Grace Baptist Church of Woodstock, Virginia

2012-05-02 Aaron Freeman Update

gbcwoods — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:39:32 +0000

5/2/2012 10:16:56 AM

A few updates. First, we are giving a special praise to God for a young boy that was saved after church this past Sunday night. We had a special service with a video entitled “The Burning Hell” (was shown in Spanish). After service he and I spoke for a while and he made the decision to accept Christ as Savior!! Yesterday I spent the day shopping in town, obtaining a variety of supplies we need here on the property. The biggest purchase was a new riding mower to replace our dead push mower. After 3 years of cutting grass, often 3-5′ tall, it finally gave up the ghost. Since the property has expanded to over 2 acres, we felt a riding mower was the best option. However, we had to buy “on faith”, since we lacked sufficient funds to pay for it all now. This is mentioned more in our prayer letter going out today. I also purchased the components for setting up a temporary electric pole on the new property so that we can begin to utilize it more. I’m hoping to get the brush cut back and that pole installed by the end of this week, as we have to have the entire property ready for a special service on June 9th. Otherwise, all is quiet around here. Below is a photo from a pineapple plant we planted almost 3 years ago. It’s been growing steadily and this year, for the first time, it’s producing a pineapple. Have a great day!

Pineapple plant in front of the church

2012-04-22 Aaron Freeman Update

gbcwoods — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:33:04 +0000

Below is the latest from our missionaries to South Texas, Aaron & Melissa Freeman. Their 18th anniversary is today!

4/22/2012 3:47:21 PM

Good afternoon friends and family. Just a quick update. First, the photo below was taken today in our backyard. It’s just a quick photo of Melissa and I as we prepare to celebrate our 18th anniversary tomorrow. We thank God for His manifold blessings over the years and look forward to many more together. In ministry news, we continue to make progress on physical things around the campus. This past week I finished the drywall in the bathrooms and managed to get the walls painted as well. This coming week I’m thinking I may be able to finish hanging the cement board and fiberglass backing for the showers. Next week I’m hoping to lay the floor and possible install the toilets/sinks. So, making steady progress. All the materials are on-site, so it’s just a matter of having the time. Also this week I made some headway on the new property. I spent several hours on Saturday trimming grass along fences/etc and moving blocks out of flowerbeds (where they fell when the house collapsed). It’s starting to look a lot better. We’re going ahead with plans to purchase the riding mower, and hope to acquire it this coming week. We are still about $350 short on the funds, but it’s a necessity so we’re going to purchase it and trust in the Lord to provide. We’ll be mentioning this again in our upcoming prayer letter. Assuming we acquire the mower we should be able to have most of the property cleared by the coming weekend. We’re trying to get it all ready for graduations that are coming in about a month-and-a-half, which will be the first service we hold on the new property. We’re anticipating 100-150 people for that service, so it will most definitely be an outside event. Well’ hope everyone has a great weekend, and I’ll post some photos this coming week of the progress on all the work!

Melissa and I today as we prepare to celebrate our 18th anniversary

2012-04-12 Aaron Freeman Update

gbcwoods — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:09:39 +0000

Below is the latest update from our missionaries to South Texas, Aaron & Melissa Freeman…

4/11/2012 12:26:27 PM

Didn’t realize how long it had been since our last update, so I apologize. Things are basically the same around here, so not a lot to share. We’ve had some trials with a couple of folks in the church that we’ve had to work through, but we are relying on God’s wisdom and guidance in those issues. We did lose two regular attenders, but also picked up 2, so we’re about even. In the next week or so I’m expecting Bro. Ted DeHart to be around to help with getting electrical service on the new property so that we can use it even more. This past week I managed to destroy our lawn mower trying to cut the grass. It’s just a little 21″ push mower and we’ve regularly had to use it to cut grass 3-4′ tall, which is way over it’s limitations. It’s always done well (eventually), but this past week it finally gave up the ghost. We are currently trying to raise funds to purchase a riding mower. This will allow us to cut all 2.25 acres of grass regularly, once we have finally finished taming the remaining 3-4′ grass on the new church property. If you are able to help with this that would be great, as we are still about $600 short on the purchase price. This past weekend we celebrated the resurrection of Christ with a special breakfast and service on Sunday morning. It was a good time by all. After service we took a new church photo, which is included below. Otherwise, not much to share, so have a great day!

2012-04-11 Chris Cisler Update

gbcwoods — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:56:43 +0000

Below is the latest prayer letter/update from our missionaries to Uruguay, Chris & Erika Cisler…

Printable Version

To get a printable version of the following Update Letter, click here.

Ministry Light

Click to see Pics from Family Camp

Over the Easter weekend our family spent time in fellowship and ministry with a group of churches in Colonia, Uruguay (2-3 hours west of where we are living in Montevideo). We had a wonderful time with this precious group of people.

