Wow...what a Sunday! I have so much to type about!
We didn't have a normal Sunday School or church service, it was a special baptismal service. I am thankful that I was able to be a witness to the goodness of God in people's lives. Thank you Lord for allowing me to be a spectator in this blessed event. :-)
We began singing 3 hymns, 2 in English, 1 in Spanish. There was this one hymn we sang called 'I Have Yielded Myself'. And the few words of the beginning of the chorus went like this... 'Yes, my heart says Amen to Thy Will...'. That just made me think, do we say Amen to God's Will? Or do we say no to God? Have we yielded ourselves to Him, given our all or are we holding something back?
After the singing, Bro. Kreider got up and gave such a powerful devotion. I scribbled down as much as I could, but I was listening more than I was writing, but I did get some notes to share with you.
The devotion was titled Faith, Honesty, and Joy
*Read Roman 14:23 for more understanding where Brother was coming from.
*Faith is important. We need to walk in faith because that's what it's all about. We start with faith when we give our lives to Christ and we continue on in faith till we die. Faith is love (IJohn 4:16-19). Faith is humility, obedience, our hearts must be changed by Calvary!
*The opposites of faith are fear, worry, torment, insecurity...
* If God's Word says it, we need to follow it.
Honesty (II Cor. 4:1-2)
* Every Christian has a ministry, a calling of sorts. Honesty is the way of light, victory, godliness, openness.
* The opposite of honesty is dishonesty, darkness, manipulation, hypocrisy.
Joy (Isaiah Ch. 12)
* If we get grouchy about the church we end up losing our joy.
*Joy is faith, honesty, strength, God honoring, it's a focus.
*The opposite of joy is depression, discouraged, self pity, critical.
It all sounds better in person rather than typed...lol.
After the devotion, 5 men and women went to the front and I am not sure what it was for, they weren't the baptism candidates (I guess I should have listened closer to hear better), but they were asked 3 questions each and after they answered they sat down. Maybe they had given their life to the Lord and were letting everyone know? I am not sure. They were all dressed in the same color, both men and women so if that has any significance, I don't know. :-)
After they took their seats the baptism candidates each got to speak about their salvation and what God has done in their life, ect. It was a real blessing for everyone to hear. God Bless these men and women!
There were announcements next. There is going to be another service this evening but I won't be able to get out for that. :-( Oh well.
Then 2 brothers got up and shared some thoughts and devotions. They were taken from Ephesians 2, I Peter 3, the book of Daniel, Hebrews 3, II Timothy. It was mainly about growing in the knowledge of our Lord and dying to self, living for Christ. We must be obedient to Christ, even if we stand alone, and we must be God focused instead of self focused. We'll call that a really really really short summary of what was taught on. :-)
Afterwards, we had a time of prayer, and then Brother Kreider talked for a moment.
As they were preparing the water for the baptisms, we sang 2 verses from the song 'O Happy Day'.
Then there were 7 questions asked in Spanish to the Hispanic husband and wife being baptized and the same 7 questions were asked in English to the other candidates.
They were baptized (by pouring) and became members of the church.
After, we sang the rest of the verses to 'O Happy Day'.
Testimonies were said next and it was an emotional time for the whole room, even the preacher was all teary eyed. Isn't God's goodness just so wonderful? Praise His name....
We had a time of prayer and then were dismissed.
I chatted for a few minutes with 2 sisters before leaving and heading home. I wanted to fellowship a little more but I was starting to get a headache, so I excused myself and left.
It really was such a wonderful, God honoring service today. It's so hard to type about it on this computer because I can't express myself just right. One thing computers can't do is show the depths of wonderfulness. :-)
But I thought I would share my day today.
Please, ladies, tell me how your church service was! What did you learn? What was the message about? What did you sing? Do tell me about your day today or yesterday if you are Saturday Sabbath Keepers! I would love to hear all about it!
God be with you this week!
Love,
Dawn
19 comments:
Thank you so much dear sister for the pray, it means a whole lot to me:) Hope you have a good week and God Bless:)
Hugs
Jennifer
Dawn, Im glad you had such a great time, I am so happy they Lord has showed you they way he would love you too be.
