Merry Christmas!

It’s almost here. As we come into the final days before Christmas, remember that the very word means Worship Christ – Christ Mass! We will do that starting with our Christmas Candlelight Communion service tonight at 7 PM. Come and enjoy some Christmas carols, the Lord’s Supper and we will do it all by the glow of candles and just a few lights in the sanctuary. We will sing some Christmas carols and I will share a message to hopefully inspire you in your worship of Christ.

Sunday morning we will only have worship service at 11 AM. No Sunday School or Evening activities! No meetings! Just a simple time of worship with singing and the message. Come as you are. I won’t be wearing a tie. We want you to be comfortable, bring your family, and have the rest of the day for your Christmas celebration.

I’ve been asking the question, Why Christmas? We looked at Why did God choose Mary, Joseph and why did he choose to have Jesus crucified. This week will be the final massage, Why Christmas. We will look at the final character in the Christmas story. Come find out who.

Looking forward to next week, I will be taking some time off and Dennis Hamrick will lead Wed services. Our Singles will have a New Year’s Eve Party, so see Michael Roberts if you are interested. And on New Years Day we will only have Sunday School and Worship. No evening activities!

This Week @ High Peak … an exciting time to celebrate Christmas!

Here in mid-December its all about Christmas. Tonight we will have our last Christmas With the Kranks Bibly study with snacks provided by Barb and I as our way of saying thanks to all of you for all you do for our church and for us as your pastor and pastor’s family. Tonight’s clip will conclude the movie and deal with forgiveness.

Second, we have our Christmas Program this Sunday night at 6 PM. The program is called The Night Before Christmas and the choir sounds great. We heard a bit of it at our annual Christmas Dinner for the ministers of the association. They did a great job on the songs we heard, so I expect it will be inspiring and entertaining. Please invite friends and family. The drama portion by the youth and kids of our church will share the Gospel.

Finally, remember that next week on Wednesday we will have our annual Christmas Candlelight Communion service at 7 PM on the 21st. And on Christmas Day we will have worship service only at 11 AM. Come casually or wear your new Christmas clothes. I plan to just dress in dress casually with no suit/tie.

Here’s what’s happening This Week @ High Peak!

• Senior’s Christmas Dinner is today at 11 am.
• Christmas with the Kranks Bible Study – Wed at 7 pm with snacks provided by the Kevin and Barb as our way of saying thanks to the church
• Christmas Social – Sunday at 5 pm
• Christmas Program Practice Wed at 6 pm but not on Sunday this week
• Catawba River Baptists Association Toy Store all week at Calvary Baptist Church – please be in prayer for it
• Sunday Night Football in Fellowship Hall after the Christmas Dinner this week

The Bible study on Christmas with the Kranks will focus on the issue of commitment in the midst of obstacles and opposition. I hope you will come a little early and get some snacks or stay after an enjoy some fellowship. Below is the trailer for the movie:

Barb Purcell kissing Santa Clause at last year's social

The Social will include meat provided by the church. Just bring your favorite dish and dessert to share. The kids will enjoy eating with Santa Claus who will be joining us for the party.

After the social, if you want to stay or come back, we will hook up the Satellite and enjoy Sunday Night Football with the Giants taking not the Cowboys. Invite friends to watch on the big screen!

All week our Association will be giving away toys to needy families so that they can give their children a nice Christmas. Please pray as we share the Gospel with these parents and also pray that God will use this ministry to help them know the joy of Christmas in Jesus Christ, not just presents.

Wayne Stamey waits to counsel someone at the 2009 Toy Store

Also, remember the other upcoming Christmas season events:

• Christmas program – Dec. 18 at 6 pm
• Christmas Day worship – Dec. 25 at 11 am – no other activities that day
• Christmas Candlelight Communion – Wed, Dec. 21 at 7 pm

Christmas with the Kranks Bible Study

Starting Wednesday night at 7 PM we will begin a three week study using the movie Christmas with the Kranks as our discussions starter. This is a funny look at what it would be like if an empty nest couple decided to forgo Christmas for a cruise since their only child won’t be home for the first time.

Each week we’ll look at a new theme using ideas introduced in the movie. This seek we will talk about who we often let other people set the agenda for our lifestyle, beliefs and ways of celebrating things like Christmas. The other two weeks will center around commitment and forgiveness.

Come and enjoy some light desert refreshments compliments of Kevin and Barb. This is our way of saying thanks to the church for all you do for us.

West Virginia Mission Trip

A team of people from our church will leave Friday to do ministry in West Virginia, giving away gifts for Christmas to the people there. Michael Roberts leads this team which will be in WV overnight. I won’t try to name all of them since I’m likely to forget someone. Please pray for them and we look forward to hearing a testimony next Sunday of how the trip went.

