Early Dec. Update

Well, we had a good month of November. We rounded out the end with our church Thanksgiving dinner. We had a wonderful time of Fellowship. Afterward, the wonderful people here cleaned up everything, even washing all of the dishes before they left. It was a real blessing to Kelley and as a result to me as well. I am truly thankful that the people here love us so much. It makes pastoring here much easier than it could be otherwise.

Unfortunately, we have had to cancel our revival. Bro. Walters was/is having some health problems and is able to make it. Please pray that he would get better. We are planning on rescheduling after the first of the year.

We are now getting ready for a Christmas dinner next week at church. After that, we will be looking forward to our Christmas Eve Candlelight service.

Pray for us that we can keep working faithfully for Christ and His Church.

His blessings are greater

I find that often, as God pours out His blessings, Satan strives to fight back, to steal our peace, to kill our joy, and destroy the advances that have been made. Yet, as hard as he(Satan) fights back, our God is greater. If we will trust in Him, he will continue to do the same as He always has, bring us through. I thank Him for the blessings that He continues to pour out upon us.

Sickness .....

This week has been a week of sickness around the Peters household. Kelley started feeling under the weather Mon. night. I then stayed home Tues. to watch the kids as she didn't really get out of bed very much. I started coughing quite a bit on Tues. as well. Then when Wed. morning rolled around both Anna and I were running fevers. Anna's finally broke sometime Thurs. and mine is on the verge of going away, just very very low grade right now. Kelley was doing much better Wed. thankfully, because I sure couldn't be taking care of Lydia as sick as I was. Lydia eventually started running a low fever, but it disappeared sometime in the middle of last night. We are all feeling better and thankful to the Lord that it wasn't any worse. He has helped us through it all. Now time to get back to being busy for the Lord.

REVIVAL!

The Church of God
Franklin, IN
Dec. 10-13th
Evangelist - Larry Walters, Sr.
7:00 pm on the 10-12th
6:00 pm on the 13th

If you are in the area, stop by and be in service with us.
If not, please keep us in prayer. We are looking to see a mighty move of God. He has been blessing us in many ways here and we are believing that the revival is just going be a continuation and an expansion on what He has been doing.

May God stir revival in all of our hearts!

Sheperds for sale!

"The church in a sense has lost its mission to go out and love the people," said Steven Mayo, pastor of Elm Street Congregational Church in Fitchburg, Mass. "We've become useless in a society that desperately needs us."

How to become useful again, however, is a matter on which there is no consensus. Cornelius Plantinga, president of Calvin Theological Seminary in Michigan, urged pastors to talk less about fulfilling personal potential and offer more from the likes of Old Testament prophet Joel, who warns God's people to wail and repent before the Lord scorches the earth.

But church leaders responded to Plantinga's prescription with a reality check.

"For pastors, it's very easy to lose a job by taking your advice," said Rachel Stahle, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in Carteret, N.J., after Plantinga's 45-minute lecture. "It's even harder to find another one by taking your advice. So what wisdom do you share with us to take what you've said back to the churches?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/23/AR2009102303674.html




Easy to lose a job by obeying the Lord? Please help no one in The Church of God ever take this approach. We are to preach the Word, regardless if the world likes it or not. We are called to preach His Truth as He leads us. Lord please help me to speak your will regardless of the outcome.

New Website

Our local church has a new website

www.realhopetcog.org

Welcome!

We would like to welcome the Castalia, OH church back to our region and the Church. Also, welcome to the churches and members in Michigan that have been added to our region. I look forward to seeing everyone at the Minister's Convention here in a few weeks.

We are experiencing many people looking towards the Church in the region and expecting to see great growth this year in churches added, as well as people added to our already existing congregations.

Grandparents Day

We had our Grandparents Day a little late this year. But we had a pretty good time and a good turnout as well. Bro. Riggs, our district overseer and grandparent as well, was our guest speaker. We had a lot of visitors and a little over double our normal attendance. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures taken to post though. I was running around with everything else. Maybe better luck next time. Our next event for here at church is a trip to Apple Works in Trafalgar next weekend. Hope to have a good turnout and a fun trip as well. Hopefully, the weather will be like this weekend, nice and sunny!

