Just a short reflection on 2014 as we look ahead to 2015. To God be all the glory for all He has done, is doing and is going to do! It has been an exciting year for Penelope Baptist Church. In 2014 we welcomed two new staff members. In February, Pastor Geren Street began his duties as Pastor of Youth and Children and in June, Pastor Bill Cogley joined us to serve as Pastor of Worship, Education and Evangelism. We are blessed to have such a good staff and I am glad to get the opportunity to serve along side of them. Also, in 2014 we had 26 new members added to the church. Please pray that God continues to add to His church. There were a lot of activities that went on this past year either at our church or ones that we were involved in. The Youth enjoyed a week at Caswell and worked hard throughout the year with the barbeque and other fundraisers to raise all their funds. The Super Seniors also went to Caswell this Fall and earlier in the year spent some time in Pigeon Forge for a spiritual retreat. We hosted a community Easter Sunrise service and breakfast here at the church and had three other churches (Christ United Baptist, West Hickory and Central Baptist) join us. This school year we started the Good News Club back up. It was formerly called Club 3:16. The Good News Club gives us the chance to share the Gospel through song and Bible story time with children at Ray Childres and Hildebran Elementary schools. So far we are averaging 40 kids per month at each school. A big emphasis this past year was our I Love My Church campaign. It began with church members ordering yard signs that read I Love My Church on them and placing them in their yards for their neighbors and other passers by to see. We used the same design on the signs for t-shirts that everyone wore on our I Love My Church Sunday in September. We also held Trunk or Treat in the parking lot of the church again this year. We had many volunteers decorate their trunks to hand out candy, gave free hot dogs to everyone who came through the line and shared the Gospel with as many as we could. We estimate about 1,000 people came through the line at our Trunk or Treat. This was a great way for us to meet people in our community and to show the love of Christ by telling them the good news of Jesus. One of the biggest feats we undertook this year was our Living Christmas Tree. Over the course of about 2 months, we built a large wooden tree that stood about 30 feet tall and held 40 plus choir members and decorated it with garland and lights. The choir performed the cantata Bringing Christmas Home on two separate nights and we had a total of 953 people for the two performances. As you can see the Lord blessed us in many, many ways this past year. I am sure I left something out but the point was not to mention everything we did but rather it was to get us to reflect on and rejoice about how God is moving in and through Penelope Baptist Church and to also get us excited about what the new year holds. In January, I will be preaching a series of sermons titled Focus Forward with the intent of laying out a bold vision of all that I believe God wants us to be and do for 2015 and beyond. I want you to make your best effort to be here for every Sunday in January so you will know the things that God has put upon my heart concerning the direction of PBC. Pastor King
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 01:30:49 +0000
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