Happy New Year! "2007 - ALL ABOUT HEAVEN!"

The new Year will be about God's Plans for the Future!

I am so excited about what God is gonna do, because I remember what He has ALREADY DONE! I hope you will come to church this Sunday (1-7-7), because I will begin a new Sermon series about The Future. I'll talk about what the Bible says about future things as they relate to us making New Year's Resolutions; about making new plans for the future, both personally and for the church; And about the LITERAL future for believers, Heaven, the Rapture, and many other things that we know that we can count on because God's Word promises us that we can!

Then, we will have a PROPHECY CONFERENCE in February, hopefully with the great Bible teacher John Hagee, if not in person by DVD for sure!

So, don't miss this special sermon series each Sunday morning during the month of January!

Special Church Council Meeting

The Church Council will have a special meeting Monday night, Jan. 8, at 7 PM in the Fellowship hall of the church. This is a very important meeting because we will plan out the rest of 2007's church calendar!

Who's on this council?

The pastor, all of the deacons, the Sunday School director, All Ministry Team Directors, all staff members, and all officers of the church (church clerk, etc). ANY church member may make a suggestion or request to any council member for the entire council's consideration.

See You There!

Blessings for Your New Year

If you didn't get a copy of the "Blessings for your New Year" card of Scriptural Confessions, then please see the church office right away. They were inserted into last week's bulletin, but if you missed yours, we have plenty of copies available.

Thanks For the Benevolence Money

There were many who gave love offerings to help church members with benevolence funds last Sunday. We are so grateful for everyone's generosity. As it turned out, the money was not needed as first we were told. So, what we have done is to place your gifts into the "Gifts" fund to have available for the next need. You gave towards helping a "church member in need" and that's exactly how those funds will be used. Again, thanks, and you can always trust your church staff and deacons to use these funds properly and with total integrity!

See you this Sunday as we gather to Worship our Lord Jesus Christ.

All regular Services and activities will occur this Sunday.

Regular Monthly Deacons Meeting At 4:30 PM This Sunday Afternoon

NEW SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS THIS SUNDAY!

FANTASTIC NEW SUNDAY SCHOOL CIRICULUM THIS SUNDAY


We have an absolutely fantastic new class starting this Sunday for the class that has traditionally been called the "Young Married Couples".


Dr. Adrian Rogers, who's gone on to be with the Lord, taught a fantastic VIDEO course called, "What Every Christian Ought To Know" and we will begin that class THIS Sunday morning at 10 am in the Church Worship Center. Please help us spread the word to as many people as possible. Invite all of your friends to be a part of this class.

Mississippi Baptist Convention and the Stained Glass Windows!

Well, we have attended the Miss. Baptist Convention once again this year. It is held each year at the First Baptist Church of Jackson, MS. I had the priviledge, as I do most years, to enjoy the event with my brother-in-law preachers, Jerry East and Dan Robertson. Ross Robertson, the other brother-in-law preacher, didn't get to come this year.

I rode to the convention this year on my motorcycle. Had a wonderful time doing so, too, I might add. I rode down on Interstate 55 for the the first time ever. I was in much fear and trembling to get on the BIG road with the BIG trucks. But, as He has done so far in my riding career, God took care of me and we made it safely. I actually enjoyed riding on the BIG road.

Our stained glass window are getting in this week. Many thanks to Kay Davis for bearing the brunt of the burden of these beautiful panes. Please take plenty of time to gaze at them and reflect on the wonder of our marvelous God!

I love you all in Jesus' Name and I look forward to being with you again this weekend. Take good care of yourself and WALK WITH GOD!

Brother Buster

Welllll, Hallelujah!!

The Pastor's Back on the Ball Again!


Brother Buster has had quite a month as you may know! First it was a kidney stone attack while preaching in the Sunday morning pulpit a couple of weeks ago. Then, it was the dreaded motorcycle accident! Both of those events and trying to get back on his feet from them have taken a toll on him the last couple of weeks.


But, he's doing much better now and is ready to get back to blogging for the Lord again!


Thanks for your prayers and thoughts of concern!