Chris preached six messages (all in Spanish) during the camp on the life of Joseph regarding “Strong Families.” He was also able to preach during the Sunday morning service at the main church.

Erika was able to teach two ladies classes (in Spanish) and do a question and answer time with them. She was a great blessing to the ladies.

The boys were able to make new friends and have a lot of fun.

Be sure to watch this short video highlighting our trip, www.LH2U.org/videos.

Family Light

Click to see more Family Pics

We are starting to really get settled in down here in Uruguay. We are adjusting our diets to eat as the Uruguayans eat, growing everyday in our abilities with the language and just feeling more and more at home. We are very thankful for the Lord leading us down here and the easy transition that it has been for everyone in the family.

We were recently able to find an awesome park for the boys (including Chris) to play at, just a few minutes drive from the home. Check out the video www.LH2U.org/videos.

We are learning that the boys are creating great opportunities for us to meet people and start conversations. Their blonde hair, their lighter complexions and their general cuteness constantly has strangers talking to them. When we go out as a whole family, we definitely draw attention to ourselves. Large families are uncommon here and the fact that we have all boys seems to force people to have to comment and talk with us. We are thankful for the opportunities this does and will present for us.

Prayer Requests

To continue to grow in our language abilities
Adjustment to culture
Wisdom regarding our next step of ministry
Safety as we travel to various cities to search where God wants us
Health for the boys as we enter into the cold season of Uruguay

Contact Information

Mailing Address: Chris & Erika Cisler, P.O. Box 9215, Chattanooga, TN 37412
Uruguay Address: Raul Haya De La Torre 1714, 11400 Montevideo, Uruguay
Phone #: 703-348-0055 (This is a stateside # that we have access to through the Internet.)
Sending Church: Community Baptist Church – Pastor Mike Aylestock – www.cbc4me.org
Missions Agency: Baptist International Missions Inc. (BIMI) – www.bimi.org

Social Media

Be sure to keep up with our social media sites below. You can befriend us on Facebook, subscribe to our blog via RSS Feed, see our family and ministry pictures on Picasa, call us on Skype, follow us on Twitter, see our latest videos on Vimeo or go to our website.

We look forward to interacting with you!

That’s My King! by S.M. Lockeridge

gbcwoods — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:18:17 +0000

Below is a video to the late African-American Baptist preacher, S.M. Lockeridge reciting his famous “That’s my King!” On this Resurrection weekend, remember that Christ is King!

Ben Everson on being a musical conservative

gbcwoods — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:40:30 +0000

The following is an article by our evangelist this week, Ben Everson. His blog is entitled “Refreshingly Biblical.” I believe it lives up to this name, and I would encourage you to subscribe to it.

What Do I Mean by “Musical Conservative”?

I’ve told people I’m a musical conservative. What does that mean, anyway?

1. I believe that music communicates apart from the words. It causes feelings, emotions, and thoughts. It adds context to the words, similar to how tone of voice can influence the meaning of the words someone says. Ask any husband if tone of voice matters, and if he’s smart he’ll answer “yes!” Serious lyrics accompanied by silly music actually flips the meaning of the lyrics backwards to make it comical.

(See here The Muppets, illustrate by playing the beautiful love song “Tenderly” in a style that gives a completely different feel!)

2. The Bible commands us to scrutinize our communication. If music communicates, then it falls under the command to be tested. Certain styles mean things. They feel different. When you match those styles and feelings with words, they give color and nuance to the words. The whole product together becomes something that communicates.

3. I am concerned about how truth is presented. I want to make sure that truth, biblical truth in particular, is presented in a way that accurately reflects the intent of the Scripture. I believe there are some styles of music that are better suited for supporting biblical texts than others because of the emotions and feelings they bring.

For example, text that deals with loving God matched up with the emotion of eros, physical desire, doesn’t match the kind of love we are to have toward the Lord. To use music that communicates sexual desire with text that centers on the love of God (or love of fellow believers for that matter!) is to communicate something that is not truthful when you take the entire song as a whole. Sure, the words might be correct, but the music makes us feel an inappropriate emotion for those words.

4. I believe that the rock style is designed for physical attraction on various levels. The harder the rock, the more sexual the feeling. I understand that not everyone will agree with me on this, but I would humbly point out that equating the rock style with eros is hardly something that preachers came up with. Rock musicians themselves loudly proclaim what their musical style is intended to do. Because I believe this, I am very uncomfortable mixing Scriptural content with the rock style. I think that it creates a mixed message between the words and the music. Even if you disagree, hopefully you can see how this is consistent with my reasoning.

5. I understand that not every style means the exact same thing to every person. This makes the music issue difficult because there is a part of music that is subjective. Some people would say that music is completely objective. Others say that it is completely subjective. I believe that it is both. There are parts of it, especially that have to do with a person’s upbringing, background, culture, etc., that are subjective. But there are other parts that are more objective than people would want to admit, such as the basic feelings generated by the rock style.

