:

To strive by God’s grace and empowerment

To dwell always in harmony with you,

Being patient and kindhearted and humble in spirit,

Not rendering evil for evil, or insult for insult,

But blessing instead;

To dwell with you according to knowledge,

Giving honor unto you as unto a weaker vessel

Whether in plenty or in want,

In health or in sickness,

In joy or in sorrow,

Until God by death shall separate us.

I, Ruth, take you, Timothy,

To be my companion and my husband by covenant;

And I do solemnly promise before God and these witnesses

To reverence and honor you,

As the Church doth reverence and honor Christ as her head,

To submit unto you in all things,

Even as the Church is subject unto Christ,

To strive by God’s grace and empowerment

To dwell always in harmony with you,

To be patient and kindhearted and humble in spirit,

Not rendering evil for evil, or insult for insult,

But blessing instead;

To look well to the ways of our household

In all chastity, meekness and faithfulness,

That I may be one in whom your heart may safely trust

Whether in plenty or in want,

In health or in sickness,

In joy or in sorrow,

Until God by death shall separate us.

For more information, log on to www.hopeforfrance.org

Memories from H.A.B. (Henry's Annual Bonfire)

Pictures

Video

The Sandwich Song (hard to see at night...)

A preview of Pastor's message

Boat Races

Have you ever wondered what Christian teens do for fun? Have ever wondered just what Pastor Jeremy does with our teens. Well, now you know!

Baptisms

This past month we saw many people worship the Lord through the waters of baptism. What a blessing it was to hear the different testimony of how the Lord has sovereignly worked among His people.

Get Ready for Missions Sunday!

This coming Sunday we are going to have a very special and full day. We are having a Missions Emphasis Sunday and will turn the SS hour into a service, thus having three services for the day. The children will go to SS as usual, but the teenagers will join the adults for the service in the main room. The schedule is as follows.

AM 1 - Speaker: David Hosaflook. Many of you saw the moving "Dispatches from the Front" about the ministry of this man in Albania. I know that you will find his speaking to be very powerful.

AM 2 - Speaker: Bob Bixby

PM - Speaker: Jason Rice - Slovakia. Jason returns to us after being on the deputation trail. We were his first meeting. He and his wife have three boys.

School Prayer and New Members

As a new school year is now upon us, during this evening's service Pastor Bixby gave a special prayer for our students. He asked all those heading back to school to come up to the platform and had their parents circle around them as the congregation corporately prayed on their behalf.

At the conclusions of the service, we were blessed to welcome four of our teenagers as new members of our church!

RCCS Missions Team Visits Our Spanish Service

Back in July, The missions team from Rock County Christian School in Beloit visited our Saturday evening Spanish service. The team told of their recent trip to Costa Rica and the ministry they were able to help down there. Kevin Thompson gave a short devotional from Romans 8 following the presentation.

Discussing Missions with Hosaflook and Hesselgrave

On Monday, August 30 from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM we will be having a discussion on missions with some exceptional people. Some area pastors are planning on joining us to participate in a conversation around the broader themes of missions as discussed in the must-read book edited by Ed Stetzer and David Hesselgrave on missions: MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium. We are opening the door to any pastors or chu...rch leaders that may be interested.

Dr. David Hesselgrave is a dear friend of our church and we are quite familiar with him. His contributions to missions has not decreased with his increasing age, but rather at 84 he has just completed editing another major work on global missions, the work we will be discussing this month. He continues to write articles and debate leading missiologists, taking a strong stand for the fundamentals of biblical missions. I have been privileged to read some private correspondence between him and the late Dr. Ralph Winter.

David Hosaflook is a widely respected missionary to Albania who has been featured in the excellent DVD series Dispatches from the Front. His blog, MissioMishmash, is also a must-read blog, always contributing helpful, Christ-exalting thought to the discussion of missions.
The discussion will focus on the tension between prioritism and holism in contemporary missions. The late Dr. Ralph Winter began to propose missiological ideas that had shifted from the prioritism of early missionaries and his ideas have been widely received by many, particularly those who are embracing the ideology of the emerging church. His friend, Dr. David Hesselgrave, has valiantly championed a “historic fundamentalist” perspective in the dialogue.

