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.

Sunday Night at 6:00 pm the group Maple Sally, a bluegrass Gospel group, will be in concert. After the concert we wil enjoy an Ice Cream Social Fellowship. Come and invite friends/family to enjoy their music and worship with us. Stay for some fellowship!

If you want to learn more about the group, see their Facebook page or their website. The man second from the right is John and he has been attending our church a little with one of our members, Sandy Sessions!

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.

On November 6 at 5 PM our church is hosting KidzRock. I wanted to give you an idea of what it is like so here is a video I shot at the last KidzRock at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in August.

This video features two of our kids who got to participate in the game they played that night. Be sure to plan to be there Nov. 6 at 5.

For directions use this Google map below: