www.rankinbaptists.org


"The Catalyst" 

 

July 2015    

    

Pray that all our VBS contacts will become eternal rewards.

 

Happy 4th of July !


 

 

Devotional

 

 

Summer is suddenly fully upon us and vacation travel seems to be in full flow. Within easy grasp from where I write this are a US Road Atlas and a detailed Mississippi atlas. I enjoy getting these down to study routes of any trip that we may be planning. On-line sites with photographic detail are easily available and most informative. There is no shortage of directional help available. My Bride often talks with a woman named Siri to get travel advice and tried to connect us. I refuse - I can tell that she is not from around here because of her accent and assuming manner. Truth be known, I just retain directions better when I can see the way myself.

God's Word is like that for me, also. There are so many resources available to give us information and direction- many of which are accurate and good- that we can easily go to them first, rather than to the Bible. It is far more essential for the believer to know what God's Word says, than to know what someone else says about God's Word. In this world of opinion polls, Twitter votes and Facebook likes, the solidity and absolute truth of Scripture is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Paul reminds us to "study to show ourselves approved." As you journey on this road of life, commit God's guide to your heart. Following it will prevent many a wrong turn. Faithful travels to you all.



--

 

Donnie Stuart 
Pelahatchie, Mississippi 
Isaiah 7:9  "If you do not stand firm in your faith, then you will not stand at all."  HCSB

 


 

 

    

Mission Trips
 
Please be in prayer
Crossgates
Peru:
June 21-27 - Exodus House/Community Outreach

October 11-17 - Exodus House/Community Outreach

Haiti:
September 18-26 - Living Water International/Cap Haitian, Haiti
China:
October 2-10 - Music Outreach
Guatemala:

August 1-8 - Community Outreach (College)

Colombia:

September 11-19 - Evangelism

North Africa/Middle East:
June 18 - July 17 - 30 Days Muslim Prayer Focus (Ramadan)

October 16-24 - Evangelism/Discipleship

Multiple Mexico Missions 

San Francisco, California:

October 2-5 - Arab Festival Outreach

 

Park Place

Honduras - June 22-29

New Orleans - June 28-July 3

Dallas/Fort Worth - July 8-11

Ukraine - July 16-25

Honduras - August 6-9

Kentucky - September 14-19

Haiti - October 4-10

New Orleans - October 20-24

Honduras - Winter


Meadow Grove
Nicaragua - June 2015

 

Grace - Brandon

Haiti - June 19 - 27

Wyoming - July 12- 19 

 

Star

Cuba - August 15 - 22

Dallas

Ukraine  

 

First Baptist Brandon

England - July 2 - 13

Student Haiti - July 18 - 25

Clarkston, GA - July 25 - 30 

 

Pelahatchie Baptist

East Asia - June 28 - July 11

 

Liberty Baptist
World Changers, Puerto Rico - July 12 - 18
Beautiful Feet, Ft. Worth, TX - June 23- 28

Eastside Pearl
Southeast Asia

FBC Richland
Lauren Hosey - Botswana for summer
Nick Robertson - China for summer
Jarrett Martin - Thailand

Northshore

1 member with YWAM - Switzerland June 10 - August 5
1 member serving with Shining Light in the NE MS correctional facilities
2 members in Spain - Race for Spain
1 member with SIM World Outreach

We will continue to list these as churches call them in to the Association Office.  Is this not amazing?
Crossroads Encouragement Bags

Cross Roads Baptist Church's kindergarten through 6th grade children decorated 300 bags for the July Cancer Victims at Baptist Hospital.  The Joy Ministry, Young at Heart and the Sonshine Sunday School Class contributed financially to the contents of the bags.   This is a great experience for any church and will make churches feel a part of this ministry.   Thank you for this opportunity.    



Hands Up Outreach gains manpower from MFUGE


FBC Brandon - Anse Barber class landscapes

 
The Grace Center got a beautiful upgrade from Anse Barber's SS class.....beautiful addition for this ministry.