~Ruth
Hi Dawn! Sounds like you had a really nice service. Do you mind me asking you where the church is at? Is it one out around Grandview/Oceola?
Are you going to try to make it to the Texas meet up that Patty's arranging?
Have a great day, it was an absolutely beautiful day today!
oh wow I love the message in this post. Thanks for sharing!
I did not realize your congregation was plain, is there a large community where you live? And is this a Mennonite church? Because the members of the one near me dress like "westerners" I guess you could say :)
I sadly did not make it to services this weekend, but my Sabbath was very peaceful. I did do some religious research online however, and I have started a cleansing process in my life. I see that I have been clinging to the laws of the torah rather than the basics of our faith. Without living and breathing Christs message of love and forgiveness, I am producing nothing and my faith has nothing to stand on. I need to become his vessel first and then add onto this (the torah) once I have truly transformed my spirit. You are one of my biggest inspirations in denouncing my own desires for the will of God. Thanks so much for this blog Dawn!
Love in Christ always~
Susan,
It's the church in Grandview. It's the closest one compared to Osceola, Covington, and Cleburne. Have you been to the Grandview church before?
I am certainly going to try to make it to Patty's meet up! It all depends on what day it is and if hubby has to go to work or school. :-)
Avital,
That is awesome you are doing more studying. Continue on it in dear one. We should always be striving to learn and grow as much as we can about God and His Word.
We all should be doing a cleansing process in our lives every day! The world feeds us filth and lies and garbage and sometimes instead of filtering it out we leave it processed in the back of our minds.
Our hearts, minds, and souls must be pure for Him.
The Christian walk is not easy, it's very hard, but it's so worth it at the end.
Many people start off on fire for God and then lose that passion because things get hard.
It's easier to live for the world for them.
I am so excited for you in this new beginning in your walk with Him!
I can't wait to see you grow and mature in your faith.
Don't lose heart dear one, but stay strong. The devil will use anything and anyone to get you away from Him.
There are 3 or 4 Mennonite churches in a cluster. The nearest one (Grandview, that I talk about all the time) is 45 minutes from my house and the others are about an hour, hour and a few minutes.
I am glad I can be an inspiration to you. Sometimes I inspire myself after I go and read what I actually typed...lol.
I have thought about getting rid of this blog many times just because there are better Christian blogs out there, but for now, I will keep it up, till the Lord tells me to bring it to a close. :)
Well I really need sleep, I am typing this all bleary eyed. :)
God Bless you, my faithful readers. Tomorrow is a new day, begin your morning with Him!
Greetings from Maine...We worship the Lord for about 1/2 hour in song and then a sermon on JOY taken from Phil. 1...he understood the bondage of prison but he was not bound because of his relationship with Christ. We celebrated the death of a saint who went to be with Jesus after 12 years with alzheimers at 61..there was sorrow but Joy knowing she was with the one she served. It was a good day in Jesus...thank you for sharing...
Dawn,
I haven't been to the Grandview church, but we've been invited to the one in Oceola. I'd like to give it a try, but it's a bit of a drive for us and I'm not sure if my husband would like it. We're about 45 minutes from Grandview. Where are you living BTW, you can email me at simply.susan.blog@gmail.com. You must not be too far from us, but I assume you're on the Fort Worth side, we're closer to Waco (we actually live in a tiny town outside of Hillsboro).
I am looking forward to the Texas meetup! Hope to see you there. If not there, maybe we can meet up for lunch sometimes, we make it to the DFW area occassionally. Not as often as we use to, since we don't have any immediate family there anymore. My husband and I grew up in the Burleson/Crowley area.
Well, I need to get to bed! Had too much caffiene tonight...lol!
Dawn,
It was so nice talking with you last night in the Meez room! Love your blog! The service sounded wonderful!!I`ll be back to visit again!!
Love and blessings,
Toni(mom211911)
sounds like a great bunch of people-tracy
How neat! I always love Sundays when we have a baptism! I'm glad that you had a blessed Sunday!
you can always get a copy of the service on cassette if its one you really would like to hear again.