Lydia finally arrived!

Almost a month ago that is! Man, I am really behind! We are really glad that she finally got here. Anna especially! She is proud to be the big sister and is glad to help out most of the time. Lydia came into the world at 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 and 3/4 in. long. Kelley had a rough time at the hospital but is doing much better now. Her blood pressure is still a little high though. We are settled for the most part with having two little ones around the house. She is awake for quite a bit during the day and her eyes are wide open. Most of the time she is not much of a crier either!

Quick Post

Wow, it has been over two months. Things have been busy around here. Just finished watching the Assembly a little while ago. Thankful to have the Jernigans back in the region and welcome Michigan to the region. We, sadly, didn't make it to the Assembly this year, but we're thankful to be able at least to watch it on the internet. Kelley wants this baby out. Well, gotta go, it's almost time for church.

Thank the Lord for His Blessings

Thank the Lord for a good day. We had good preaching this morning with our regional overseer visiting and giving the message. It is always good to see them. He touched on a number of things that we have covered here in the past number of months without even knowing it I believe. Just goes to show how the Lord has everything lined up if we just listen to Him.
Tonight, the preaching/teaching wasn't that great(it was me after all) but there was a very sweet spirit present. I taught on Communion tonight. It is so important that we realize the point of communion and that it is not just a ritual or religious observance. The whole reason we have communion is to remember how Christ's body was broken and His blood poured out for OUR sins. We didn't deserve it, but He loved us enough anyway.
If you have the time watch thisvideo. It was played tonight as part of the service for us to reflect on.

Had a good time yesterday as well seeing many old friends.


Remember, His body was broken for YOU.

1 saved last night!

Thank the Lord for one saved at the mission in Indianapolis last night! Please pray for this young man as he faces many battles ahead. Our God still delivers!

Diaper Free(for a few months)

Anna has finally decided that she doesn't want to wear diapers any more!! We have been waiting for this for quite a while. So for the next few months we will be diaper free. For Kelley it is even better than for me because she is the one that changed them the most, being at home and she had to wash them. Anna keeps growing more and more all the time, mainly in personality. Right now she keeps dancing around in her underwear in the living room. For some reason, she decided to get out of her PJ's and neglected to put clothes back on. Well, we are getting ready to head outside. May God bless you as you work for Him.

IL(S),IN,KY,OH Regional Convention

We met for the first service on Friday night. From the very opening, the Spirit was present in a mighty way. We were blessed by wonderful singing, preaching, and outpourings of the Holy Ghost over and over again. It was wonderful to see the many visitors that we had present as well. We had some from Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Alabama as well as the rest from our region. We are also thankful from the visitors we had from within the region. One brother from TX, we went to BTI with. It was great to see Bro. Wolf again. It is even greater to know that we will be seeing him more frequently. He is moving to the region in the near future. He will be our new regional BTI Booster. We are also glad to welcome Bro. Anthony and Sis. Amy Dyer. Bro. Anthony will be the new pastor for Sellersburg, IN. Anna will be glad as well, Jackson Dyer and her like playing with each other. It was great to have some from our new church in Somerset, KY. The Lord is really blessing them. Someone has donated land for a new building, and according to my understanding they have already gotten some work done on the land. I am excited to hear about the things that are taking place in our region. There are many encouraging signs of things on the near horizon. I can't wait to see what God is going to do throughout the next year. If our convention was any sign of the outpouring of the Spirit during the next year, we have much to look forward to. We had 115 in attendance about a 40% increase over last year. Please pray for our region as we continue to spread the message of the gospel. We currently have a couple of missions operating that it would be great to see become full fledged churches over the next year.