Christmas Parade

The Valdese Christmas Parade takes place this Saturday. Our children will ride in it. If you want your kids in the parade have them at church at 8:30 AM.

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering

The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions will be collected during December. This week we will collect the first of two special offerings during the worship service. To read more about the offering see the International Mission Board’s website.

Please consider taking the time to view the great videos about missionaries around the world. If you were at our adult missions study, this page has the videos I tried to show but couldn’t due to technical difficulty. The one below we saw part of during the study. Note that the video will be slightly cut off. You may want to click on the button to show it full screen in your web browser.

Christmas Play Practice

The Christmas program is December 18 at 6PM. Some of our youth and children will take part so they need to practice again at 4PM this Sunday.

THRIVE Team Subset Meeting

Our THRIVE Team won’t meet again as a whole team until January. However, a small group has been appointed to do some work on a Purpose/Mission/Vision Statement. They meet Sunday morning after the worship service. Please pray for them. They are:

• Scooter Farley
• Barb Purcell
• Kim Stamey
• Britt Abernathy
• Kevin Purcell

Here’s what’s happening at High Peak Baptist Church!

Thanksgiving Service at Amherst Baptist Church

7:00 pm @ Amherst Baptist Church

Our annual community Thanksgiving worship service will be held at Amherst Baptist Church with Pleasant View Baptist Church also taking part with us. Our three choirs will sing together and we will collect non-perishable food items for the food ministry that Amherst supports, which also happens to be the Pleasant View ministry. I will be preaching the message this week from Psalm 95.

See below for mapping information:

No Regular Wednesday Worship or Activities

Regular Wednesday activities are cancelled because of the Thanksgiving service and the holiday the next day. The youth will be going to work at Samaritan’s Purse and some of the children and younger youth will work at the Outreach Center on Tuesday.

Missions Study

5:00 pm @ High Peak

The International Missions Study will be focusing on London, England. We will start at 5:00 pm and go till 7:00 with a meal midway through at 6:45 for everyone. We have a children’s class, a youth class, and an adults class.

Here is this week’s Highlights Email. If you are not getting it, send me your email address and I’ll add you.

This Sunday we will worship God through the Lord’s Supper. As I get ready for it, I’m reading from Mark where it describes the way Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. He definitely included prayer as part of the meal and so should we.

As you think about the Lord’s Supper come ready to get close to Christ, by remembering what he did for us, thanking him for it and celebrating – I mean really celebrating – his grace, mercy and generosity.

30 Days to Care

For the last few weeks we’ve emphasized Prayer with our 30 days of prayer. Please continue to pray for our church every day. Starting next Sunday we will emphasize fellowship and reaching out to our members who have become inactive. Please also be praying for them. If you have someone that is a member of our church that God is giving you a burden to try to reach and bring back into the fellowship of our church, begin praying now for that person.

We hope to start contacting these people in September and inviting them back. We will write invitation cards on Wednesdays as we do this. If you specifically want us to focus on a person you are praying for, let me know via email.

Family Movie Night

Remember that we are hosting the Family Movie Night at Jacumin Plaza this week. Please come and get their early to help get things set up. The movie will start at 9:00 and we will start setting up at about 8:15.

Mens Retreat

The men’s retreat will be Sep 30-Oct 1 and costs $35 per person if you stay overnight and $20 if you do not. We need the money this week to make our reservations.

Fifth Quarter

Starting Sep 23, the youth will host Fifth Quarter after the football games. This will continue throughout the season after this date starting about 9PM with food and devotions.

Coming Up Soon

• Homecoming – Oct 2
• High School Seniors and Parents Lunch – Oct 23
• Revival – Oct 23-26 with Ron Cooper

For awhile now I’ve been managing the Highlights @ High Peak eNewsletter entirely on my own. Now I am planning to pass off the management of the mailing part to a service called Tiny Letter. As a result, you will need to sign up again to get it. This will not go into effect for a number of weeks. I will give plenty of time for people to sign up and get on the new list. Then for a few weeks we will send it out over both lists. Finally, sometime soon, the old list will be ended. So sign up by simply entering your email address in the box below.

It is that simple! Thanks!

Mens’ Retreat

Please pray for the 9 men who will be attending the Men’s Retreat at South Mountain Baptist Camp this weekend (Fri & Sat). Pray that God will use this to draw us all closer to him and our brothers in Christ.

Revival

October 24th is the day of our One Day Renewal Celebration with Rev. Delton Deas. He has a very exciting and interesting testimony. We will enjoy a time of fellowship on Saturday Night for all church leaders (All ordained deacons, Sunday School teachers, Children and Youth Group leaders, Organization Leaders, etc) where he will talk to us about church life. Then during Sunday morning Sunday School all the adult and youth classes are asked to join us in the Fellowship Hall for another time of teaching as he does a Soul Winning Workshop. He will then preach Sunday morning and evening. On Monday he will be with the Ministers of our association to speak with them at 10:30 at the CRBA Office. Pray now for this event.

