On December 24, at 7:00 p.m. we invite you to join us for a very special Christmas Eve service! This day marks the completion of our Advent season and we will conclude this service with our traditional lighting of the Christ candle and sharing of this light as we circle the church to share in the song, Silent Night!
Grace Tabernacle, the Congolese church, will be joining us for this service and sharing some music with us as well as other special music, including some Romanian Christmas music! Come and join with us as we finish our preparation and celebrate the birth of our Savior, who is Christ the Lord!
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Manna Saturday
This Saturday, December 21 will be another Manna offering at CCBC. We will serve a hot breakfast of eggs, hash browns, bacon, fruit, cereal, etc... from 9:30-11:00 a.m to our local community. We have had as many as 45 (non-church) visitors to these meals and invite our members and friends to join us for this event to sit and dine with our visitors in this important outreach program.
Many of our visitors join us by invitation to our local Crooked Creek Elementary School, from our neighborhood, or by word of mouth and many of them live right in our community. Crooked Creek Baptist began this meal in response to the number of families at the school who qualified for free and reduced lunches.
Besides offering a hot breakfast and take home food from our pantry, we also offer fellowship with our visitors reminding them that they are important to God and to God's servants.
This month, thanks to the generosity of a donor, all of our visiting families will have a chance to receive frozen ground venison or stew meat!
Thanks to all of our hard working volunteers and faithful suppliers who make this ministry possible! See you Saturday morning!
Many of our visitors join us by invitation to our local Crooked Creek Elementary School, from our neighborhood, or by word of mouth and many of them live right in our community. Crooked Creek Baptist began this meal in response to the number of families at the school who qualified for free and reduced lunches.
Besides offering a hot breakfast and take home food from our pantry, we also offer fellowship with our visitors reminding them that they are important to God and to God's servants.
This month, thanks to the generosity of a donor, all of our visiting families will have a chance to receive frozen ground venison or stew meat!
Thanks to all of our hard working volunteers and faithful suppliers who make this ministry possible! See you Saturday morning!
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Upcoming Christmas Events
Sunday, December 15 is going to feature 2 special events at Crooked Creek Baptist.
1. In our regular 10:45 a.m.worship service the choir will be presenting its Christmas Cantata entitled, "A Song is Born," which will feature both some traditional and new Christmas songs to inspire us for the season!
2. Progressive Christmas Dinner- youth and children are invited to join us at 4:30 p.m. (starting at Crooked Creek Baptist) for a semi-formal (best Sunday clothes) dinner event that will take us to multiple homes from our church family. To register for this event, please let Pastor Tom know by Monday, December 9.
1. In our regular 10:45 a.m.worship service the choir will be presenting its Christmas Cantata entitled, "A Song is Born," which will feature both some traditional and new Christmas songs to inspire us for the season!
2. Progressive Christmas Dinner- youth and children are invited to join us at 4:30 p.m. (starting at Crooked Creek Baptist) for a semi-formal (best Sunday clothes) dinner event that will take us to multiple homes from our church family. To register for this event, please let Pastor Tom know by Monday, December 9.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Proposed Bedrock Belief(s) for Crooked Creek Baptist
Yesterday following worship several tables worth of church members met to determine our bedrock beliefs. Bedrock beliefs are the principles or symbols of faith that matter most in the daily life of congregational participants (Tom Bandy). Each table met to determine up to 7 Bedrock beliefs and following this exercise, we attempted to develop a consensus list.
We did.
Grace. There were other beliefs identified shared, a lot of discussion around the words and beliefs proposed. But when we broke everything down, we came back to one word upon which EVERYONE could agree. Grace.
On one level this represented a sense of frustration for those gathered. With words like Scripture (Word of God), redemption, God is love, etc... thrown out for various reasons (not that these are rejected terms for our church, just that they did not "matter most in our daily lives), we wondered what we had done wrong in light of the fact that we could have up to 7...
And yet, on another level, the time spent was a tremendous success. It is powerful to say that the belief most important to the membership of Crooked Creek Baptist is grace! Webster defines grace as:
unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification
a virtue coming from God a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
For those gathered on this Sunday afternoon free from distractions such as Colts football games (they play Monday night) it was a powerful statement about the membership of Crooked Creek Baptist and what we believe to be the most influential concept in the life of our church family.