Deacons are chosen

The church chose two new deacons to serve for the next four years. These two men will be replacing two that have faithfully served for many years and are now rotating off this week. The two rotating off are Gene York, who has been the deacon chairman for the past two years and over saw the new construction from the deacon's perspective; and Mr. Howard Anthony, who has faitfully served his Lord as a deacon servant for more than 35 years! Thank you to both of these men for a job well done in the Kingdom's business!


Congratulations to Dr. Joe Adams and Mr. Rodney Bell as they begin their service as a deacon at FBC. Dr. Joe, (who also by the way, won 2nd place at the Bodock Motorcycle show the other day with his awesome American Iron Horse HOG!) has never been ordained as a deacon. We will have an ordination council this Sunday morning at 10 AM and the ordination service will take place during this next Sunday's worship services. We invite all ordained men to be there to take part in both the council and the services.


AWANA STARTS BACK NEXT WEEK!

Next Wednesday (the First Wednesday of September) will be the first night of the Awana classes for 06/07. We are very excited because we ended the year last time with about 140 kids in the Awana program. We feel that this is the year that we will approach 200 kids in the Awana ministry!


Please tell all the kids you know to come to Awana this next Wednesday. And PLEASE pray for Commander Traci Coker and all of her committed workers this year!


Email Newsletters and Bulletins

If you want to receive the weekly bulletins and the regular email outs that we are sending from the church, please get us your email address as soon as possible! Let Ramona Hood know at
hoodisfun@yahoo.com


God bless. Keep checking this site and write this address down and give it to all your friends so they can keep up with the folks at FBC!

Week of July 17, 2006

SUPER SUMMER @ FBC!

I'm sorry that the blog site has gone unattended for the last few weeks. That's over NOW.

FBC is having a wonderful summer. Our kids are being blessed each and every Wednesday night by the parents of the Super Summer Kid's program. Thanks to all and especially Ramona Hood and her gang of Super Moms for getting together a weekly program for our younger kids during the Awana break this year. Don't miss out on what the kids are doing this summer. Check the weekly bulletin or check in with Ramona at hoodisfun@yahoo.com.

Business Meeting Results

The church had a special business meeting this past Sunday for the purposes of electing two Ministry Teams that need to go to work right away, and to nominate names for the two deacon positions that we will fill on August 27th at our annual business meeting that starts the new church year.

The names you elected to the Nominating Ministry Team this year are:

Standing Members:

Pastor, Sunday School Director (Calvin Powell) and Gene York (Deacon Chairman)

Newly Elected Members:

Neal Davis

Crystal McBrayer

Kaye Nowlin

This Ministry Team will need to go to work immediately, filling the many positions of leadership in the church.

Please PRAY hard for this team's work. This is one of the most important ministries of our church each year. They will need to find GODLY people with SPIRITUAL GIFTS to fill the many positions in our church structure.

The Names you elected to the Budget and Finance Ministry Team are:

Standing Members:

Pastor, Chairman of the Deacons, Church Treasurers (Rusty and Beverly Cummings)

Newly elected members are:

Tracy Davis

Larry Nowlin

Tim Hood

This team will have a monumental task this year, planning the largest budget ever in the history of this church! Please give them your most faith filled prayers in the days ahead!

MOVE NIGHT COMING TO FBC

Each summer we try to provide different kinds of activities that will enrich your lives and help you grow closer to the Lord. Last summer, it was the Dave Ramsey financial peace course. This summer, we will do a little summer-something different: A Movie Night!

This Sunday night will be our first movie night (6 pm). It will be one of the most anointed movies EVER! A Southern Baptist church in Georgia, learned that the culture is more impacted by movies and television than they are by the local church. This disturbed them greatly. So, they bought one digital camera, an Apple computer to edit on, and collected $20,000 dollars in donations and produced their first movie: Flywheel.

The results have been phenomenal! Flywheel beat out 10 Hollywood movies for 14 weeks in their local town. Then, it went on to earn many movie awards, winning at movie festivals all over the world. They have sold over 42,000 copies of the DVD over the internet! And now, the church has produced their second movie, Facing the Giants that will be released in national movie theaters soon.