6. Believing these things causes me to use music that is more conservative in its nature than the world at-large. In particular, the styles I use do not include rock elements (to the best of my ability). I understand that the term “conservative” is relative, but I don’t mind the term because most people understand that conservative carries the idea of “holding back” or “restrained in style.” That would describe me in comparison to the spectrum of music that exists in the world.

I’ve left myself “wide-open” for the attacks and comments people can throw at me. That’s fine. I figure that it is hard to have a profitable discussion about anything if those who are discussing aren’t completely honest about the issues. I’ve opened my heart and mind up in a short space to let you know why I call myself a musical conservative. Hopefully, even if you disagree with me, you can at least see that I am striving to be consistent in my life and honor the Lord in what I do in music.

Going To Guatemala With The Gospel

gbcwoods — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:34:22 +0000

This is from our friend, Ron Maggard’s blog…

Going To Guatemala With The Gospel

The picture on the right is our mission center in Xejeyup, Guatemala. It has been a developing project brought out of the rocky jungle mountains of Guatemala. God has been doing some amazing things here. This past week a wonderful team of 36 students and their leaders worked out from High Road to bring the Gospel into the hearts and homes of Xejeyup, Pochol and Panacanal Dos. The people of these villages fell in love with our workers. They responded in such positive ways to every song, story and sermon. Young people broke into groups for spontaneous prayer while others gave the Gospel.

Our High Road mission center is the perfect place for a short term mission trip. Xejeyup is the hub to 22 other towns and villages. Our vision is to reach out with
the Gospel into each of them with the goal to see churches planted and growing. High Road mission has separate dormitories, bathrooms and showers, a kitchen, a clinic and plenty of people to witness to.

Each day the teams divided and went out to work. Some were involved in door to door evangelism. The crowds gathered to see the puppets and the be involved in the games and activities. Some team members told Bible and
missionary stories and gave their testimonies on the soccer fields. Others worked each day in the clinics seeing patients and helping the sick. Others were involved in a building project putting up a ceiling in the new kitchen and laying blocks in Pastor Salomon’s new house on the property.

What a great opportunity these kids and adults had to be able to pour their lives into the lives of these Guatemalan people and in turn each of their lives were touched
and changed forever.

The young people in this picture will return to their churches with a new understanding of missions and a new heart for the things of God. This could happen in your church too! Pray for Guatemala!

Are you going with the Gospel?

We can help with your next mission trip. We are looking for pastors, dedicated Christians, college students and curious teens to go with us to train other pastors, help with evangelistic outreaches, work with children’s’ ministries and orphans and help with building projects. Sound interesting to you?

Click here for upcoming mission trips to Guatemala.

2012-03-17 Robert Mickey Update

gbcwoods — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:10:57 +0000

This is the latest from the blog of our missionaries to Kenya, Robert & Wendy Mickey.

The Mickeys will be with us in our services on Wednesday, May 16th!

PASTOR MUSONGA

Last Sunday I was part of one of the most satisfying church services in my life. I had the privilege to preach for our church in Uvira, Congo and then watch as Pastor Oloo led them in voting for Musonga as their assistant pastor. When the votes were counted it was unanimous, Musonga was now Pastor Musonga.

Preaching with Pastor Oloo interpreting

Nearly three years ago we were passing out tracts in Uvira, Democratic Republic of Congo inviting people to attend the first services of the
Independent Bible Baptist Church of Uvira. One of those tracts ended up in the hands of a child who was on his way to school. When arriving at school his Muslim teacher, a man by the name of Musonga asked what was written on that paper he had in his hands. Musonga confiscated the tract and began to read it. His curiosity about what was written on the tract caused him to enquire where it came from and later that day he arrived at the church building full of questions.

Pastor Mike Njoroge was happy to answer all his questions, taking much time to
show him what was written in the bible. As some time went by Musonga began to fall under deep conviction and soon repented of his sins, trusting Christ as his Saviour. The very next Sunday I had the privilege of baptizing him in Lake
Tanganyika. It was a glorious day when he was baptized because he was the
FIRST person we baptized in Congo.

Musonga was like a sponge; soaking up everything he was taught. When we began the bible college classes, he was one of our first students. It was about one year after he was saved that God called him to preach. We began taking him on some evangelistic trips, giving him as much training in and out of class as possible. Our pastoral teams that have spent the last three years working in Congo have done a tremendous job preparing Musonga for the ministry.

I am always humbled as I watch the people here serve God. They do so much with so little. When many our falling to the temptation of more money, more education and more prestige they just continue doing God’s will, and doing it God’s way. Their reward in heaven will be great.

Please pray for Pastor Musonga and our Kenyan teams as they continue
to press forward taking the gospel into the darkest parts of the Dark Continent.

