Our church lost two important people in the last 24 hours. The first was Rev. Billie Cline, pastor a number of years ago and then the Interim Pastor just before I came to High Peak. He was a wonderful preacher, evangelist and friend to lost people and saved alike. God loved him and he loved God!

My strongest memories of Billie include the first time I met him when he wowed my youngest son with magic tricks performed with a quarter in the pastor’s study as we awaited the vote by the church on whether they would call me as their pastor. The second was at the rest home when I went to visit. He told me of all the people he witnessed to and how many of those wonderful old saints trusted Jesus thanks to his faithful witness.

God bless you Billie and God be with your family!

Our sister Alma Bryant also went home this morning. Her funeral will take place Friday at 11:00 with visitation first and then the service at Noon following. It will take place at High Peak Baptist Church.

She was so special. Her smile and joy are what I will take with me as I think of her. She had a wonderful spirit and cared about people. She loved her friends here at High Peak and I’m so sorry that she was unable to be with us more in the last few months.

Again, God bless her family especially as they grieve.

Mother’s Day!

This Sunday is the day to honor Mom! At High Peak we will honor our mothers and worship God so I hope all of you will be there. We won’t meet Sunday night so you can spend the day with mom.

Purpose Statement

The following Sunday our Thrive Team will present our church’s proposed Purpose statement which says:
Our Purpose is to Honor God, Grow in His Word and Love as Christ Loves Us as we Reach for the Peak of God’s Glory!

We hop you will be on hand to vote on this statement.

Catawba River Baptist Association Week of Prayer

The Sunday after Mother’s Day will also kick off Associational Mission Emphasis. We will pray for the Catawba River Baptist Association and all of its wonderful ministries, like the Toy Store, training ministry and the support they give our church.

As we move into May families with kids await the coming of summer and everyone enjoys the warmer temperatures and brighter days. At High Peak we’re enjoying the renewed Spirit of God’s presence. Our worship services lately have been filled with a sense of joy and celebration that excites me. Think about inviting someone to come experience the wonder of being in God’s presence along with His people!

On Purpose

We’re in week four of our series on the Purpose of High Peak Baptist Church.

Our purpose at High Peak is to

HONOR God!
GROW in His Word!
LOVE others as Christ loved us!

… as we reach for the Peak of God’s glory!

We talked about Honoring God with a sense of excitement and celebration when we meet together and a sense of awe and wonder as you meet with God by yourself. We talked about Loving people in fellowship and service both inside the church and outside the church. We experienced that loving fellowship in two wonderful ways last week – when we prayed over our brother and sister in Christ Tommy Auton and Martha Rector and when we gathered around the supper table that night.

Go and make disciples of all nations ... (Matthew 28:19)

This week we’re going to talk about Making Disciples! Look at Matthew 28:19-20 and ask yourself if you’re a disciple maker.

Events This Week

We have a regular schedule of activities this Sunday:

9:45 – Sunday School
11:00 – Worship
5:00 – Choir, Children and Youth Discipleship Classes
6:00 – Worship

Deacons Meeting at 7 PM Monday

Wednesday at 7PM

• Footsteps for Preschools
• Children In Action
• Youth Classes for boys and for girls
• Singles
• Adult Bible Sunday

Thrive Team Meeting after classes and worship!

Mother’s Day

We will honor our moms and then let you have the evening off with no evening activities!

Here is the Youth Calendar for May 2012.

SUNDAY – May 6th at 5:00 PM – Regular Youth Group

SUNDAY – MAY 13th - MOTHER’S DAY so NO YOUTH GROUP MEETING

SATURDAY – May 19th - 8:30 – 11:30 am
“STOP HUNGER NOW”
Preparing Food Packages
Morganton, NC
Permission Slips Required

SUNDAY – May 20th - “SNX” - 5:00 pm
Bring a Friend – Exercise & Worship

SUNDAY – MAY 27th
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND so NO YOUTH MEETING

You can download a printable copy for Word Processor or an Adobe PDF version.

Why are we here? What is our purpose, mission and what is the vision you have of our future?

What is the Purpose, Mission and Vision of High Peak Baptist Church

That’s what I plan to share with you Sunday as we worship together. This Sunday we begin the process of studying our THRIVE team’s purpose statement for the church. Please plan to attend for the next four weeks. This may be the most important four weeks of preaching I will ever do at our church. That’s not an understatement.

I asked our church’s Facebook group members to pray for some specific things. Here is the post I wrote there:

This Sunday is an important one in the life of our church. Our THRIVE Team has been working for months on a purpose statement for our church. During my Sermon I will begin to share with the church our results. You need to be there this week and for the next four weeks so you will know what it is all about. Please share this with family and friends who are not on Facebook that are part of our church or love High Peak. Pray for the following during this process.

1. Wisdom for our church
2. Harmony and unity
3. Understanding of what his purpose is for our church

Thanks and God bless you all! See you tomorrow!

I look forward to seeing you Sunday as we worship and hear from God about our church’s future!

THRIVE TEAM AND MISSION STATEMENT

This week our THRIVE Team will meet again after the Wednesday Night service. All team members please remember this meeting. We need to move forward and without all of our members present it is difficult to do so.

Our THRIVE team has come up with a proposed Mission Statement for the church. It is as follows:

Our purpose is to
Honor God,
Grow in His Word and
Love as Christ Loves Us
as we
Reach For the Peak
of God’s Glory

What does all of this mean?

It begins with WORSHIP by saying will “HONOR GOD” we are saying that we will bring worship into every part of our lives. You worship God in your personal lives by making choices that honor him and are faithful to his word. That leads us to the second part.

We are to “GROW IN HIS WORD” meaning we want to be about the work of DISCIPLESHIP. Being disciples means to be followers and students of Jesus Christ. We specifically mentioned the WORD. That has a dual meaning – the Word became Flesh, John 1 says. Jesus is the incarnate word of God and we learn about him through the Bible, his word!

Included in the second line is EVANGELISM because we not only want to grow closer to Christ but we want our church to grow larger because we want to see people getting saved. As people grow closer to Jesus they will be a witness and our church will hopefully grow, if God blesses us.

We move on to the third line which says we will “LOVE AS CHRIST LOVES US” meaning we will love our church members by caring for them in FELLOWSHIP and we will share our love with the word through MINISTRY/SERVICE. Loving inside the church is FELLOWSHIP and loving outside the church is MINISTRY or SERVICE.

So this statement includes the five purposes of the church. But it ends with the vision of our church’s future to “REACH FOR THE PEAK OF GOD’S GLORY!” We wanted our statement to be something that relates to who we are as High Peak! We look out our front door and see the peak of a nearby hill. It reminds us that we are to climb higher in all five areas of this statement. We want to grow closer to God in worship, larger in evangelism, more mature in discipleship, closer to one another in fellowship and more useful to our community in ministry. We will reach for the peak meaning it will become our goal/mission/purpose to strive for higher leves of commitment in these five areas. Finally we end with GOD’S GLORY just as we began. We begin and end with honoring and glorifying God!

I hope you will consider this statement. Pray about it. Tell the members of the Thrive team what you think about it. And soon we will schedule a time to vote on it as a church. If you choose to adopt it, then it will become our church’s official mission statement.

PALM SUNDAY, HOLY WEEK AND EASTER

Sunday is Palm Sunday and we will celebrate the beginning of Holy Week by having the Lord’s Supper. This is a special time when you are asked to come and reconnect with Christ. If you have not been in a faithful, committed walk with Christ, now is the time to return to him through worshipping him.

On Wednesday after Palm Sunday we will have a special time of reflection and study about what this time means to us.

Finally, for Easter Sunday, we will worship Christ and praise him for his resurrection – the greatest act in human history!

Easter evening will be free. We have no scheduled activities.

FINAL FOUR PARTY

Basketball fans, join us for a Final Four party at 5 PM Saturday. This is a bring your own snacks fellowship. You may want to bring a lawn chair if you don’t like sitting on the hard metal chairs in our fellowship hall. Invite friends, especially those who don’t attend church!