Flywheel is an unbelievable story acted out by the members of the church in their own homes with no real movies making experience or professional equipment. It is anointed!! The first time pastor saw it, he wept over it's powerful message. DON'T MISS MOVIE NIGHT WITH "FLYWHEEL" THE MOVIE THIS SUNDAY NIGHT AT 6 PM. If you have anyone that you think needs the Lord or needs to grow closer to Him, please invite them to this free ministry event!

FLYWHEEL. Just One example of what a local church can do,

WHEN THEY HAVE V I S I O N!!

LIFT UP YOUR EYES

The message Sunday night, "What's Going on in Israel", opened up a lot of conversation about the end times and what's happening in our world today. I want to impress upon you that this is not just another little skirmish going on in the Middle East. I truly believe that Israel is settled on fighting this until they have defeated their enemies. And their enemies are ready to use this as an excuse to follow through with their threats to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Ezek. 38-39 is about to be fulfilled before our very eyes! (A Russian led confederacy of Arab nations will move against Israel, But God will defeat them supernaturally, destroying 5/6ths of their armies. This is closer to being reality than ever before. In fact, the leader of Hezbollah said Sunday that all of the Arab nations were about to move against Israel if they stop what they were doing!!!)

We need to be sober and diligent like the Word tells us to be. The Lord is soon to return. I believe this. Most of the Bible prophesy teachers that I know and trust believe this. ARE YOU LIVING FOR THE LORD TODAY? IF HE WERE TO RETURN TODAY WOULD HE FIND YOU FAITHFUL?

I love you and hope that you KNOW Jesus as your Savior and Lord and that you are living for Him to the best of your ability!

God Bless you.

Let's GO to Church!

Weekend Of May 27 & 28, 2006

New Sermon Series In Progress!

Pastor Buster has started a new sermon series that is designed to be a fantastic start to our summer Bible studies and to super build our relationship with God! The title of the series is, THE AWESOMENESS OF GOD! Last Sunday was sermon number one of the series, The Awesome Place! (Gen. 28:16, 17). I hope you had a chance to hear that message. If not, please order a copy of the CD because this Scripture lays out the vision and view of our pastor about just how fantastic and awesome our CHURCH IS!! This past Wednesday night we heard message two, "The Awesome Glory and Majesty of God". This Sunday will be message three, "Our Awesome God!"

Other messages in the series:

The Awesome NAME of God

The Awesome POWER of God

The Awesome DEEDS of God

The Awesome WONDERS of God.

Please pray for this special series that God will help us capture personally a real sense of His AWESOMENESS!

Special Lunch with the Youth This Sunday

The Youth ministry team will provide lunch for the Church this Sunday at noon. This is a donation lunch to raise funds for the Youth Ministry.

Our Youth Ministry gets some funds each year in the annual budget, but we are not able to give them nearly enough to do all that they need to accomplish their yearly program. Our Youth Ministry is AWESOME (pardon your pastor's attempt to OVER USE that word this month!) Angie Treadaway and her team are doing a fantastic job of reaching the youth of our area. We're not only providing a spiritual Haven for OUR church family kids, but the Youth Ministry is providing some of the very best Evangelism and Outreach of our church right now! We are reaching a lot of kids that don't go to church normally and thus have no church Home. We are fast becoming the church home to a lot of great kids in our community who need the love of God to be demonstrated to them in and thru US! So, thanks for your PRAYER SUPPORT and your FINANCIAL support of our Youth Ministry Team and their efforts to Rock the World of the youth culture of your community!

The Kids will be heading out to summer camp this next week, so please pray for them, AND THE ADULT WORKERS who will be going with them!

Remember, "Youth" begins with YOU.......

WOW! And the Super Summer Childrens' Team

WOW = Worship On Wednesdays. Our Summer program for Wednesday nights has started with a bang! Now that AWANA is in Summer break, we have a fantastic program for our children on Wednesday nights! They started their summer efforts this past Wednesday with a trip to the skating rink. We had a huge crowd of kids and they had a large time (no broken bones that we are aware of!)

Pastor would like to thank Ramona Hood and her Children's Ministry Team for all of the hard work planning the Summer and for the huge effort they will be making in the days ahead! Thanks so much for caring for our children!

