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.

A quick note to remind everyone of the movie night that we are hosting at the Jacumin Plaza on Friday Night, September 9 starting at 9:00 PM. We need a few people to be on hand to help service popcorn, snacks and drinks. The movie will start at 9, but we need helpers to be on hand at 8:00 to set up. We will pass out information about the church.

Maple Sally was with us hist past week and the concert was a resounding success. We had a great crowd who enjoyed hearing them lead us in worship. The fellowship afterwards drew us closer to one another. Here is a sample of the music. I wish I could provide a sample of the home make ice cream but technology hasn’t found a way yet.

You can hear the whole thing on our Justin.TV site.

The movie Sarah’s Choice is playing Friday July 22 at Jacumin Plaza for free. Our church is hosting the evening. Attend and invite friends. Below is the Trailer.

The story will make you think. It is about a young woman, played by singer Rebecca St. James, who becomes pregnant and has to deal with the decisions women face today.

Hopefully we will see some people who are not in church at this event so that we can invite them. This is one of those events that we need everyone to come and be part of so that our church can show its best. We need you here for this event!

If you want to volunteer to help serve snacks come at 8:30 and see Kristi Farley.

Our 2011 Vacation Bible School theme is Shake It Up Cafe! We will study the feast days of Israel in a fun and exciting way learning more about ourselves and God’s word along the way. We have  classes for everyone from the toddlers to the adults. For the first time in many years we will have a class for the youth. The adult class will meet after the nightly supper in the fellowship hall. Come to eat or just come for the class at about 6:40.

This past Wednesday night our Church Council and the deacons met to discuss a strategy called Thrive meant to help our church thrive again. It was a good meeting and everyone in attendance agreed that our church can thrive again if we are willing to put forth the effort and make the necessary changes to become an Acts 2  church.

Going forward we want to share with you what this means for HighPeak Baptist Church. On March 27 there will be a churchwide meeting to discuss Thrive.  This meeting will take place during our Sunday night worship service. It is extremely important that everyone attend if at all possible. While we understand that sometimes members cannot be in attendance on Sunday nights we want you to know that this meeting is so important that everyone that cares about the future of High Peak Baptist Church will want to be there.

We know that you love your church and will want to hear the exciting possibilities involved in this strategy. The meeting will start at 6:00 PM. We will outline what is involved in Thrive.  You will also be given an opportunity to comment or ask questions about this strategy. We hope you will begin now to plan to be at the important meeting on March 27.

After worship on Sunday Night Feb 6 we will again show the big game. We ask that you bring snacks, drinks, maybe a comfortable lawn chair and of course your self, family and friends. Invite people who wouldn’t otherwise come to church by enticing them with a huge screen in full HD quality!!