Youth & Associate Paster - Josh Cranor
Dear Church Family,
I want to thank each and everyone one of you for the warm welcome you have extended to my family and me.
You have taken care of my housing arrangements, temporary storage, and everything else that I have needed.
So I emphatically thank you for honoring God and acting out your Christian faith. I am greatly humbled by the opportunity God has allowed me to be apart of.
I have waited so long for my chance to serve the Lord in full time ministry and yet, after realizing what God is going to do here at Bethlehem, I would be willing to wait even longer. It truly is unimaginable how much God is going to pour out His blessing on our church! I’ve heard people say, “I hope this new service works” or “I hope God will grow our church through the new service” and I am here to vigorously proclaim that God can and will grow our church in amazing ways through this service.
As you heard me say from the pulpit my first week, Satan WILL attack us as a church family and he WILL attempt to put barriers in the way of God’s will. So we need to be vigilant in our prayers and also in our walks to extinguish Satan trying to distract us from what God plans. We need to constantly focus on the prize of reaching the lost in relevant ways rather than on things that are petty in comparison to what God wills. I will reiterate that we will never water down the Gospel. As Paul demanded, we will not be ashamed of the Gospel. The lost are practically begging for the truth of Christ and we will certainly deliver it to them. I can not contain my excitement!!! I pray that you have caught the vision of what God is doing in our midst AND outside of our midst.
I want to share a quick story from my week. Pastor Steve and I were shopping for new cell phone carriers on Wednesday. I’m sorry you were not able to participate in our glorious quest to attempt to understand what these companies were actually saying. (To clarify, I am joking because I would not wish this task on no one.) Anyway, the employee at AT&T was a young lady about 20 named Brittany. She said she had driven by Bethlehem for years and never noticed the church, but since the new sign was installed she realized our church is here. She then realized I was the “new associate pastor” on our sign. I told her about our new service and she explained that she and her significant other were looking for a church but there wasn’t anything being offered that appealed to them. I invited her to try our new service and she said they would gladly give us a try. I share this story to illustrate that there are thousands of people around us begging for what we are about to offer and God is going to lead them here.
As exciting as our new service is, there is a lot of work that needs to be done around the church to better communicate our relevance and Christ’s love to the younger generations. Of all the work we need to do in preparation for the new service, none is more important than the updating of our Children’s area. If our new service is amazing and our Children’s area is perceived as unsafe, unclean, or subpar; many families will never come back to our church. This is one area that our target audience will not compromise on: the safety and well being of their children. Therefore, we need to join together as a church and update the Children’s area. You can do this in two major ways; you can donate money to the Children’s area or you can serve in the Children’s area on Sunday.
The money will fund things like new books, sanitizer, wet wipes, new tables, painting the entire basement, and perhaps security software that will better facilitate all the NEW families that will be attending our church soon. Those of you that enjoy working with children are greatly needed. We need to have new workers come alongside our current workers and share the ministry load. This will allow workers to rotate and take weeks off without being overwhelmed with the workload. We will also need more workers for the NEW families that will be attending our church. We need to prepare for the growth God is going to bring and be ready to handle the spikes in church attendance. I thank you in advance for the giving of time, money, and passion to this specific ministry in our church that will allow us to minister to so many new families from our community.
Lastly, but definitely not least, students I am thrilled to be working with you. I am enthused about transitioning from BBSMAC to the Underground. We are changing our mentality from our beliefs as a set of rules to our beliefs as a dynamic counterculture movement; from having to go to church to getting to go to church. We are going to do lots of fun things but also challenge your walk with God. I pray that you are proud of your Student ministry and that you jump at the opportunity to invite anyone to our services and events. This is an exciting time to be a student at Bethlehem. We will certainly enjoy this ride together!
Again I thank you church for allowing me to serve God with you. I pray that we work together for God’s will and lift each other up. I pray we meet each other’s needs and remain focused on the big picture. We will see God do many great things in the very near future. We will overcome whatever obstacles Satan throws our way. We will reach the lost!!!
General Information:
bethlehembaptist@comcast.net
Website comments:
WebServant
Site Maintained
by JTEC
Hosted by
SiteVision