Camp Report

We showed up to camp on Thurs. morning to rain. But, the rain did not dampen our spirits. We were glad to be back at camp after about 6 years of not attending. Everyone else seemed to be excited as well. As the day rounded out I ended up have 4 boys under my care, with my brother Jeremiah as my staff in training assistant. My boys ages were 8,9,10,& 11. By the end of the first night we had determined that one of my boys had arrived at camp with ring worm. The Spirit was there from the very first service. The second day was filled with the normal camp stuff. Classes, food, fun time, swimming, and church. In Friday night's service, the Spirit began moving very early, during the song service. On Friday and Sat. nights we never got to our planned after church activities. Friday night right next to the chapel a softball game was going on. Some were worried that they would be a disruption to service, but I can't recall ever hearing them. In fact, those that were still there, were probably more disrupted when the Spirit hit Bro. Anthony and he took off running out the door. I felt the Spirit telling me that we needed to pray for the boy that had ringworm, so I went to him and asked if he would like to be prayed for. I believe I asked him if he believed that Jesus could heal him as well. We prayed for him and it was all I could do not to rip his bandage off. After we prayed for him, he went back to the camp nurse and said "when we take this band-aid off the ringworm will be gone because Jesus healed me right?"(paraphrased) He was completely trusting Jesus that He had healed him. The next day while swimming, his bandage came off and I got a look at his neck. The ringworm was almost completely gone!! You could still see the mark, but it was greatly reduced and looked like it was new skin healing up. Thank the Lord for His healing power. Sat. night the service was wonderful. There were several that did not leave the chapel until 2:00 a.m. The Holy Ghost was moving and working in a mighty way. Sunday we finished off things with a baptismal service. I can't recall exactly home many we baptized but, I believe three of my boys were baptized. Two of them claimed getting saved at camp. Camp was a wonderful time of rejoicing in the Spirit as well as getting to fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. This is just the tip of the iceberg of all that happened at camp, but only time will tell all the blessings the Lord poured out. We are looking forward to next year.

Wonderful Camp!

We just returned back Sunday from a wonderful Spirit filled Youth Camp. The Holy Ghost came down in mighty ways repeatedly. A number of the children professed salvation and were baptized as well. One of the campers in my cabin was healed as well. I will post something more detailed later concerning the camp, but I was blessed tremendously.

Sanctification

We have started going through the Prominent Teachings on Sunday evenings and tonight we were on Sanctification and Holiness. I preached about holiness and purity a few Sundays ago, so we didn't go too much into that as a subject on it's own, but mainly with it's connection to sanctification.

An analogy that seemed to become pretty clear is that when thinking of the shadows in the OT three things had to happen before a vessel was used in the temple.
1) It had to be made
2) It had to be purified
3) Then it could be filled.

In our spiritual walk we must go through the same steps if we want to be fully used.
1) We have to be born again
2) We have to be sanctified
3) Then we can be filled with the Holy Ghost


Sis. Tammy Washburn has another wonderful analogy here concerning sanctification. It also made me think about the fact that though Lazarus was alive, his hearing would have been muffled, the extent of his vision would have been to possibly be able to tell the difference between dark and light, and his speech would have been muffled, besides not being able to move around, until his grave clothes were removed. We are the same until we are sanctified, we cannot hear clearly, see clearly,speak clearly, or move adequately just being saved. We have got to go deeper!

Additionally, Sis. Washburn has another analogy concerning being saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost here.

It's a . . . . . .

Well, Kelley had an ultrasound yesterday and everything seems to be good with the baby. Thank the Lord. We found out that it does not appear to be triplets, or even twins for that matter, just one little one. We didn't really think that there were multiples, but you never know. But I guess the big news is that we found out it is supposed to be a








































girl! I guess that gives me two little girls and hopefully at least two more to go to have my little group of girls like those at the end of "O Brother Where Art Thou" I always thought that those girls were cute walking along singing and said that I would love to have a group of girls like that as well. Truth be told I would be happy with whatever God sends our way though. Whether it be girl or boy. It looks like I am starting off like my grandpa with girls. He had to have four girls before he ended up with a boy, and then ended up with two girls afterward. I think Kelley is pretty settled on four total children being the final number though. But I guess for now that is just left up to God.

Thank the Lord for another day

And her favorite book is . . . . . .