Homeless Ministry

Hickory Ridge sharing their love for others


Metro Grace outside the box
Had a great time today working with this mission team from MFuge. The team was made up of volunteers from Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana. We gave out around 200 pieces of literature and prayed and ministered to dozens of people! I look forward to working with this wonderful team of youth and adults the rest of the week.
Rev. Floyd Steverson, Metro Grace


Life Christian Learning Center
2014-2015 Graduate/Undergraduate Schedule
Pastoral Leadership -

The Gospel Birth Narrative - August 11,18 - Dr. Rick Henson
Exodus - September 8, 15 - Dr. Wayne Van Horn
Galatians - October 6,13 - Dr. Sam Hughes
Amos, Hosea - November 3,10 - Rev. Paul Earley
Each series is $50.
Contact rickhenson@aol.com or Ralph Henson at Henson601@comcast.net.

Information for Newsletter:
  
If your church has an event or has had a special event you would like to share in The Catalyst, please email to dthompson@rankinbaptists.org.  One or two pictures only in jpg format can be accepted. 
  
Also, if you like our newsletter and know someone that would also enjoy the information, at the end of the newsletter is a link you can use to forward to a friend.  Please share our GOOD NEWS!  
2015 VBS List
 
FBC Brandon                 June 28 - July 1                 6:00 - 8:45 PM

 

Liberty                                    July 19-23                        6:30-7:30 PM

 

FBC Pearl                               July 19-23                            6-8:30 PM

 

Pelahatchie                             July 26-30                            6 - 8:30 PM  

VBS pictures

 FBC Fannin

  Briar Hill

Clear Branch

Meadow Grove

FBC Florence

Grace - Brandon
  Grace - Brandon
This is what the last day of VBS looks like!!!
Beth Moore Simulcast at Crossgates
   

Please read below to find the website information for Beth Moore Simulcast that will be held at Crossgates Baptist Church on Saturday, Sept 12.  Online tickets sales will be effective at that site July 5. The information is now listed.  

 

Ticket information/ purchase :

bethmoore.crossgates.org

Crossgates.org 

 

Thank you! 

 

Michelle Moudy 

601-613-4595
 

Crossroads Counseling - Lacey Deese, Clinton


I sit face to face with the hurting, the hopeless, the depressed and afraid. And I learn from them. As a Christian counselor, I have the privilege of stepping into people's stories and walking alongside them for a while, and I get to know them. I learn what they want, what they need, what they are missing, and who they long to be.

And goodness knows they do not need empty promises or meaningless words. None of us do. What they need is hope - real hope - and a safe place to ask hard questions - questions like "Is God really good?" So after traveling a while with many fellow sojourners, and after coming face to face with my own days of darkness, loss and pain, I have begun to explore God's goodness and what it really means to say "God is good."

Admittedly, after years of counseling, I am more mystified than ever about this particular trait in him and how we reconcile his goodness with the pain and loss we each face. His goodness sure doesn't always look like my description of "good." How do we know he is good when we see and experience so much suffering? And how do I relay his goodness to those who see him as negligent at best and, at worst, responsible for their pain?

After watching my 5-year-old nephew shrivel from chemotherapy; receiving a phone call that my 30-year-old sister-in-law had unexpectedly passed away; and losing my first baby to an unexplainable miscarriage, suffering and loss are not unfamiliar to me. But what I have also learned is, they are not unfamiliar to God either. And I still believe it: He is good. God is and always will be good.

If all he ever did was to send his Son to die in my place, I would still be able to call him good. That alone displays his goodness - his kindness to all of us - like nothing else. If he never healed my nephew, if he didn't give our family strength and comfort after Delana's death, and if he didn't choose to restore my womb and later give me two healthy babies, he would still be good.

But how we have muddled this up and misused our words and watered down this pure and holy trait about our good God. It's how we talk:

"I was running late to work this morning, but every light I hit was green, and I found an awesome parking place and actually got there a few minutes early. Man, God is good!"

"Yep, God is good. I totally forgot about my exam and didn't have time to study, and when I got to class, the teacher had decided to postpone it to next week!"

"I have been praying about how to pay my mortgage, and then I got a bonus at work. God is good!"

Somehow in attempts to give God glory and recognize his good gifts and graces, I am afraid we are loose and irresponsible with our words. And it just doesn't work. It doesn't work for the poor and starving, for my grieving clients, or for folks who can't imagine having a car or a job to drive to. It doesn't work for us to correlate God's goodness with what he DOES for us. We have heard it said - "first-world problems" - when folks refer to their iPhones breaking or their cars not cranking. Could it be we've also invented "first-world blessings"? And if so, then is God only "good" to us over here in the United States, where there's not much talk of famine or hunger or martyrdom?

If God's goodness is measured by how quickly he magically alters traffic lights in our favor, then what on earth are we saying to the majority of the world about who God is? What are we saying to each other and to ourselves? And what am I saying to my clients? To the ones who come to me for real hope and real answers?

Here is what I am learning: God is good AND God does good.

God IS good - he gave his only Son, rescuing us from hell, and he is a never-changing, ever-loving, ever-present God. This makes him good.

And he DOES good too: He heals, he provides clear direction, he links us with friends and gives us laughter and sunsets and healthy babies and second chances and, OK, maybe even green traffic lights. But these are all GRACE gifts - extras. And to me, they are good gifts, but they are not what make him good. These good things are not always promised, and if he never gave one of these, he would still BE good.

He is with martyrs and cancer patients and grieving widows and mothers with empty, aching wombs and dusty little children with swollen bellies and tear-stained faces. He is still good in those dark places. We do not have to be able to say these tragedies are good. We just know his presence never runs from them. As I stated earlier, he is not unfamiliar with darkness.

So he is good.

And the added gifts? They are grace, just extra. When he also chooses to give good or DO good for us, this is lagniappe. And so I thank him always. If his good gifts were to go away, his goodness still would never cease.

So I speak of his goodness. Then I speak of his good gifts and grace. And this is how I have come to know him and to reconcile what didn't always add up for me, or sometimes for those I counsel. You see, when I sit face to face with a hurting soul, I can't start spouting out that God is good in spite of their suffering. I first want them to know he is with them down in it. That is part of his goodness too. He runs to the brokenhearted. And I can show him to them.

He is good because he gave his Son to redeem us, and in doing so, he robbed death of its sting and gives us a final victory - a peace to look forward to even in the darkest times of this journey. I happen to be joining my clients in such dark times, and this is the hope I want them to know.

Lacy Deese is a Christian counselor with Crossroads Counseling Center in Clinton.

 

 


Rankin County Baptist Association is proud to announce our new church plant coming in 2015

Metro Grace Community Church

We are so thankful for this big vision God has given us! Here are a few things we have already accomplished and some things we currently working on:

We continue the ongoing process of building our Mission Team. God has blessed us with several key members of our leadership team already in place and over 60 people who have committed to being a part of this new church.

We are hosting weekly Sunday Worship Services at the Holiday Inn Conference Center next to Bass Pro Shops and Trustmark Park in Pearl. We are seeing new people come into our church each week and lives are being transformed.

Our Website and Facebook page are up and running: (www.metrograce.church) (www.facebook.com/metrogracems) Check us out.

We are working in cooperation with several local missions and outreach ministries to more effectively reach the lost and serve the needs of our community.

We have completed our first major community outreach in May and are currently working this summer with missions teams from MFuge for evangelistic outreach and various service projects throughout our community. We are planning several upcoming outreach events for late Summer and Fall of 2015.

We have our first Baptism Celebration Service planned for August 2015. We praise God for His grace and mercy!

--

Pastor Floyd Steverson

Metro Grace Community Church

John 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

 


Upcoming Conference
Black Church Leadership Conference

(T-shirts are available at RCBA offices - $10)

Racial Reconciliation?
   Gospel Collaboration?
       Missional Disciple Making?

The Focus of the conference is equipping, fellowship, worship, peer conversation and encouragement toward future kingdom work.  Some of America's most noted Christian leaders will lead seminars and speak during the two day gathering.

Who should attend?
Those who are working in the Black ministry context....those who are seeking and working in innovative cross racial ministry....those who are seeking and working in multi-racial ministry....those interested in missional disciple making

To register - www.mbcb.org/mission-strategy/
Click on Black Church Leadership Conference

Dates:  July 16-18th
Morrison Heights Baptist Church, Clinton