Yesterday afternoon we confirmed the final candidate for the Youth Pastor search team. The proposed committee will include three existing members: Micah Fries, Craig Graham and Theresa Messner. The church will then also be voting on three aditional members this Sunday after the evening service. They are: Ron Moutray Jr., Mrs. Robin Perkins and Cameron Moore.

Last night we honored the memory of Dr. Jones with a moving memorial service that was attended by hundreds. As I sat and listened to each of the men chosen by the family to share about Dr. Jones and his life I couldn't help but be impacted by the legacy of godliness and faithfulness that he has left behind. What's more, as I have interacted with Joann, and his three daughters, I continue to be amazed at their godliness as well. Their quiet trust in God during this incredibly trying time affirms, again, his legacy of faith in God as he led his family. 

As I was thinking through these things I was also struck with a few thoughts about my own legacy. What if something happened to my life and I was gone by tonight? James 4:14 says, "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." None of us has any confidence that we will see tomorrow. What we do have is right now. As I meditated on that thought, and on the life of Dr. Jones, I became even more convinced than ever of the need to redouble my efforts to live a godly life that reflects well on the character of our great God.

As I said at the close of the service, there are many traits about Dr. Jones that I could accurately recall, but the one that stands the tallest in my mind is his faithfulness. I pray that God will supply me with strength to walk through life each day living every moment faithfully in service to Christ as if it were my last.

So, what about you? How has Dr. Jones' life impacted you?

This week's MMM is going to be short, yet I have a feeling, difficult to process. Yesterday we spoke in the message about the importance of being a church that is wholly dependent upon God. The church at Philadelphia was small yet powerful because of their incredible dependency upon God. So, while thinking through that, and thinking through the struggles that we have in an American context, how can our church help promote dependency to a greater degree, and how can we make sure that we are each daily renewing our dependency on Christ?

If we are going to effectively "Reach, Teach and Unleash committed followers of Christ" we must be sold out to dependence. How can we make that happen?

First, I remain committed to being involved because our denomination, which admittedly has plenty of problems, continues to remain the most faithful at honoring biblical principles of any and all denominations that I know of, at least in my opinion. Beyond that, however, the argument could be made that denominations are not necessary. We could just go off and do our own thing. While I understand that thought and have heard it plenty of times, I continue to remain committed to SBC life because I believe that we are much stronger together than we could ever be on our own. If we were to take, for instance, our entire financial investment that we send to the Missouri Baptist Convention and Southern Baptist Convention and used it for our own personal missions efforts we would have enough to possibly support two families overseas. As it is, however, because of the genius of our Cooperative Program we are able to partner with other Southern Baptists from around the country and help support a missions force that numbers over 5,500 here in North America and adds another 5,500 missionaries around the world. The greatest reason I love our Southern Baptist Convention is because we have created such a phenomenal mechanism to fund, support and engage in missions. In my opinion this is the single greatest reason to be a Southern Baptist and to be proud of our denomination.

So this week is extremely important as we work with other Southern Baptists to sharpen our denomination and attempt to help insure that we will be faithful to scripture and successful in evangelism for years and years to come. This meeting should be a difficult one in some respects. For instance we got word last month that for the first time our denomination is in decline, numerically. As a body we need to address this issue, among others. This week is always a very, very busy one for me so I also would appreciate you praying for Tracy and I as we work all week in meetings.

I love being your pastor and I'm thankful for what God is doing among our church. Continue to be faithful this week and ask yourself how you can be more effective at helping "Reach, Teach and Unleash committed followers of Jesus Christ" this week.

I'll see you soon!

This week I want to take a moment or two to talk about focus. I think one of the hazards of anything that has existed for any length of time is the tendency to let down and lose focus. Whether we are talking about a company, an organization or a person, it's easy to lose your purpose and simply begin to exist in order to exist. Churches are not exempt from this phenomenon, in fact we may often be most guilty of it. Our church, if we are not careful, can fall into the very same trap. We know, intellectually, our purpose. It is "To reach, teach and unleash committed followers of Jesus Christ." Yet how often do we examine and evaluate our effectiveness at the task?

