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.

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!

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!