Originally, we were planning on having a small and private time of discussion and fellowship, but we decided to let people know about it. The topic is so important that we feel it should be shared. Some area pastors are planning on joining us and we are encouraging any who come to read several essays in MissionShift prior to coming. I recommend reading Essay #3, The Future of Evangelicals in Mission by Ralph Winter and chapter 16, In Response to “The Future of Evangelicals in Mission” by Christopher R. Little. I agree with editor Ed Stetzer that this chapter by Little is worth the price of the entire book.

If you have time to read a little more, read Stetzer’s opening chapter and Hesselgrave’s closing chapter. Of course, all the essays are enlightening and there is lively discussion and disagreement among the authors. There is nothing fancy about the fellowship, but it will be a moderated discussion and organized for maximum profitability. A luncheon will be provided and the cost is a free-will offering. In order to plan well, we would be most appreciative of prior notification! Please respond to me directly at pastor [at] wordcentered.org

Send-Off Party for the Sanchez

Tonight we celebrated a send-off party for Art and Faith Sanchez.  They will be heading off to Mexico to minister to many family members and friends.  Please continue to pray for them as they finalize preparations for their trip.  Enjoy the photos of the party!

A great time!!

Tonight we had a "Pizza Throwdown" between the young adult class tonight at the Metras' home. We played sports (soccer and basketball) and had a challenge from God's Word on Psalm 40: 1-5. A special thanks to all of the kids for their great spirit and desire to be together as a group.

For the record, the toughest job of the night was performed by Chris and Jake. We had to be the official judges of the pizza throwdown contest. Wow, what a sacrifice! We are committed, though, so we "toughed it out" and performed our duty with honor. By the way, we were willing to take bribes too!

Anyway, the teens divided into four teams and "battled it out" in the kitchen. The winners of the contest were Team 3. Great tasting pizza, people....good job!

Go here for some awesome photos!

Spiritually Refreshed and Thankful

Two years ago we were able to attend the Impact Conference. Due to the cost and logistics of going, last year we just ordered the audio recordings. A month or two ago, Pastor Bixby sent orders (with funds) for us to attend this year's conference (held last week) and we were delighted. Our church family here also voiced their support to see us go to the conference. One family here at GNBC graciously agreed to look after our children and insisted on looking after the puppy, too! Another family insisted that we use their car for the eight-hour round trip, instead of our van, to reduce the gas prices (at US$6.21 per gallon!).

Ministry challenges in recent months have drained our spirits a bit, and we were so blessed by both the preaching and fellowship at the conference. It would be hard to determine which blessed us more.

We were able to meet several other American missionary/pastors and their wives serving in other parts of New Zealand. We also very much enjoyed fellowship with an Australian pastor. (A family from his church worshipped with us last year while they were in New Zealand visiting family, and we were all pleased to put faces to the various connections). The conference itself is held in an area where we used to serve under BWM, so we were also able to minister and fellowship with former teammates and friends in the church there.

The preaching centered on God's grace and our pursuit of holiness, a theme not planned by the organizers but providentially guided. Both of us were challenged and encouraged by the ministry of the Word. The absence of our own ministry duties also afforded us the opportunity to sit together during the preaching. We had almost forgotten what that was like!

Most of the time we were neglecting the camera, but we did remember to take a few quick photos.

Our lodging was free since we stayed in a caravan loaned by someone in the host church. That was our first ever caravan stay.



Three meals a day were served in this tent. The conference has grown to around 400 in attendance, so the buildings don't accommodate the crowd. The tent was heated with a large open fire gas heater. When walking by the heater, one was reminded of the story of the king's men dying when they cast Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the fiery furnace. It was hot!!

