Greatly Encouraged

I thank the Lord for what He has been doing for us in Franklin. It seems that lately I am just more and more encouraged. I don't feel that I am doing enough for Him but it seems that He just is continually blessing us.
We are still waiting for the baby to get here. Kelley has been having contractions on a semi-regular basis for the past couple of days but we are going to wait until they are very consistent and very close before we even think about going to the hospital.
In church news, things are going very well. Last Friday night we had a pizza party for the youth and watched a movie, then afterwards played music for a little while. Even though I was sad that a few of our youth were not there, due to my own not checking everyone's schedule ahead of time, the ones that were there brought 3 new faces, which we were glad to have. One of those came to church Sunday morning. We ended this month with our SS att. ave. up 50% from last month. I am just looking forward to more wonderful things from God. Check back soon to see what wonderful things He is doing in our midst.

Long Sunday

Kelley and I started out Sunday morning very early. I think I woke up some time between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. with her having contractions. She ended up having them for about twelve hours. So we spent about twelve hours at the hospital. We ended up missing the morning service, but they still had a good service from what I heard. We had a good attendance too. Her contractions stopped during the afternoon and they released us in time so that we got home about 30 minutes before church Sunday evening. Kelley was disappointed the baby didn't come, but it will come in the right time. It was a long day, but thankfully I didn't have to work today so I kinda was able to rest some today. Hopefully, the baby will come soon. I am hoping either in the next day or two, or that it would wait until Sat. We have a youth event scheduled Fri. and as it is hard to schedule stuff, especially for one of our youth who plays basketball, I would rather NOT have to reschedule. Even though, if we had the baby Friday, some of the youth would end up at the hospital anyway. And I am not just talking about my brother and sister. We have one girl who just can't wait. Her birthday was today, and when she came to the hospital yesterday she was telling Kelley to wait until this morning to have the baby.
Thank the Lord for the wonderful things happening in the Church! Type some later.
Hope that God is blessing you where your at.

Great Sunday Morning

Thank the Lord for a great Sunday morning. It was cold and rainy out here and I was kind of wondering how attendance would be. You know how it goes, oftentimes when the weather isn't great we tend to not get out as much. But thankfully, this morning everyone came out. We had 14 in attendance this morning(15 if you count my little one to be born in the next couple of weeks :). We had a good Sunday School followed by a good morning service. I look forward to seeing what great things are going to happen in the next few months. It appears that there is a very good chance that we will be hitting the 20 mark in the very near future. If you are reading this please pray for us that the Lord will give us direction from this point. When we hit 20+ mark we will be getting close to our capacity to fitting people in so we are praying now that God will give us the direction that we need to go from here. God is doing wonderful things. Have a blessed day.

10% or 100%

Our General Evangelism Coordinator, Bro. Lanny Carter, has encouraged everyone to work for 10% membership increase in their local church this year. I was thinking about that and realized that 1 person would be more than a 10% increase in our local church(as far as covenant members go). So what I am shooting for is 100% increase in our membership and more than that in our attendance for the year. We have very good prospects of at least doubling the attendance in a short time and I am trusting the Lord that as these people fall in love with Jesus they will eventually join the Church as well.
Bro. Donnie Estep lately starting something called, catching people in the act, of doing something good that is. I was glad to be able to catch one of the members hear in Franklin doing that very thing this week. They ran into someone in a bad situation, in need, and immediately responded. They, to my knowledge, didn't worry about what they were going to get out of the deal, but simply realized that they had something this family needed greatly, and gave out of the abundance of their heart. People like that make it a joy to pastor! I am not saying in any way that I had anything to do with them making their decision, because I didn't. It is simply wonderful to know that the membership here have the heart that Christ desires for them to. Check back soon to hear about the great things that God is doing here. God bless.