High Attendance Sunday

That same day we will have High Attendance Day. If we reach our goal, you will get to enjoy a unique blend of talent with a mystery trio of men singing to you during the Sunday Night worship service. So plan now to attend yourself, get your friends and neighbors and family members excited about coming. And invite people from work. The key is to look for people who are not in church already.

Deacon Ordination

Sunday morning, October 10th is a special day as we ordain Scooter Farley and Michael Roberts as deacons in our church. Plan to attend and show your support during the AM worship service.

Kirksey Funeral Home Cater Supper For High Peak

On Wed, October 27th Kirksey Funeral Home is catering supper for our church. They offered to supply the whole meal so I took them up on the offer. They will also talk to us about end of life concerns. I will share a devotional about the subject. You can then ask questions. The meal will start at 6:00, but like many of our weekday meals, you can come right up till 6:40 and still get a plate. So arrive when you are able to come and enjoy this meal and get some information directly from people who know about these issues.

KidzRock

Nov. 6 is KidzRock. This is a time of worship for our children and those from other churches in our area. If you can help out, sign up on the sheets at the front of the auditorium. We need a lot of help for this.

Church Council Meeting

The church council needs to plan out the rest of the church year into January. If you have dates already set, please email me them ASAP. I will produce a calendar to send out to the church by the 10th of October. If we could then meet that night for a few minutes after midweek service at about 8:00 we could then deal with any conflicting dates and put Christmas activities on the calendar.

Coming This Fall

Halloween Outreach – Oct. 31 starting at dark

Community Thanksgiving Service – Nov. 23 at Pleasant View Baptist Church, next to the CRAB Office on HWY 70 at 7 PM. There will be a community choir.

International Missions Study – Nov. 28 with a meal and guest missionary from Malta to speak via Skype

Be looking for other Holiday plans soon

Wednesday Night Supper and Study

Just a quick note to all of our members. We are starting off our special study called For Parents Only (see the web site) this week. The purpose of this study is to help the parents of our church understand their kids and become better parents in accordance with Ephesians 6:4.  I hope all of our parents will come and be at this study on Wednesday Nights in January and February.  The book that this is based on is one of the most important books I’ve read as a parent. That is not hyperbole. I really mean that. It has helped me greatly and I wanted to share it with you. We will get an overview of the study this week and give out the book and the study guide.

We start at 6:30 this week. The reason is that we know many families have a hard time getting home in time to eat and then get to church. So at 6:30 we will have a meal. This won’t be a big church potluck. This week we are have soup and sandwiches. So come get a healthy, hot supper and learn how to relate to your kids.

The youth are also taking part in a similar study. The guys are studying For Guys Only which will help them better understand themselves, their parents, and girls.  The girls are study For Girls Only which will do the same for them – help them understand themselves, their parents and guys.

We will also have regular Children In Action and a nursery.

If you have friends with kids, let them know about this great study!!

This is going to be a shorter than usual Highlights (or maybe more accurately, just less pretty) because I have to rush out to make a couple of funeral visitations.  Pray for Steve Hice’s family who will be celebrating the life of his grandfather today and grandmother on Monday.  Also pray for Shannon King’s family as they will do the same today for his grandfather.

Getting ready for Sunday, we will continue looking at the book of Revelation.  To get a little head start, reading chapter 17-18 and ask yourself this.  Who is the Great Harlot talking about.  Some say it is Israel.  Others say it is Rome.  Others have suggested more wildly the Catholic Church or even the US.  I have my opinion.  Come find out if it is one of these or another option.  The most important thing to remember is what Revelation 18:4 says,  “Come out form her …”

As we continue with our Sunday Nigh Prayer and Praise, come again.  We had a great kick off service.  I really enjoyed it.  This week I especially want to ask our youth and children to be there.  You’ll find out why Sunday night at 6:00 PM.

Remember that Homecoming is coming in October.  Make plans now to invite old friends and family back to to High Peak for this service as we celebrate our church’s birthday with a worship service led by former Pastor John Revis.  We will also have a great meal afterwards and then no evening service that night.

One last thing …
Pray for our deacons as they help lead our church. I met with them last Wednesday night regarding some important things going on in our church, some future plans and some changes that will I think benefit our church, but might also cause some to question.  This has to do with our Prayer Room and Church library.  We want to move forward with what I think most people agree.  The church could benefit from a room dedicated to prayer.  But while we do that we don’t want to ignore the past contributions of some special people as well as the recent hard work that  many others have put into these things.  Pray for …
1. Wisdom
2. Peace
3. A Great Future as we become a church that both disciples its members with the resources of our library and a church that is known as a House of Prayer for all people.

God bless you,
Kevin Purcell
www.HighPeakChurch.com