January 2015 newslettera

We’re on the Web! www.frba.net &

www.facebook.com/FrioRiverBaptistAssociation

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Non Profit Organization

US Postage Paid

Pearsall, TX 78061

Permit #29

Frio River Baptist Association

PO Drawer P

1716 B I-35 E

Pearsall, TX 78061

Phone: 830-334-2061

Fax: 830-334-3025

E-mail: [email protected]

Director of Missions

Jimmy D. Smith

[email protected]

Ministry Assistant

Laurie Beth Scantlin

[email protected]

6:30pm -

OCL Meeting

West Zone

Pastor’s Prayer

Meeting

9:30am - FRBA

Executive Board

Meeting Winter Youth Retreat (Alto Frio)

Minister’s Prayer Retreat - Alto Frio

Winter Youth Retreat (Alto Frio)

FRBA Office Closed

NEW YEAR’S

DAY

MARTIN LUTHER

KING, JR. DAY

FRBA Office Closed

January 2015

The Update Volume 34, Issue 1

Inside this issue:

-- FRBA Partnership

with Wycliffe Begins 1

--Three Reasons to Be

Excited About Bible

Translation

1

--Minister’s Prayer

Retreat This Month 2

--Prayer Requests

from Bobby

Higginbotham at The

Pathway in Tacoma

2

--Discipleship Must

Take Place in Your

Church

2

-- Seven Myths about

a Pastor’s Workweek 2

-- Around the

Association 3

-- Operation

Christian Love 3

-- Calendar 4

Upcoming Events:

Jan. 5th & 6th -

Minister’s Prayer

Retreat at Alto Frio

Jan. 13th - FRBA

Executive Board

Meeting

Jan. 16th-19th -

Winter Youth Retreat

at Alto Frio

Frio River Baptist Association

FRBA Partnership with Wycliffe Begins Jimmy Smith You will remember that our association voted

unanimously in October of last year to accept

the challenge to fund the translation of the

New Testament into ten (10) languages in Pa-

pua New Guinea. Wow, it’s still hard to believe

God is allowing us do something like this.

We are asking

that in partici-

pating churches,

each member

make a one-time

gift of $30.00. If every church participates and

we do that we will reach the needed goal of

$102,000.00. There is a promotional kit availa-

ble to each church that wishes to help us out in

this partnership. I am praying for 100% partici-

pation.

The kit includes: Arop DVD, letter to your

church, leader letter, informational piece and

posters, bulletin inserts and signup posters. If

you don’t have the kit please call (830-334-

2061) and we will send one your way.

Wow, it’s still hard to

believe God is allow-

ing us do something

like this.”

1. God’s Word is foundational. How do people step out of darkness without the light of Scrip-

ture? How do you plant a church, make disciples and grow God’s people without His Word?

Where do people find peace and hope without the promis-

es of God? The Bible is essential to every part of the great

commission.

2. 180 million people are still waiting for God’s Word in the

language they understand best. Translation has not yet be-

gun for around 180 million people speaking at least 1860

languages that definitely or likely need Bible translation, but

3. The last languages are in sight. Bible translation is cur-

rently in process in more languages than those still waiting

for translation to begin. God is accomplishing His mission

through His power and through partnership. It is very possi-

ble that our churches and members among us may be part

of the very last Bible translation projects.

God is inviting us to participate in His global mission. Our

churches can join together with Wycliffe to bring God’s

word to 10 people groups in Papua New Guinea through

the “Aitape West Translation Project”.

Three Reasons to Be Excited About Bible Translation

Page 2 The Update

Around the Association

Page 2 The Update

Minister’s Prayer Retreat

This Month We invite all of our

ministers to a great

time of prayer a fel-

lowship at our Minis-

ter’s Prayer Retreat,

January 5th & 6th. As

usual we have rooms

reserved at Alto Frio Baptist Camp &

Conference Center in Leakey. The cost

to attendees will be $30.00.