Musonga being baptized in Lake Tanganyika. He was our first baptism and now he is the assistant pastor.

2012-03-12 Chris & Erika Cisler Update

gbcwoods — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:06:13 +0000

Below is the latest update from our missionaries to Uruguay, Chris & Erika Cisler and Family. Click here to go to their webpage.

Ministry Light

We have now been in Uruguay for about two months and we are quite busy. We have almost fully completed our residency process and have about 5 more steps to go out of the 16 we started with. Chris is teaching the adult Sunday School class on the first and third Sunday of every month. Erika is teaching a children’s class every week. We are currently attending three different churches and working on developing relationships with the people of Uruguay.

During Easter weekend (Thu – Sat) we will be attending a Family Camp in Colonia, Uruguay. Chris will be the keynote speaker and preaching six times over the duration of the camp. Erika will be teaching a women’s breakout session as well. Chris will be preaching a total of 13 times over the next two months.

Click to see a bigger picture

We have started visiting different cities in Uruguay to try and find where God would have us go. We are looking for a city that has no gospel preaching church and that is in a location where we could easily reach out and start future works. This is our plan and desire, but we are open to where God would lead us. We will be staying in Montevideo until the end of September/into October, so we have time to search and pray. We currently have a list of seven cities that we are going to visit in the next couple of months. We will be visiting the cities of Libertad, Playa Pascual and Delta Del Tigre at the end of this month. Please pray for God’s wisdom as we seek a city/area in which to serve Him.

Family Light

The boys seem to be adjusting well to their “new” (not much has changed for them) life in Uruguay. They enjoy the various churches that we attending and seem to be making some friends. Their Spanish ability is growing from conversations that we have with them and from watching various cartoons in Spanish (Erika is really improving her Spanish ability as well by watching these cartoons with them).

We are still getting adjusted to living down here. Here are some unique things regarding food in Uruguay:

Milk is sold in bags and we use about a bag per day ($0.75/bag)
A steak, mashed potato and green bean meal at home costs $10
Going out to McDonald’s as a family costs $40 (cost us $20 in USA)
We are able to buy fresh fruits and vegetables for very cheap ($6 feeds us for a week).

Click to see Jason’s Birthday Video

We also enjoyed celebrating Jason’s 2nd Birthday in February. We had cake that Erika made from scratch, ice cream, presents, cards from family and churches and time spent on Skype with family.

We appreciate your prayers and are thankful to be here in Uruguay serving our Lord.

Contact Information

Be sure to keep up with our social media sites below. You can befriend us on Facebook, subscribe to our blog, see our family and ministries pictures, call us on Skype, follow us on Twitter, see our latest videos on Vimeo or go to our website.

We look forward to interacting with you!

Seven Character Traits Music Can Enhance

gbcwoods — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 12:34:25 +0000

The following is from Ben Everson’s blog. He will be with us March 25-28th!

Seven Character Traits Music Can Enhance

Participation in musical listening, performance, and composition can enhance several areas of character. Here, with a simple definition for each, is a short list of such traits.

1. Self Discipline = The mastery of one’s mind and emotions so that a specific goal can be accomplished.

“Practice makes perfect” is true if it is given some qualifications: “[Careful, intelligent, purposeful] practice makes [great strides toward being] perfect.” Even the most gifted can improve.

2. Responsibility = Completing tasks in a dependable fashion in order to contribute to the needs of others. This is critical for musicians in an ensemble!

3. Attentiveness = An awareness of the environment and a readiness to respond to needs, problems, and direction given by authorities. Performers must work as a team under the direction of a conductor or in cooperation with an accompanist. Attention to details is also a requirement for the soloist.

4. Sensitivity = An alertness and response to the details of others’ needs or suffering. Musicians who play to uplift and minister to others will find many of their own needs met in the process.

5. Diligence = Determination of effort to finish a project. If it’s worth starting, it’s probably worth finishing. The words practice and musician are almost synonymous.

6. Discernment = The ability to make precise comparisons and distinctions even among similar things. The musician has many opportunities to develop skills both in listening and in performing. (For example: intonation, minute dynamic changes, rubato, and a host of other expressive gestures) The smallest accent can become of major importance in the interpretation of a melodic line and can, thus, create a different meaning. Discernment is needed both in the understanding and performing of music.

7. Creativity = The ability to think through situations or problems and provide legitimate solutions. The best music stirs the imagination. The intricacies of even the shortest pieces by Bach, for example, command appreciation and stimulate creativity in the listener and performer.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect model for all of these traits. Colossians 2:3 says, “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Only the Holy Spirit working in a person can bring these traits out in the life, but He uses many different tools. One of those tools is the development of the creative arts in a person’s life. A musician who dedicates himself to God as well as the music being performed can become a mighty vessel to honor the Lord. First Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”