A reporter came last week to interview us about the flood last year and our experiences. They are doing a one year anniversary edition. A photographer was supposed to come today to take some pictures, but he was booked up, so the reporter came back. During the course of his time here he asked Anna what her favorite book was. Her reply was "Jesus, Bible". I am glad that her favorite book is her Bible story book. I thank God that He has placed that love in her heart and pray that we can continue to help nurture it as she continues to grow. I also hope and pray that it touched the reporter's heart as well.

Please pray

Please pray for Melissa Hacker. God knows this dire need. She is in serious need of prayer. Please pray for her and her family.

May's off to a good start!

Well May has gotten off to a good start.

Saturday, we had our Youth Convention in Elizabethtown, KY. Attendance was less than what I had hoped for, but there was a decent mix of attendees there. We even had some VLB's from our newest Church in the region which was organized about 4 1/2 months ago. The Spirit was really moving in the services. I was blessed especially during the afternoon service. It was good to see many of our dear friends as well. We had a good time of fellowship during lunch in the fellowship hall area.

This morning we had a good service as well. Our two new visitors were back this week and we are hoping and praying that they will be regulars. There are some good signs there, so keep praying for them.

My grandmother is doing quite a bit better now. She is still not up to her full strength though, last time that I talked to her.

Please pray for Mary Smith. We received a message yesterday that she is in need of prayer.

Let us go on to perfection!

Good Sunday!

Well, we had a good Sunday. We started off by having two brand new visitors for Sunday School and morning worship. Then we had a lasagna/spaghetti dinner with Boston Creme Pie and Banana Cream Pie for dessert. We topped things off by having a baptism! All in all a good Sunday. Looking forward to youth convention next weekend.

We found out the grandma had a mini-stroke. She got to leave the hospital today. Please continue to pray for her and grandpa.

Pray for my grandmother

Please pray for my grandmother. Apparently, she had a stroke this morning. Please pray for the family as well.

I Love You Too Much! Part 2

As mentioned previously Anna has recently began saying "I love you too much!" When she says it, she says it in a singsong voice as if actually meaning to say, I love you very much. It has made me think about a few things.

The second thing that this statement made me think was the fact that some people begin to think that they in fact love Christ too much, thinking that they are too involved with church and His work. In trying to balance their affairs of this life, they begin to think that He is taking up too much time and start cutting back on their spiritual work. We can never love Him too much. We must never work less for Him. Sometimes, we get involved being "busy" without really working. Let us cut out the "busyness" and get on with the work.

Praise Report and prayer request

Praise the Lord! We thank that Lord that Joe's, here at church, dad got saved. We had been praying for him for a while and Joe received the call tonight telling him that he had given his heart to the Lord!

Please pray for Mary Smith. God knows this urgent need.

What a week!

Man, what a week. I had Monday off because of rain, but the rest of the week was packed. I didn't get home until 10:30 p.m. one night and 9:00 p.m. the next and then had to work Friday. That meant my day yesterday was crammed with trying to get everything done. It is incredible to think of the work load some in this world has and the things they are put through. I am blessed to live when and where I do. Just need the Lord to give me the strength to make it through some weeks. At least I had a productive day yesterday and was able to get quite a bit done. And I got to spend time with Jobi. I put her car seat in my truck and she rode around with me most of the day on the different little trips I took to get stuff. She loves riding in "Papa's Big Truck." I try to explain that it is not a big truck, but I guess to a two year old it is. She loves riding around in it though. Hopefully, I'll get the garden going the pretty good by the end of this month. Worked on various parts of the yard a bit throughout the day. It is nice to have yard big enough for trees again. So far we have a cherry tree and plum tree, along with some grapes vines and raspberries. I am hoping to get some blueberries planted before summer begins as well. Anyway, guess that is all for now.

I Love You Too Much! Part 1

Gotta make this quick cause someone is calling for me. But this is Anna's newest saying. I told her today that she couldn't love me too much. Then I thought about it and decided that she could love me too much. I told her that she could only love me too much if she loved me more than Jesus. I then asked her if she did and she promptly responded "No Way!" Then she said something to the effect of "I need/want Jesus."

