Sad News on a Cold Day
Good afternoon Central Baptist. I hope you are staying warm on this very cold day.
I want to start off with some sad news: this morning, at about 9AM, Bill Taylor passed away peacefully. He is now with Jesus, which as Paul tells us, “is far better” (Philippians 1:23). Bill was such a good and kind man, a loving husband and father, and a gentle and warm presence, friend, and brother to us all. He will be greatly missed. Please pray for Judy (Bill’s wife), as well as John and Kelly (Bill’s son and daughter-in-law) and the rest of the Taylor family. As soon as arrangements are made, we will share all of the details with you.
I also wanted to give you a head’s up ahead of this weekend. As of now (and of course, this can change), the weather does not look good for Sunday’s service and annual business meeting. We will make a final decision about the service on Sunday morning by 7:30AM, which will be sent out via email and social media. If the service is cancelled because of weather, I’ll live-stream a modified version of a sermon to think and reflect on. In that event, the annual business meeting would be pushed back to the following Sunday (February 1st). Stay tuned, and get your salt, shovels, and snow blowers ready!
Finally, I want to reflect for a moment on the ‘discussion guide’ that I provided in last week’s bulletin (and will continue to do so for the near future). In our women’s and men’s bible studies this week, we followed the general plan in the guide – and we had some great conversations. The guide is designed to provide you with a passage from scripture to read, to which you’ll ask questions that will help you reflect on the passage, so that you can begin to discern how we might “act on” what Jesus teaches or what Jesus models for us. That, after all, is what Jesus said the purpose of all his teaching is really about – ‘acting on’ or ‘putting into practice’ Jesus’ words (Matthew 7:24).
It’s the step that we so often miss – or – we stop right before we get there. But it’s the step that without, Jesus says it’s like we’re building our house on shifting sand. So far, the guide has been helpful to get us there. Ultimately, the hope is that more of you will learn to read scripture like that so that more of you can start up your own small group bible studies. I’d love it if you took a step towards that with us.
When we read scripture together like this, God is faithful to speak – and so calls us to ‘act on’ it.
So with that in mind, starting this Wednesday, I’m going to lead a small group bible study at Starbucks in Atlantic Highlands from 7:00-8:15PM. The purpose will be not only to read scripture and learn to hear God’s Word address us, but to learn to do that with and for others as well. If you don’t go to one of the existing bible studies already, I’d love for you to come to this. In addition, Rebecca DeLucia (our Next Generation Pastor) is going to start a similar small group bible study for moms of young kids next week as well. If you’re interested, please reach out to Rebecca to learn more.
That’s it for now. Please keep the Taylors in your prayers, and stay tuned for more.