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!

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!

This Sunday we celebrate Easter! Remember that Thursday was the day Jesus and his disciples celebrated the Passover and Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. That evening he took his disciples out to the Garden of Gethsemane and he prayed. His emotions were strained as he considered the great event coming the next  day.

Early in the wee hours of Friday morning he was arrested, tried illegally, beaten and forced to carry his cross the Golgotha. He was nailed to the cross and hung there suffering for hours. At 3:00 pm, the same time the priests sacrificed the Passover Lamb in the temple, Jesus died. His disciples scattered in fear. They collected in an upper room and waited. When the Sabbath ended, they planned for the first day of the week when the women went to the tomb to do final burial preparation. They were not sure how they would get inside. They didn’t need to!

Jesus is alive!

I hope you will celebrate with us. Come for Sunday School and Worship at their normal times. We won’t have evening services or activities so you can spend the holiday with family.

The Nelons will be in concert at High Peak Baptist Church Saturday, March 10 at 6:30 PM.

We enjoyed hearing them sing for us last year. The trio recently performed with the Guy Penrod at Tent Revival Homecoming, which you can watch and hear below from YouTube.

The concert is free of charge. We will take up a love offering during the concert.

This is a great opportunity, so please help us get the word out about this concert. Invite friends and family!

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.

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

Come hear missionary Dennis Conner, a church planter in Arizona, but originally from North Carolina. He will speak in the Sunday Night worship service.

Dennis Conner with his beloved vehicle

Dennis and I met one another at the Greensboro Southern Baptist Convention. He stuck up a conversation withe me and we’ve been partners in the ministry ever since. I pray regularly for his work and I know he prays for us here at High Peak. I’m glad to finally invite him to come speak to us since he was already going to be in North Carolina.

You can meet a real live missionary at 6 PM Sunday, September 18th. And if you want to join us for something to eat afterward, I’m guessing we’ll be going out for a bite!

Starting August 8th and going through the beginning of September at High Peak have been emphasizing prayer on our 30 Days of Prayer campaign. The goal is to help people be more focused in their prayer life for our church, but also for your personal needs and areas of influence. Here is last weeks message about Praying People in case you missed it. Come next Sunday as we continue for two more Sundays mornings.

Watch live video from High Peak Baptist Church on Justin.tv

If you haven’t been to our Sunday Night services we are in the middle of a 6 week DVD study called When God’s People Pray with some very inspirational teaching and testimonies from Jim Cymbala and the his church The Brooklyn Tabernacle. Be sure to come and be inspired.

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.