Unfortunately, many people love many things in this world more than Jesus. We must strive to make sure that we love nothing too much, to the point that it gets in between us and Jesus. I love my family and friends, but must never let them be in the middle of Christ and I.

Courage for Christ

During our Sunday Morning Service, our mission leader shared deeply from her heart. What she shared took an amount of courage as it involved relating something personal and in the near past, to tie in with the point she was making. This is what we must have in our local church and in The Church of God across the world - courage. We must be determined to not be ashamed of what God has put on our heart, even if it may cause some uncomfortableness on our part. God has called us to reach out and win the lost to Christ. There will be times that God will call us out of our comfort zone and require us to be courageous for Him.

Ok!

Anna seems to provide endless analogies to what our relationship with Christ is supposed to be. Another one of her favorite things to say right now is, "OK". Quite often whenever we tell her to do something she responds promptly and says "OK" and then quit whatever she is doing! Now I would love if she would do this from now on, but I have this feeling it is just a phase she is going through. But this is how our heavenly Father wants us to respond to Him EVERY time that He tells us something. If you are a parent you can readily empathize with what I feel whenever Anna does this. That means you can also empathize with how Christ feels when we obey Him without question or hesitation. Let us all strive to respond with "OK" to our Saviour.

I Need You

One of Anna's favorite thing to say right now is "I need you". "I need you, momma" "I need you poppa". It is sweet to hear her say these things, but then I began to think of the spiritual application that this has in all of our lives. Most of the time when she says this, nothing highly critical is happening, she merely wants us to be there beside her. But the important thing is she views this as a need. We should feel this same way toward our Father. We should "need" Him at all times, even when nothing highly critical is happening. We should want Him near us so much it should become a need. Do you need Him, or do you merely want Him?

Politics and Christ

Many conservative Christians are either active in politics or vocal about their feelings in the political realm, especially the issues that they feel are the most prominent or important. The question is how involved we as Christians should be. Many who profess to be Christians will, without hesitation, attack political leaders and basically wage war on some issues, not thinking about the consequence of their actions. I myself have been guilty of this mindset in the past. However, the Bible compares those that attack leaders with those in Sodom and Gomorrha in Jude. Also, Paul in Acts 23 immediately apologizes for speaking harsh words after he finds out the man he was speaking to was the high priest. In this instance, Paul was correct in what he was addressing, namely the hypocrisy taking place. This speaks to me that we should be careful of what we say and think of our leaders.

Many people will be careful in what they say of their spiritual leaders, but not so in what they say of their political leaders. We should readily pray for any leader, spiritual or political that we feel are getting off track, rather than attack them. After all, the best that we could ever hope to do is influence them, while God can change them. If we can influence someone, somebody else can influence them as well. But when God changes them, that is different.

Another companion issue, is when people go to war(Figuratively) over various issues, i.e abortion, homosexual marriage. Those seem to be the two big ones. I have seen many rail against these, proclaiming God's wrath on these issues. I wonder though, what if we spent as much time in prayer for these issues, and on the politicians that make laws concerning them, as we doing railing against them. Would it not be time better spent? After all God can move much more mightily than us. Would we not be better in striving to win people to Christ, than in trying to get sinners to vote, or rule on issues God's way? Seems to me that the more people in a nation that are won to Christ, the more the civil laws are would closely resemble laws that God would approve of.

Let us, instead of complaining about the direction of our country, instead pray, that God would change hearts and help us to lead people to Him. It will be of much more effect.

Reaching people

Is what your doing going to reach the people that you want to reach for Christ?

It's Spring!

It's finally Spring around here, but the weather still can't decide what it wants to do. One day it is warm and the next day not quite cold but very chilly. It was almost 70 yesterday and I heard someone say that it might snow tomorrow. I am trying to get some yard work done as I can. We have gotten a cherry tree and plum tree. I am also working on getting our garden set up. Started several different vegetable seeds earlier this afternoon.

I have to say that I really do like having Fridays off. I always plan on getting a bunch done, but usually it seems that I just kind of rest and relax, while usually getting a little bit done. Oh well.