This year we have asked Larry Mayberry

and Larry Martin to come and lead us.

Larry Mayberry is a Church Planter in

Astoria, NYC and son of Duane and

Sharon Mayberry (pastor & wife at FBC

Charlotte). Larry Martin is a former Pas-

tor and Director of Missions for the

Coastal Bend Association. Both men will

have very helpful things to share about

prayer and ways to lead us in praying.

Prayer Requests from

Bobby Higginbotham at

The Pathway in Tacoma

1. Mission Team from The Austin Stone is

coming to Tacoma! They are going to

saturating downtown Tacoma, specifically

the University of Washington in Tacoma

(UWT) with the Gospel. We have not

done much work in downtown Tacoma

or with UWT & so we are excited to see

what God has in store. The team will be

here Jan. 7th-11th. We are

planning on hosting an

event at a coffee shop for

UWT students on the 10th.

Please pray for our connec-

tions with the students at the

event on the 10th.

2. New Intentional Communities! Current-

ly we have 5 ICs. We are planning on

training leaders during the month of Janu-

ary to launch 2 more around February.

Pray for our current leaders & for our fu-

ture leaders...that our future leaders would

be well equipped & that our current lead-

ers would be able to send them out effec-

tively.

Discipleship Must Take

Place in Your Church

We talk about it, write about it, teach

and preach about it, but for discipleship

to be working it must be someone’s

responsibility to be sure it is taking place.

Imagine you have a brand new Chris-

tian friend. She is 28 years of age. She is

hungry to learn about God. She wants

to understand the basics of the Bible.

Why all the books? Why the two

halves? She wants someone to teach

her all about prayer and she wishes she

understood why people do the things

they do at church.

Is there a place in your church where

she can find those kinds of things are

being taught this next week? If not, why

not? -- Jimmy Smith

Seven Myths about a Pastor’s Workweek Thom Rainer

It is an old joke, one that is still told too often. You go up to your pastor and say, “I wish I had your job; you only have to

work one hour each week.” It is likely your pastor will laugh or smile at your comment. I n reality your pastor is likely hurt by

your statement. Indeed the reality is that too many church members have made wrongful and hurtful comments about

the pastor’s workweek.

Sadly, some church members really believe some of the myths about a pastor’s workweek. And some may point to a lazy

pastor they knew. I will readily admit I’ve known some lazy pastors, but no more so than people in other vocations. The

pastorate does lend itself to laziness. To the contrary, there are many more workaholic pastors than lazy pastors.

So what are some of the myths about a pastor’s workweek? Let’s look at seven of them.

Myth #1: The pastor has a short workweek. Nope. The challenge a pastor has is getting enough rest and family time. Ser-

mon preparation, counseling, meetings, home visits, hospital visits, connecting with prospects, community activities, church

social functions, and many more commitments don’t fit into a forty hour workweek.

Myth #2: Because of the flexible schedule, a pastor has a lot of uninterrupted family time. Most pastors rarely have uninter-

rupted family time. It is the nature of the calling. Emergencies don’t happen on a pre-planned schedule. T he call for pas-

toral ministry comes at all times of the day and night.

Myth #3: The pastor is able to spend most of the week in sermon preparation. Frankly, most pastors need to spend more

time in sermon preparation. But that time is “invisible” to church members. They don’t know that a pastor is truly working

during those hours. Sadly, pastors often yield to the demand of interruptions and rarely have uninterrupted time to work on

sermons.

Myth #4: Pastors are accountable to no one for their workweek. To the contrary, most pastors are accountable to most

everyone in the church. And church members have a plethora and variety of expectations.

Myth #5: Pastors can take vacations at any time. Most people like to take some vacation days around Christmas. That is

difficult for many pastors since there are so many church functions at Christmas. And almost every pastor has a story of

ending a vacation abruptly to do a funeral of a church member.

