July 2011 Baptist Light Newsletter

Dearest Friends,
In some ways it feels like I have been pastor at Whiting Community Baptist Church for a very long time. Actually I have – 19 ½ years! I measure the length of my time by Leah Bowers. Leah was born the month after I came to WCBC. This coming fall Leah will be a sophomore in college! 19 ½ years is young for a person, but a long time in many other respects. Did you know that the average length of a pastor serving a church is around four years?
At the same time it seems like only yesterday that I began my ministry at WCBC. However, all I have to do is look at pictures of myself back then and compare them to the present time to know that it has indeed been almost 20 years. Where has the time gone? And what happened to that mustache? . . .and the brown hair?
I remember preaching at WCBC long before I was called here to be your pastor. It was in 1983, and I was a potential candidate for another church. I never dreamed that nine years later I would be called to pastor the Whiting Community Baptist Church. God works in wonderful and mysterious ways.
I consider myself extremely blessed to have been called to be your pastor. I have been in ministry since 1980 – 31 years. Well over half of those years have been at WCBC. I am amazed. And I am grateful. Thank you for granting me the privilege of being your pastor!
A pastor’s role is very unique. Preaching and teaching are a big part of it, and I have certainly enjoyed that aspect of my ministry. Thanks for listening all these years! But more important than the preaching and the teaching are the relationships that develop over the years. I think of the many ways that I have been invited into your lives. I have had the great privilege of dedicating your children, baptizing your youth, officiating at your weddings. I have had the holy privilege of sitting with you during hospital stays for yourself or for a loved one, being with you in times of crisis, and walking with you through the death of one you held dear. You have let me into the most intimate circumstances of your lives – in times of joy and sadness, in times of grief and pain, in times of celebration and thanksgiving. I do not take these privileges for granted. I hold them in awe and thank you for trusting me with such experiences. They were a blessing to me.
You are a very special congregation. I will forever hold you in my heart with joy and thanksgiving. We have shared many special times together. I have been truly blessed and honored to have served God with you through the Whiting Community Baptist Church. Thank you for that honor.
I now pray that God will bless and encourage you as a congregation; that you may always know how special you are in his eyes. Continue to trust in God and follow God’s leading. May God’s peace and hope fill your hearts in this present time and in the days ahead.
The words of the Apostle Paul at the end of his first letter to the Corinthians are also my words to you as I conclude my ministry with you: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love to all of you in Christ Jesus.”

Love,
Pastor Jim

Vacation Bible School

Imagine yourself in a Judean Marketplace around 29 AD. The buzz in the marketplace is that Christ is journeying close by and may be coming. Come to the Marketplace and
· SMELL the aromas of bakeries
· HEAR the sounds of workers and animals.
· SEE the villagers in Bible-times attire
· EXPERIENCE learning the occupational skills of the times
· JOURNEY with the caravan to visit the great storyteller
· SING AND DANCE Israeli folk dances
· WRITE Hebrew in the Scribes Shops and make many other Bibletime crafts in the Marketplace.
The Marketplace will be held in Faith United Methodist Church from 6:00 pm until 8:15 pm, each evening on July 31 through August 4, 2011. Marketplace AD is a co-ministry of Whiting Community Baptist Church and Faith United Methodist Church. For more information, call Trudi Woods or Holly Robinson.

Upcoming VBS Preparation Schedule

Tuesday, June 28 @ 6:00 - kitchen crew
Thursday, June 30 @ 6:00 - marketplace shopkeepers
Sunday, July 17 @ 10:30 - drama team
Sunday, July 17 - set up begins
Tuesday, July 26 @ 6:00 - tribal leaders
Sunday, July 31 @ 4:30 - KICKOFF DINNER
Sunday, July 31 @ 6:00 - VBS BEGINS!!

List of food items needed will be available on Sunday, July 3rd.

Other items needed: fabric scraps of all sizes and colors, buttons of all sizes and colors, empty kleenex boxes (long, flat boxes), wire hangers, brown paper bags or brown packing paper.

July Birthdays

2 Grace Bell
6 Heather Rose
6 Jeremy Rose
8 Zachery Woods
11 Barb Bell
12 Joe Najodowski
17 Hsar Say Paw
18 Rachel Luebker
20 Paw Yu Lee Goggin
21 Jim Schmitz
24 Brianna Demarais
24 Kathy Schroder
31 Jessica Gulbrandsen

July Anniversaries

23 Denise & Jim Schmitz
27 Lori & Fritz Bowers
29 Kathy & Joe Najdowski

July Greeters

3 Alice Dorton
10 Alice Dorton
17 Alice Dorton
24 Alice Dorton
31 Alice Dorton

Honoring Pastor Jim

HONORING PASTOR JIM, JULY 9TH AND 10TH.
See your mail for details.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR 19 ½ YEARS OF LOYAL SERVICE HERE AT WHITING COMMUNITY BAPTIST CHURCH !