We are in the process of transitioning over to using a digital display for our songs in church instead of the songbooks and printed sheets. We use a number of different songs that are not in the songbook and the papers we are using definitely contribute to clutter and mess. Also, we are now able to add new songs much easier. We are still in the process of getting all of the hymns transferred over. We had a good district convention last week as well. We are looking to hopefully and prayerfully, have a good turn out for Easter. Which reminds me, I have some work to do out in the yard before the egg hunt.

Jobi is growing more all the time. Her vocabulary is expanding fairly rapidly as well. Hopefully, we will get some new pictures sometime soon.

Update on Diane's nephew

Apparently, he is just anemic. They think he had a nose bleed that went down his throat and that is the blood he threw up. Thank the Lord it appears to be something minor.

"I'm a princess"

Those were Anna's words as she is going down the hallway with an apron on! Little does she know what this world thinks of as "princesses". But she, in her little apron, is my princess. And in my humble opinion, much more of a princess than those of this world that try to be. And the thing is she knows that she is my princess, even without me telling her.

If Anna can know this, can we not know as well that we are God's chosen, without Him repeatedly telling us so? And yet He does, to reassure us in His love for us. Thank you Lord.

Diane's nephew

Please pray for my sister's nephew. He has vomited up a lot of blood at once. They believe that he possibly had a stroke. I believe he is only 15.

Keeping our eyes on Jesus

Anna was incredibly sleepy after church this morning. But she refused to go to sleep. She was screaming and crying insistent that she wanted something else. Funny thing happened though, every time I could get her to look me in the eyes she quit crying. Every time her attention strayed from me and whatever I was trying to get her to focus on, she started crying again. Eventually, I was able to get her to go to sleep. I guess the moral of the story is, if we just focus on what our Father wants us to focus on, we will be a lot better off. Just keep your eyes on Him.

Rough Week

We have had kind of a rough week around here. Kelley had a muscle in her back that was giving her a lot of pain. So bad that she couldn't walk by herself, and that she passed out a few times. I stayed home from work one day to take care of Anna. Praise the Lord she is doing better now. We are thankful that it turned out just to be a muscle and nothing more serious.

We had a good service at church Thurs. night. The Holy Ghost came down and touched us. I am thankful for the work He will continue to do in our hearts if we will just seek Him. Please be in prayer for our church as we continue to strive to reach our community with the gospel. We are working on making our church more user friendly to new people, and making sure the ways we are reaching out to people meet them where they are.

Strive to walk in His Way.

New Baby on the Way!

Well, we had a trip to the ER Friday due to Kelley experiencing very sharp pains. During the course of trying to figure out what was wrong(nothing, or if there was something God answered the prayers and healed her)they ran blood work tests, one of which was a pregnancy. So they promptly(as prompt as an ER waiting on lab work can be I guess) came back and told us that the pregnancy test was positive! We were planning on waiting another month or two to not interrupt our General Assembly plans. However, we had also just decided to leave things up to God. So, God had different plans than we did. Kelley is only about 1 week along. So, I think we are shooting for around the end of Sept. beginning of Oct.

In other news, I think we are seriously considering going to Youth Camp this year. Even though Kelley will probably be about 5 months pregnant, since it will possibly be in June, it will be somewhat cool still hopefully.

Please continue to pray for Terry.

Terry Martzall

Please continue to pray for Terry. He and his family need your prayers very much.

Prayer

Please pray for a lady named Janice. She needs each of your prayers.

Great Revival So Far!

We have been having a good revival so far. We started last night and had a good time. Tonight the Holy Ghost came down at the end of the service and moved and blessed. I have been recording the services and will try to get the recording up and available sometime after I can get the dead spaces edited out and probably some of the audio adjusted as well. God is really helping and blessing us. If you can go to our website, www.thechurchofgodamity.org and check the service times for the rest of the revival and join us. If you are unable, please be in prayer for the rest of the revival with us. After tomorrow's service we will be going to conduct our monthly service at Wheeler Mission in Indy. Please be in prayer for the many souls there.

How Great is our God!