Super Bowl Party Reminder

Don’t forget that we will be having our annual SuperBowl party THIS Sunday at the Thompson’s house.  Pizza will be provided so please either email the Thompsons, RSVP here, or let them know Sunday morning if you are coming!

Guys – chips and drinks
Girls – Appetizer or dessert

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here’s a thanksgiving yam cupcake for all of CCBC’s YAM’s.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Your YAM leaders

Mission Conference – 2008

 World Mission Conference

Cedar Creek Baptist Church

November 7th – 9th, 2008

 Friday November 7th, 2008
6:30 p – Opening Celebration
Guest Speaker – Dr. John Newland, 2nd VP of the SBC & Sr. Pastor, Fall Creek Baptist, Indianapolis
“Believe the Gospel”
8:00 p – World Mission Expo

Saturday, November 8th, 2008
9:00 a – Missions Breakfast
10:00 a – K-5th grade Missions Extravaganza
10:00 a – Missionary led Breakout Sessions

6:00 p – Global Impact Celebration
Guest Speaker – Dr. Tim Beougher, Billy Graham Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth, SBTS
“Share the Gospel”
7:30 p – Missionary Dessert Fellowship

Sunday, November 9th, 2008
9:30 a – Missionaries Teaching Sunday School
10:45 a – Closing Celebration
Guest Speaker – Curtis Woods, Campus Minister @ Kentucky State University
“Send the Gospel”

Russia Mission Trip

This past summer, one of our own YAM’ers went to Russia on a mission trip.  Stephanie Criser, who most of you know has a passion for Russia, was able to join the group of Boyce College students for  a few weeks in Russia conducting a training for church planters and evangelists.  Check out this article from The Towersabout the trip and with a quote from our own Criser!

Don’t forget as well that the World Missions Conference The Gospel: Believe it, Share it, Send it is coming soon.  Make plans to attend the weekend of November 7-9th!

Toys, Candy, and Jesus

The Young Adults have an exciting opportunity coming up to start living out these “Transformed lives” that Dr. Henderson has been preaching about on Sunday morning.  On Saturday, October 18th, our own Bo Irvin is leading an outreach to the Upward Soccer families who have been attending the games for these past 8 weeks.  From 9am – 1pm, we will be asking the parents a series of 5 questions about their neighborhood as we survey the needs of the community.  As a thanks for their time, we have goody boxes filled with toys, candy, church info and a gospel booklet that will be given to their kids.

Bo is in need of 7-9 people for each of the 2 shifts (9am-11am & 11am-1pm).  He will be in the Sunday School classes on Sunday and small groups on Wednesday for you to let him know of your interest.  As a group, we have plenty of “fun” activities planning and coming up over the next few months.  But we also are called to live out these transformed lives through our actions.  Thanks Bo for helping us with this opportunity to put our faith into action.

And we’re back!!

And no I don’t mean the dream team (see below) but I am talking about the ccbc young adult website.  While things have been pretty stagnant over the past few months as we have been working through the transition from Scott to Jeremy, the wheels are now in motion to start this new season in the life of the young adult ministry.  Some of the leadership met on Sunday night and began to hash out the events for the Fall.  Stay tuned to both the website and the Facebook group for all the information you will need.  If you have not joined the Cedar Creek Young Adult group then you need to send a message to Allison Whitworth to get you invited.  Also a thanks goes out to Austin Lewis for joining the creative team working to see that this Facebook group continues to be a means of communication to all of you.

I hope you are excited about the way that God is working in the church.  Continue to pray for Jeremy as he seeks to lead the YAM’s to follow in this same direction.  More info to come on the upcoming events!

Ministry Teams . . .

  I am excited about some new directions for ministry at CCBC – I thought I might email you and see if you might be interested in them too.  For as long as I can remember, CCBC has had ministry teams for our children’s and youth ministries.  While I am not certain of our YAM’s leadership in either of those areas, I know both our children’s and youth ministries have greatly benefited from your regular service.  Bravo!

  With my transition into a position that, essentially, is responsible for developing ministries along the lifespan, we are starting some new ministry teams.  Specifically, ministry teams are being created for our young adults, middle adults, and senior adults.  The function of these ministry teams is to make sure that we are caring for our own – but to also help us strike a healthy balance in being outward focused too. 

  President Abraham Lincoln spoke of government BY the people, FOR the people (all of the political conventions recently have compelled me to reread some of my American history!).  Well, with these ministry teams, they are FOR their age group (ie., young adults, senior adults, etc.), but they will by BY whomever is willing to serve.  This means that I would love to see senior adults serving on the young adult team and vice-versa.  Now, realistically, I don’t expect to see any kind of flood of enthusiasm related to this model.  I am convinced, however, that working to break down some of our generational barriers in order to produce some inter-generational fellowship is a worthy goal. 

  In light of all of this, I am diligently looking for men to lead these ministry teams.  The mix of things I am looking for in these leaders really limits the number of folks who would be eligible – and all the ones I have approached and am considering are already vitally involved in ministries at CCBC.  Please pray that the Lord will lay conviction upon men’s hearts to help lead our church in ministry!  My most regular prayer right now for CCBC is that God would raise up 5 men who really get the big picture of what the church is all about – who love the church (even with all her warts), God’s Word, and who are willing to roll up their sleeves in order to move our church forward.

  In this regard, many of you are aware that Jeremy Benge has happily agreed to lead our Young Adult Team.  I am very glad at this development and hope that you will join Jeremy in making our Young Adult Ministry a success.  In reality, this position is not about Jeremy at all – it is about ministry.  That means that it is about you too.  In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul uses a metaphor about how our lives are like a building.  Everything we do adds to our “building”.  The question he asks is, “With what kind of quality are you building”?  That’s a very practical question for those of you who consider yourself mature Christians – what ministry are you building here at CCBC?  It doesn’t have to be the YAM – because there are other options – but which one are you actively engaged in?  A life worthy of the investment of Christ’s cross has to move beyond passivity and apathy.  And I believe this ministry reinvigoration can begin with our YAM’s and spread to the rest of the church – but that remains to be seen. 

  If you are interested in the YAM ministry team – please make it a point to let Jeremy know you are willing to be a contributing team member.  If you sense that another team is right for you, then please let me know.  My only request is that you not sit on the sideline as God begins an interesting work here at CCBC – you will not want to miss out!

May the 4th be with you…

For Dr. Whitney

I could not email this file because it was 42 MB or so . . . hopefully you can download it from here!

19-whitney-eclectic-religious-practices

Do you know this man?

While this picture might have made its rounds before, it never gets old.  Thanks to ‘ole Liz Lockwood for providing this humor for each of us to enjoy.  We have titled this picture: Shepherd Boy(d)

Doesn’t he look similar to this man?