Myth #6: The pastor’s workweek is predictable and routine. Absolutely not! I know of few jobs that have the unpredicta-

bility and surprises like that of a pastor. And few jobs have the wild swings in emotions as does the pastorate. The pastor

may be joyfully sharing the gospel or performing a wedding on one day, only to officiate the funeral of a friend and hear

from four complainers the next day.

Myth #7: The pastor’s workweek is low stress compared to others. I believe pastors have one of the most difficult and

stressful jobs on earth. In fact, it is an impossible job outside of the power and call of Christ. It is little wonder that too many

pastors deal with lots of stress and depression.

Pastors and church staff are my heroes. They often have a thankless job with long and stressful workweeks. I want to be

their encourager and prayer intercessor. I want to express my love for them openly and enthusiastically.

I thank God for pastors.

Salvation is free,…

but discipleship will cost you your life.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer --

Around the Association

Volume 34, Issue 1 Page 3

Operation Christian Love Beth Ann Brundrett

Around the Association

The struggles of so many, as they endeavored to help the

Living Stones reopen His Island shelter, culminated in a beauti-

ful Christmas among the residents. The home is at capacity,

the cupboards are full & Christ’s love is being shown through

many. The residents are blessed by the care,

food, & fellowship they receive there. They, along

with the resident staff, prepared a Jesus Birthday

Party for the poor children in the area. They

handed out stockings, gifts & cookies as the chil-

dren arrived. OCL donated venison for the home

& helped provide the stockings, candy & cookies

for the party. The New Year there is exciting as

the Living Stones continue to minister & the veterans in turn

respond with gratitude & reach out to others. Please contin-

ue to pray for them all.

Excitement filled the air as the volun-

teers, loaded with hundreds of gifts,

Bibles, toys, stockings, candy & shoe

box gifts, began to arrive at Iglesia

Bautista Jerusalen in Eagle Pass. Br.

Roy Reyna from Leming brought the

association’s tent. He

along with volunteers opened the large area &

sent the bright stripes up into the air for all to see.

Tables arrived. Scurrying volunteers put them in

place. The flow from trailers, cars & pickups be-

gan. All the gifts were sorted & checked. Twelve

assigned areas soon filled with gifts for

children from 12 children homes in Mexi-

co. Gifts of clothing, shoes, jackets, stock-

ings with candy, & shoe box gifts lovingly

filled with many small gifts &

toys to thrill a child’s heart

were counted & placed in

their specific area. Local vol-

unteers from both sides of the

border along with some of the directors of the

homes arrived to gather the gifts & continue the

gift journey from loving hearts & hands on into

Mexico.

Gifts for Gatherings for Christ on both sides of the border were

sorted. Bibles, gifts, games & Bible study of the birth & love of

Jesus were prepared for these gather-

ings. As the last gifts were delivered to

Terlingua to continue their journey

into & the Big Bend area of Texas &

south into this very remote area of

Mexico, the excitement only grew.

Preparations for the next Christmas

season were planned as the

volunteers returned to their

homes. Watch for next month’s story of some of the

Gatherings & Christmas moments in the children’s

homes. Thank you for your help & prayers for this

ministry. Please join us in next year’s adventure for

Christ.

The Black Creek Baptist Church choir

performed a beautiful cantata on

Sunday, Dec. 21st.

The FBC Cotulla

youth group sang

carols on the

Riverwalk and

then ate together

at Rudy’s BBQ in

San Antonio.

FRBA Christmas Dinner We had a full house for our annual Christmas dinner this year! John & Bonnie Nystrom shared their story of

Bible translation ministry in Papua New Guinea, and everyone enjoyed singing Christmas carols together,

The youth of

FBC Jourdan-

ton enjoyed

an Ugly

Sweater &

Movie Christ-

mas party.

Pastor Mike Heard leads Christmas

dinner guests (at Trinity BC in Lytle) in

playing a

game

involving

answering

questions

about

Christmas.

The

church

later surprised him with a birthday