The services were spiritually invigorating. Crowds this size are extremely rare in Biblically sound New Zealand churches.

Please accept our sincere thanks and appreciation for the insight of the leadership at MSBC as well as to all who support the church financially, which made it possible for us to receive this blessing.


Scott and Lori

Tool and Book Bash

The men at Morning Star had a great time "storming" gifts on our most recent groomsmen to be. Both Joel and Matt walked away with some awesome "loot". Now we know where to get some great tools for our "honey-do" projects!

It was a great night for a cookout although a little cool. We enjoyed playing some basketball as well as a hammer, screwgun, and handsaw relay race. Ask one of the men for details.

Thanks to all who came and brought great gifts for these guys. Both Joel and Matt asked me to tell all the men how overwhelmed they are with gratitude for their generosity.

I have included a few pictures. Congratulations Joel and Matt!

Click here for photos.

Tool and Book Bash!

Here are some items that Joel Foster and Matt Geisemen need. I asked them if they could get me an "idea list" of things that they would like to have or have been wanting but have not yet bought. Here are the lists.

Joel's wish list: (books)
1) An ESV Bible
2) "Sketches from Church History" (S. M. Houghton)
3) A Systematic Theology (Berkhoff, Reymond, or Grudem)
4) John Owen's "Temptation and Sin" (Volume VI) TAKEN
5) "Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life" (Whitney)
6) "Valley of Vision" (A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions)
7) "Attributes of God" & "Sovereignty of God" (both by A. W. Pink)

Joel's wish list: (tools)
1) Screwdrivers (philips and flat)
2) Drillbits (larger than 1/4") TAKEN
3) Elelctrical tester (ammeter)
4) Extension cord TAKEN
5) Skilsaw TAKEN
6) Crescent wrench TAKEN
7) Channel locks TAKEN
8) Pliers (needlenose, and regular)
9) Level
10) Wire brush
11) Oil pan, filter wrench, funnel (oil changing tools)

Matt's wish list: (books)
* Any book that we recommend

Matt's wish list: (tools)
1) Wrench set (open/boxed ends) TAKEN
2) Socket/rachet set TAKEN
3) Drill (cordless)
4) Tape measure TAKEN
5) Any tools that you would use around the house


When someone purchases something on this list, please shoot me an email to let me know and I will adjust the list. Looking forward to Thursday!

NIU Care Boxes

Today we were able to pack the 150+ care boxes and take them down to the NIU Student Affairs Office. They will be in charge of distributing the boxes to the students and family members of Geology 104 - the class in which the students' lives changed forever on 2.14.08.

Praise the Lord, enough donations came in to provide the following gifts:

For the 18 injured and family members of the deceased:

- ESV Bible

- John Piper's Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ

- John Piper's Suffering & The Sovereignty of God

- Steve Green CD - Somewhere Between

- Jerry Bridges' Trusting God Even When it Hurts

- John Piper's  Don't Waste Your Life

- Jim Berg's When Trouble Comes

- Chris Anderson's Gospel presentation CD - Sinners Can Be Right with God

- iPod Shuffle (preloaded with sermons)

- iPod content CD

- Don't Waste Your Life Tract

- McDonald's $10 gift card

- Starbuck's $10 gift card

- Walmart $10 gift card

For the rest of the students who were enrolled in the class:

- ESV New Testament

- Don't Waste Your Life Tract

- John Piper's Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ

- John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life

- Jim Berg's When Trouble Comes

- Chris Anderson's Gospel presentation CD - Sinners Can Be Right with God

This project was not done by our church alone.  Many other individuals and churches donated resources to ensure that all of the students, the teacher, and the family members of the ones killed received a gift letting them know that people care.

A special word of thanks to the staff in the Office of Student Affairs at NIU for distributing the care boxes.

  

Jamaica Missions Team

Praise the Lord, our Global Grace missions team to Jamaica is home safely.  They have enjoyed God's blessing as they labored for Him.

You can read about their trip at Global Grace's blog.