I say all this to point out, at least in part, one of the reasons that I am so excited about our new Hispanic campus. As we have said many times, when we look at St. Joseph and we recognize that there are 80,000 people who are not connected, in any meaningful way, with the Gospel. As we look at them, one of our most important tasks is to evaluate who is not currently being reached by our church and most significantly, those who probably can't be reached using our current methods. The Hispanic population is a great example of that in St. Joseph. Their culture barriers and language barriers, among other things, have caused them to this point to refrain from joining with us at Frederick. Our responsibility, then, is to find a way to take the Gospel to them. This new campus affords them the opportunity to hear the Gospel in a way that is understandable to them.

I'm so thankful for a church that is serious about doing whatever it takes to take the Gospel to those who need to hear it. It is an exciting time to be a part of the family at Frederick Boulevard!

First, we know that we need to pray more diligently about this pursuit of a Student Pastor. So, how can the committee as well as church leadership help the church to pray more often and more effectively?

Second, in thinking about the Student Pastor, please elaborate on some things that you would specifically be interested in seeing in a candidate.

So, as I close, I would ask you to pray for our church leadership. Pray for the Staff, Elders and especially the committee that has been selected to choose the Youth Pastor. Please pray for me as we begin the process again. Finally, though, please pray for Brad. This is very difficult for him and we want to lift him up to the Father as we pursue God's will together.

Blessings!

Micah

In spite of the dreary weather, our topic this Sunday was a fantastic one wasn't it? The concept of worship is so powerful in that it is what we are created for. We have been designed to worship God! What an exciting privilege that we have to worship. As we think about worshiping, however, our focus this week was specifically on the topic of worshiping corporately.

In our description of corporate worship and what happens when we engage in corporate worship we said that worship specifically helps us live in ways that obey God and also help us to understand and use our gifts. While thinking about that, it seems to me that many, many people fail to live as God intends us to. That provokes an interesting question. If engaging in corporate worship should lead to obeying God's will and to the usage of our gifts, why are so many people failing to honor God and use their gifts even after being faithful in corporate worship? Is it possibly that they aren't genuine believers or, if they are authentic believers, is it possible that they aren't really worshiping? Maybe it is something different altogether?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

Yesterday we discussed the important Biblical concept of living in community. This is a concept that our modern American churches seem to be missing, in significant ways. We emphasize the importance of being part of a local church, but beyond that, we really don't seem to have a handle on what it means to live in community with other believers and how we go about doing that.

So this week I want us to think about the reasons why that is true, and how we can be more successful at Frederick at helping our people to live in community together? What do you think? Why are churches good at building gatherings but not good at building community and what can we do about it here at Frederick Boulevard?

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Among church leadership it is easy to get geared up for the celebration of Easter. First and foremost it's the biggest celebration of the year for those of us who are believers in Christ. Beyond that, however, it is exciting because of the attendance and this year even more so because of the new building opening up. The morning after Easter, though, can be a bit of a let down. I know it has been for me simply because we saw no one come to faith in Christ yesterday which saddens me, although I am absolutely confident in the truth that salvation is in God's hands.

Having said all of that, I've been thinking today about the idea of what happens after the holiday is gone? We spend so much time during the celebration worshipping God for His goodness and grace and praising Him for the resurrection, but what does the resurrection mean in our lives after Sunday is over?

I was reading the Washington Post last night and came across an article from Melissa Etheridge who is a musician who is also a lesbian and in the article she speaks about how she was raised to celebrate Easter in a traditional Christian church. She says that the message she typically heard was, “Jesus was crucified on the cross and put into the tomb and rose from the dead three days later, now go find some eggs that a bunny left in the yard.” As I thought about her words I began to wonder if we are adequately preparing our people here at Frederick to celebrate the resurrection rightly after the holiday has passed us by.

So, this week I am curious to hear how you celebrate the resurrection after the holiday is over? Does it mean anything to you once we have passed Easter by?