Dawn, I just wanted to share a bit about the logistics of my pantry after the questions you commented on my blog. As for a pantry in the traditional sense--my house is not even equipped with one! I have to be creative. I keep one large bookcase in our hallway. This holds alot of things that are rotated out for current use. It's close to the kitchen, so it's easy to park those items there. I try to keep a variety of veggies on it, beans, my pastas, sauce & gravy mixes, condiments, canned fruits and some spices.
Then I have one small, extra bedroom. This houses a bookcase with my books on it, our filing cabinet, my craft supplies and the rest of my pantry. There is another book case in there that holds all my baking goods. Everything from brownie and cake mixes to muffin mixes, powdered jello and puddings, jams, jellies, and special items for holiday baking. Then I have all my buckets of flours, sugar, rice, etc. in there as well. More flats of various veggies and canned meats. Canning supplies are kept in the closet of that room.
I also have two freezers.
During lean times, the pantry and freezers see us through. I don't know where we would be without them! Like I said in my post, we do run out of the fun stuff - the chips, quick convenience foods, etc. - but it's nice to have peace of mind when little or no money is coming in that our basics are stocked.
Hi Dawn, Thank you so much for commenting on my blog. I think the things my husband says about not having more babies are partly to appease his own guilt for letting fear guide our decision for a vasectomy.I guess I am ahead of myself and I don't want to tell you my life story on your blog post...
The doctors told us that another pregnancy would likely kill me and that is why we made the decision that haunts me sometimes too often.
What a great sharing. It is always a blessing to watch families make that commitment to Christ.
Our service was on Revelation. Truthfully, our mountain church is home to some very poor people, mostly older, who really haven't moved with the passing times. They live much as they did growing up and several don't have utilities even today.
Our services are kept simple by most terms. Many of our elderly do not read well, if they read at all. We have 7 hymns that we typically sing as a congregation as the elders know these by heart and don't have to read them.
It's like stepping back into Mayberry or something here. Most of the services, as I said are kept minimal and basic, so when we come home we generally dig deeper ourselves. Our Sunday services serve as our guide for the coming week with devotions and studies.
I enjoyed the photo's you shared -- wish I had some "look-minded" fellowship nearby for sharing :o)
Deanna
Hi Dawn, I wanted you to know I read your comment and am going to pray about it. I wrote you back on my site, but in case you can't visit for awhile I wanted to let you know here. I understand your concern and really appreciate you letting me know. I will pray about it. The Contest was honestly a way I thought the whole thing could blow over in a fun way. If you think I am doing a disservice to the Lord I really appreciate you pointing it out in a graceful way and I will pray for wisdom. Please pray for me too. It could be that this will be used for good, but I really don't want it to be used of the devil.
I am just a girl who likes to laugh and thought that getting everyone laughing would be a way out of it. You can't argue people into God's kingdom. Know what I mean. But if I am wrong...then I need to put a stop to it.
Many Blessings :)
Ace
Sounds like a great Sunday service. We didn't attend church this last Sunday
Dawn~Georgiann here from The Garden Gate,
Thank you for stopping by my blog. I was just reading you were concidering closing your blog? Don't! I'm not a very good writer either but I'm hopfully going to get better. It was your visits and comments that made my day~my blog is new and I seem to get many lookers but no comments from people.
I also checked out you blog from others around the world~very cool,thank you. I could not have found it without you~ Don't close your blog.
Hope to see you again soon in blog land.
Peace in Christ, Georgiann
I love the pics. They're dresses are ankle length. Different from alot I've seen. Very cool. :)
Since we just really got back electric power to some areas since hurricane Ike hit our area, Sunday was our 1st time back to services. It was wonderful!
Pastor spoke on GOD'S protection of HIS people and worship was so powerful. Everyone gave a sacrifice of praise unto the LORD for keeping us safe. Even if one had been affected by the storm (which we all have -- my parents lost everything so had other friends and other members families) we all gave praise for the works of the LORD.
~blessings
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