From the Pastor
(Summer 2012)
Get Ready, Get Set, GO!
Dear church family and friends of Park Avenue,
Soon it will be summertime, and we have a very busy summer planned as usual - mission trips, youth trips, World Changers, VBS, and a new series of Bible messages. There will be summertime fun, trips to take, get-togethers to attend, Memorial Day weekend, the 4th of July, and Labor Day. With a summer as busy as this, it seems like someone ought to count off "get ready, get set, GO!"
Well, I pray that you are ready. We need your prayers, your energy, and your involvement in as many of these activities as possible. Come out the first Sunday in June and participate in the Lord's Supper observance, and then come back that evening for the start of Vacation Bible School. If you have not already registered your child or grandchild, be sure to check with Misty Owen or visit our church Web site, www.pabc.ws
Get ready, get set, GO! into the next week as World Changers arrive. So many of you have been so good to volunteer during World Changers. Thank you in advance for this wonderful week of mission to our community. Check with brother Dave Werner about ways you can help out. Don't forget that World Changers have a worship rally in the evenings. Check to see which worship rally would be best for you to visit.
Get ready, get set, GO! to your prayer place, and remember to pray for Hanna Lindsey and the mission team from Round Lick Baptist Church as they return to Guatemala for a summer mission trip. Don't forget to pray also for Park Avenue, as we are making plans to take a team on a mission trip to Guatemala next June.
Get ready, get set, GO! to the Sunday morning worship opportunities as we begin a new series of messages called "The Call to Follow Christ." The writer of Hebrews instructs us in Hebrews 10:24-25 that we should consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds; that we should not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but we should encourage one another. Will you join me in doing that this summer? Why this series of messages will be important to you is that from it, you will understand God's calling on your life to follow Christ. You will learn how to show your willingness to follow Christ be learning what it means to:
- Abide in Christ
- Live in His Word
- Pray in faith
- Fellowship with believers
- Witness to the world
- Minister to others
...so come out and join us as together we respond to the call to follow Christ.
As each of us think about the July 4th celebration, I want to share with you a prayer read by president Franklin D. Roosevelt on the radio as Allied troops were invading Nazi-occupied Europe on D-Day, June 6, 1944:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
[...] For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
[...] And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
[...] With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace - a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Thy will be done, Almighty God.
Amen.
Dear church, may we never forget that it is God, our great God, Who superintends in the affairs of men. May we never cease to pray, and may we never cease to worship and praise our God. May we never shirk from those liberties and freedoms that have been won and granted to us at such a high price.
God bless each of you this summer.
Pastor Bob Orgeron
