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Don’t miss AWANA! December Activities 12-1—Dress as an Angel, Wiseman or Shephard 12-8 thru 12-29 NO AWANA If you have any questions please call Commander PJ Long @ 308-1267. Operation Christmas Child Update Thanks to your help, our church collected 482 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. Please continue to pray for those boxes & gospel opportunities. November New Members Miss Brianna Riel 601 Abloom Lane Stedman, NC 28391 804-484-9753 Daughter of Ed & Evelyn Riel December Ushers Tracy Norris Linwood Davis Ron Denning Caleb Waller Randy Hendrix Jim Lowe Keith Rich Raymond West December Security 12-1 PJ Long 12-8 Keith Horne 12-15 Robbie Dodson 12-22 Wendell Smith 12-29 Chad Smith Are You Totally His? Your Chance to Change Eternity Each year we as Southern Baptists have the opportunity to change eternity through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. This year’s call to be Totally His is more than a convention wide opportunity to give financially. As a part of Temple Baptist Church, you are one of 16 million Baptists that constitute 45 thousand Southern Baptist Churches and together our goal is to raise $175 million dollars. But why? Neither space nor time allows us to create an exhaustive list of motivations for world missions. We would surely include the fact that we serve a missional God who sacrificed everything for the sake of wretched sinners. We would undoubtedly consider God’s righteous judgment on the unrepentant, even if they have never heard the gospel. And we would be amiss to overlook our risen Savior’s command to go, make disciples, baptize, and teach all nations. In addition to imitation, trepidation, and obligation, I want us to consider three specific ways your gift to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering can alter eternity. Motivation One: Supporting Missionaries on the Frontline The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist employs almost 5,000 full-time field personnel scattered from the barren plains of Madagascar to the Arctic tundra of Siberia. I recently had the opportunity to chat with a missionary stationed in the Balkans who has dedicated his life to reaching a region of the world torn apart by political, ethnic, and religious strife. He resides in Thessaloniki, a former priority of the Apostle Paul, where religious restrictions force him to minister secretly. I also received an email this week from a family in western Tanzania. This former classmate of mine walked away from a lucrative IT (information technology) position, traded his home for a small apartment, and relocated his wife and two small girls to the heart of Africa in order to reach the lost for Christ. Motivation Two: Reaching the Unreached Try to imagine a life with no access to the gospel, a Bible, a church, or even a Christian. As members of the Bible Belt, it is nearly impossible. Our shelves are Bible laden, our radios are tuned to praise, our churches are countless, and our believing friends are many. As I type this, I am fixated upon the International Mission Board’s Population Chart. Five seconds ago, it estimated there to be 4,774,379,825 people around the world who do not have an adequate opportunity to hear the gospel. The Joshua Project, an organization which tracks the status of global Christianity, claims there are almost 7,300 people groups that are less than 2% evangelical. One such group is the Pomak people of Romania. The Pomak, meaning “people who have suffered”, make their living as farmers and migrant workers and are virtually 100 percent Muslim. Despite their location in Eastern Europe, this people lack both a national identity and a Christian witness. Motivation Three: Glorifying God John Piper once said that “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship does not.” While we send, go, and give out of love for the lost, it should be the worship of God that compels us to sacrifice, risk, and dedicate our lives to missions. In Romans 9:17, Paul says that God’s goal in redeeming Israel is “that [his] name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” In Isaiah 66:19, God promised that he would send messengers “to the coastlands far off that have not heard my fame or seen my glory and they shall declare my glory among the nations.” God pursued us, and commissions us to pursue others in order to add to the choir of believers that sing His praise. Steve Fernandez was right when he said that “the bedrock of missions is not the value of man, it is the spread of God’s glory. Commitment to evangelism and missions is rooted in God’s passionate concern to make His name known.” Caleb Waller, Ministry Intern New Beginnings Activities 2014 National Quartet Convention & Dollywood Theme Park, Pigeon Forge, TN Monday, September 22 through Thursday, September 25, 2014 Plans are underway for a bus trip to the 2014 Quartet Convention. For a brochure or details of this trip, please contact Doris Wilson at 483-9313. There is not meeting in December. We will have our normal meeting January 9th. Our group will be going to Rudy Theater Christmas Show-December 14th @ 2pm. Come join us for Sunday School @ 9:45am on Sunday’s! Temple Christian Academy Mrs. Tracey Worley, Director As I was growing up, Christmas was a big deal at my house. What about yours? I’ll never forget one year I promised by parents that if they got me a Mrs. Beasley doll I would sleep in my own bed. See I was afraid of the dark and would not sleep in my own bed. Guess what was under the tree for me that Christmas? Yes, my doll that I wanted so badly. Did I keep my promise-no. Have you made promises to the Lord in 2013 that you haven’t kept? I’m so glad that when God makes us a promise that He would send His Son to be born as a baby and that He would live on the Earth and someday die on a cross to save us from our sins and we could have eternal life that is HIS promise! Take time this Christmas to remember the reason for the season. We want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas from Temple Christian Academy. Annual Ladies Ornament Exchange Tuesday, December 3, 2013 from 6pm to 10pm.It's that time again, so come and join in on the fun! We are so excited to have fun and fellow- ship with all the women at Temple Baptist Church! Bring a wrapped ornament ($10) and a covered dish/ appetizer. Bring a friend as well to join in on the fun! If you have any questions please feel free to contact Shannon Knox at 980-0502. Children’s Christmas Musical “The Light Has Come” Wednesday, December 18 at 7:00pm. Candlelight Service Sunday, December 22 at 6:30pm Christmas Night of Worship Come celebrate the sounds of Christmas in