Here's the Super Summer Schedule:

Next Wednesday: Movie Night for children of all ages at the church Worship Center

June 7: Special Guest Joshua Harris from Booneville, a Christian Magician

June 14: Community Helpers night with lots of special guests.

June 21: No Super Summer, Vacation Bible School is happening!

June 28: Swim Night!

July 5: No Super Summer, July 4th Holiday

July 12: No Super Summer, some kids are going to church camp at Grace Memorial Baptist

July 19: Go to Ecru Ball park to play baseball

July 26: Bowling in New Albany!

So, you can see they've got a great time for all the kids planned for the whole summer! Thanks again Children's Ministry Team for all the hard work!

Sunday Night This Holiday Weekend

We WILL have Sunday night services this holiday weekend. I know that several folks will be out of town, but many of us will not leave. So, please, if you are here this Sunday, DON'T TAKE A HOLIDAY AWAY FROM GOD!

Don't Forget the Website!

Hey, don't forget to check out the web site / blog page of our church. That address is:

www.friendshipchurch.blogspot.com

Please help us get that address out to as many people as we can! It's the place of Friendship Church on the world wide web. We want people to know what's going on with our church! Help us spread that web address to as many people as possible! And YOU check it out regularly.

Pastor's Note:

I just want to say again how much I love you and appreciate all that you do for the Lord at Friendship Church. Thank you again for allowing me to pastor you. It is the Biblical responsibility for all of us to follow and respect the leadership of your church, and you have done that so well for almost the past five years now. I am grateful to call you my friends. God bless you as you try to walk with Jesus every day. Let's never forget that it's all about Jesus! It's ALL about HIM.

God Love you and bless you richly.

Pastor Buster

It's EASTER!

What A Week in the Christian Calendar!

Passover Begins

Passover officially begins this week at sundown Wednesday night. Passover of course, was the Jewish celebration of when the death angel "passed over" the homes that were covered with the blood of the spotless lamb. This occured during the exodus of the Jews from the land of Egypt under Moses' leadership.

Passover has been celebrated ever since. Christians has given a new meaning, or at least the FULL meaning to Passover in what we call, "the Lord's Supper". Jesus told us that the drink represented His Blood that was shed for the forgiveness of sins. The Bread was His Body, broken for many. The official celebration of Passover this year begins at sunset Wednesday night.

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Good Friday

We will have Good Friday worship services at the church starting at 12:10 PM and lasting till 12:45 PM, giving everyone enough time to return to work from your lunch hour. We will have sack lunches provided for anyone who comes. PLEASE COME TO WORSHIP THE LORD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY THAT REPRESENTS THE TIME HE WAS HANGING ON THE CROSS! We will have a quiet and worshipful time together for 30 minutes on Good Friday!

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Sunrise and Easter Morning Celebrations

We will have a Sunrise Easter Worship Service at 6 AM Sunday morning. I know that's early, so don't worry about putting on your "Easter Best"; just brush your teeth, brush your hair and come on! (You might want to change out of your pajamas first!) After the sunrise service, we will have a short breakfast for all. Then, we'll come back at 10 and 11 for regular times of Sunday School and Morning Worship (Yeah, wear your new Easter Clothes at 10!)

Come be a part of this once a year celebration of the most powerful weekend that the universe has ever known! I know it's hard to get up early like that and to then come back for another two hours. But think about what Jesus suffered FOR us on that "good Friday" when He hung on the cross for our sins! A little early rising won't kill us! We promise to have high octane coffee on hand!

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Special Choir Practice Called

There will be a special choir practice this Thursday night at 7 pm to get ready for Easter morning. The Praise Band is to practice with the choir, but the Praise Band needs to be there at the regular time, 6 pm.

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Welcome back Julie! We missed you and Tim this weekend.

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Thanks to Dorman for a job well done, filling in for Julie!

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Thanks to Paid In Full

Paid In Full came for their yearly concert at FBC this past Sunday night. Man, what a wonderful experience we had! They shared a great night of Gospel music and intertainment, with several decisions made for Christ at the end. Thank you guys for coming to Friendship again. We look forward to next year already!

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I love you dear church family! Keep your pastor and the leadership and staff of FBC in your prayers!

Brother Buster