American Baptist Mission News

Taku and Katie Longkumer are newly endorsed International Ministries missionaries to North East India. Taku was born in North East India, and has seen God’s miraculous work in his family’s history. Taku’s grandfather was among the first Christian converts of his village in India in the early 1900’s. He and other new believers were persecuted and forced to settle elsewhere. Due to illness Taku’s grandfather, mother and elder brother died, and Taku’s father was sent to a school established by missionaries. After he received a basic education that included Bible training, he became an evangelist in 1953. He took his young family, including Taku, to the nearby village of another tribe that had not heard the gospel. In fact, its inhabitants still practiced headhunting.
Taku describes those early years. “The darkness I remember was not simply based on the absence of light in the jungle, but it came from the oppressive, spiritual darkness of evil.” Each evening Taku’s father would invite the villagers to sit by the fire in their small hut, where he would serve them tea while telling stories of Jesus. After many years, which included a series of miraculous events demonstrating the power of God over the power of the spirits, the villagers began to respond to the gospel message. They then became the evangelists until the entire village became Christian. Taku concludes, “The victory of Jesus’ love impacted every aspect of village life. Because of the gospel, fear and violence were replaced by joy and peace.”

Church Finances

As of the end of May we were $1,582 in the red. That is, we have paid out $1,532 more to pay our bills than we have received in our general fund giving. Please pray about our church finances. Thank you.

Note from Margaret Huff

“I wish to thank Whiting Community Church for all I and my family have learned from you over the years. The scriptures say to “go and tell”. You have equipped many to do this. My family alone has contact with many church congregations – not all at one church. What a blessing! When we have someone move away, don’t feel a loss, feel a gain for they are taking these truths with them – to “go and tell” and to “plant a seed.” You have done much. – Margaret Huff.

Judson College

Judson College (now Judson University) is an evangelical Christian university of the liberal arts, sciences, and professions, offering a wide variety of BA programs. The faculty, board and administration feel that Christian Higher Education should include a consideration of commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Judson equips students to be fully developed, responsible persons who glorify God by the quality of their personal relationships, their work and their citizenship within the community, the nation and the world.
Judson was founded in 1913 as an outgrowth of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. It was named after the first American Missionary abroad, Adoniram Judson, who arrived in Burma in 1813 and lived there for 37 years. Judson is located in Elgin, Illinois, and is one of our four designated missions for 2011.

Laws of Golf Part Two

· Golf carts always run out of juice at the farthest point from the clubhouse..
· A golfer hitting into your group always will be bigger than anyone in your group. Likewise, a group you accidentally hit into will consist of a football player, a professional wrestler, a convicted murderer and an IRS agent – or some similar combination.
· All 3-woods are demon possessed.
· Golf balls from the same sleeve tend to follow one another, particularly out of bounds or into the water.
· A severe slice is a thing of awesome power and beauty.
· “Nice lag” can usually be translated to “lousy putt.” Similarly, “tough break” can usually be translated “way to miss an easy one.”
· The person you most would hate to lose to always will be the one who beats you.
· The last three holes of a round automatically will adjust your score to what it really should be.
· Golf should be given up at least twice a month.
· All vows taken on a golf course shall be valid only until the sunset.
(From Mikey’s Funnies.)

Too Busy Disorder

Too Busy Disorder or TDB is a sickness of our times. We are so busy that we don’t have time to do everything than needs to be done. We run from one task to another – always trying to catch up and it seems always falling behind. The stress of managing our time weighs heavy upon us. It contributes to our feeling tired and worn out. We may be experiencing TBD.
There are two Greek words for time: chronos and karios. When chronos dominates we live by time. Life is experienced as chronology with one thing happening after another. This is a linear concept of time: like a straight line along which we travel. When karios dominates we live in time. Life is experienced as opportunity. It is full time – real time. It requires dwelling in the moment so completely that the possibility of life opens up to us. Kairos time can be seen as a deep dot in which we dwell.
Spiritual transformation enables us to move from chronos to kairos: to tap the immediacy of life. To move from nowhere to now here: from living by time to living in time. When we are too busy we lose touch with kairos time. We get caught up with where and how we are going to spend the next moments – projecting ourselves into unlived time, “preparing” to live rather than living. We begin to think that life happens on “tomorrow’s stage”. We forget that life happens now. (Excerpt from Sue Monk “When the Heart Waits)
“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24. (This article was prepared by the Samaritan Counseling Center of the Fox Valley. 920-886-9319.)

Tree Farm Camping

CAMPING SITES STILL AVAILABLE FOR THE JULY 4TH WEEKEND AT THE TREE FARM
You can camp close to home and enjoy the Wautoma area.
Contact the Mentinks for your reservations!