Grace. This Sunday in our regular worship service, we will be focusing on this powerful word (acutally ,it seems we have been focusing on this word for some time now) as we sing, pray, and think about the grace we have from God.
I am proud to be able to serve a church where Grace, God's unmerited assistance for creation, exists as the most basic building block of our faith.
We did.
Grace. There were other beliefs identified shared, a lot of discussion around the words and beliefs proposed. But when we broke everything down, we came back to one word upon which EVERYONE could agree. Grace.
On one level this represented a sense of frustration for those gathered. With words like Scripture (Word of God), redemption, God is love, etc... thrown out for various reasons (not that these are rejected terms for our church, just that they did not "matter most in our daily lives), we wondered what we had done wrong in light of the fact that we could have up to 7...
And yet, on another level, the time spent was a tremendous success. It is powerful to say that the belief most important to the membership of Crooked Creek Baptist is grace! Webster defines grace as:
unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification
a virtue coming from God a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
For those gathered on this Sunday afternoon free from distractions such as Colts football games (they play Monday night) it was a powerful statement about the membership of Crooked Creek Baptist and what we believe to be the most influential concept in the life of our church family.
Grace. This Sunday in our regular worship service, we will be focusing on this powerful word (acutally ,it seems we have been focusing on this word for some time now) as we sing, pray, and think about the grace we have from God.
I am proud to be able to serve a church where Grace, God's unmerited assistance for creation, exists as the most basic building block of our faith.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Commitment Sunday
This Sunday, October 13 member and friends of Crooked Creek Baptist are invited to join us for 2 special events:
1. The return of our pledge cards for the year 2014 in our regular worship service. In the event that you are unable to join us these cards can be submitted to the church office.
2. Bedrock Beliefs meeting- Immediately following worship we will head to Fellowship Hall for a baked potato lunch (from McAlister's Deli) followed by a session to determine the bedrock beliefs of Crooked Creek Baptist.
We hope you will make plans to join us for these events on Sunday!
1. The return of our pledge cards for the year 2014 in our regular worship service. In the event that you are unable to join us these cards can be submitted to the church office.
2. Bedrock Beliefs meeting- Immediately following worship we will head to Fellowship Hall for a baked potato lunch (from McAlister's Deli) followed by a session to determine the bedrock beliefs of Crooked Creek Baptist.
We hope you will make plans to join us for these events on Sunday!
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Overwhelming Response
Thanks to all of you who have donated school supplies and underwear for the local elementary school! Today I delivered a part of these donations as they were taking up so much space in my office! The school secretary was overwhelmed with what I brought in and could not believe the stories I shared with her as donations came from so many different places.
She told me that this surplus was going to give them enough supplies to last them for some time to come and suggested we take the remaining supplies and use them to bless other schools in the area who are also in need!
Thanks to everyone who donated to this ministry!
She told me that this surplus was going to give them enough supplies to last them for some time to come and suggested we take the remaining supplies and use them to bless other schools in the area who are also in need!
Thanks to everyone who donated to this ministry!
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Generous Giving
We are not even halfway through our collection of school supplies and underwear for our local elementary school and have to pause to remark on the incredible generosity of our church members and our community at large to this response. We have received donations from as far away as California and Detroit. The response has already exceeded our expectations and we have several weeks of collecting still to go!
Just this past weekend we attended a meeting that considered the generous nature of God. We talked about all the blessings God bestows upon us as human beings, and specifically the blessings of living in this nation where our standard of living is indeed high.
If God made human beings in the image of the Divine, and if we believe that God is a generous God- full of grace and blessings, then does it make sense that we too can be a generous people? In fact, when we do give we come a little closer to that Divine image. It will be exciting to see how this generous God will be represented when we finally deliver all of the supplies that will be collected.
Imagine what could happen if we became this generous in other areas of our life...how different would our own world, and the world of others, be changed?
Just this past weekend we attended a meeting that considered the generous nature of God. We talked about all the blessings God bestows upon us as human beings, and specifically the blessings of living in this nation where our standard of living is indeed high.
If God made human beings in the image of the Divine, and if we believe that God is a generous God- full of grace and blessings, then does it make sense that we too can be a generous people? In fact, when we do give we come a little closer to that Divine image. It will be exciting to see how this generous God will be represented when we finally deliver all of the supplies that will be collected.
Imagine what could happen if we became this generous in other areas of our life...how different would our own world, and the world of others, be changed?
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