Acts 5:28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.
They filled their city, Jerusalem, with their doctrine. I want our church to share the gospel with everyone every where we go. We need to be very careful to share the truth with everyone that we can.
Not only do we want to fill our city but the entire world with the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Priorities, Decisions & Balance–Distractions and Focus
Do you desire to serve the Lord but find that many distractions in your life shift your focus away from Him? Do you have a difficult time wanting to know God better but find that there’s not much time to do so? When you’re with family and friends who don’t know Christ, do you find yourself distracted by their priorities?
Join us at Vision Baptist Church on Saturday, March 6th from 9AM to 1PM as we discuss the answers to some of the following questions:
–How do I keep from focusing on my needs, concerns, and ambitions and allow God to use me?
–With all the worldly and even with business distractions, how do I find time to think about the things of God and the peace that God gives?
–How can pastors believe that my life should revolve around God when I do not have the luxury of the time a pastor has?
–How do you love God when your life is filled with unsaved family, friends, coworkers, etc?
Come hear from the personal experience of John Pearson, a businessman from our church, on how he has focused on Christ and avoided distractions. Hear what God’s word says about balance from Austin Gardner our pastor. Come with questions.
What: Priorities, Decisions & Balance Seminar
with John Pearson and Austin Gardner
Where: Vision Baptist Church
1125 Alpha Drive
Alpharetta, GA 30004
770-456-5881
www.visionbaptist.com
When: Saturday, March 6th, 2010
9 AM to 1 PM
(Lunch to be served at noon.)
Who: Businessmen, Professionals, Career-Oriented People seeking balance in their lives
We look forward to spending some time together discussing how we can keep our focus on Christ and avoid distractions in our lives. Please RSVP by Monday, March 2nd to help us adequately prepare for lunch.
Greetings in the name of our beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We hope that God is working in your lives. Thank you so much for your support and prayers. It is a blessing to see how God is workingin Burkina Faso.
This month Pastor Austin Gardner from the US was visiting us with two other brothers. Thanks to God they were moments of blessing for the couples of the church. One of the couples were reconciled after a long time apart. They have decided to work on their marriage again!
We celebrated the fifth anniversary of the church in Tengandogo by the grace of God. We had 400 visitors and 4 accepted Christ as their personal Savior. Amen! I want to share with you a great material blessing that God has given us through a group of missionaries. They have given us a motorcyle which has made life so much easier for us here! Also, the two men who came with Pastor Gardner gave us cell phones. We are very thankful to them and our good God.
The Lord has allowed me to preach for a few minutes in French! For me it is a great blessing as I see His hand in my life and the life of my wife. She also taught the young ladies in French!
We are happy with what has happened this month of January. We love you all. Please recieve our warmest greetings and may the grace of God continue in your lives.
Prayer Requests:
• For Bro. Keith Shumaker (the veteran missionary we work with) as he travels to the U.S.
• For the anniversary of the Living Water Baptist Church this month on the 7th.
• That God would continue helping us to learn French
• For Bro. Alfonso and his marriage
• That God would raise up more laborers
• For those who have recently received Christ
• That the families would practice what God sowed in their hearts
• For the missionaries of the church: Pastor Salif, Mamdou, Tali, and Konate
Below is the story of Ann Judson. She is one of my heroes of the faith. I have the privilege of knowing a lot of great young ladies that are married to my missionary friends.
I send this out for you ladies. 198 years ago this young couple got married and stepped out to do what all of you are doing. It was worth for them and it will be for you. God bless you and we love you here at Vision.
What would make a twenty-one-year-old, single Massachusetts girl want to travel half-way around the world to live in a society that had no knowledge of God?
After accepting Christ as her Savior at the age of sixteen, Ann Hasseltine experienced the New England religious revival of 1806, prompting her to dedicate her life to God. By the age of twenty-one (1810), she knew she wanted to be a missionary in a foreign land. While attending a missionary meeting hosted by her father, she heard four young students from Andover Theological Seminary petition to be sent as foreign missionaries. One of them was Adoniram Judson, who was invited to the Hasseltine home for dinner. They were soon engaged.
On February 5, 1812, they were married. The next day they started on a four-month ocean journey for Calcutta, India, with six other missionaries. At the time, both the government of India and the East India Company were opposed to missions. Soon the missionaries were ordered to leave the country.
So on July 13, 1813, they began their work in a land that had never heard the gospel, the seaport of Rangoon, Burma (located between India and China).
After learning Burmese, they began translating the Scriptures, but ran up against roadblocks. How do you explain a God who is eternal to a people who have never heard such a concept, and have no words in their language to accurately describe God, Heaven, and eternity?
As they worked among the people, they hoped that their lives would convince the Burmese people of their need for Christ. But after nine years, they had only eighteen converts.
Ann became part of the culture, adopting Burmese traditional dress, and forming a society of Burmese women who met together to pray and read the Scriptures. In her own way, she sought to overcome a society that didn’t allow women many rights, education, or say in who they were to marry.
In 1822 bad health drove Ann back to America. She used this time to write a history of the Burmese mission, American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, which inspired many to become missionaries, especially women.
The year 1823 brought Ann back to her home in Rangoon, and also war between Britain and Burma. The Burmese associated Americans with the British, and thus threw Adoniram into prison, assuming he was a spy. They also detained Ann, who was pregnant, making her a prisoner in her own home. She was able to secretly provide Adoniram and other prisoners with supplies and food, and dedicated her time trying to influence the governor to free her husband.
Three months after their daughter was born, Adoniram caught a tropical fever. Ann cared for him until the guards secretly moved him to another prison eight miles away. Ann followed, but became seriously ill with smallpox and spotted fever.
When the war ended, Adoniram was freed and joined his wife and daughter after being imprisoned for eighteen months. But because of the weakness brought on by the illnesses, Ann died of a fever at the age of thirty-seven. Her daughter died six months later.
Was their sacrifice worth it? After twenty-four years, Adoniram had translated the entire Bible into Burmese. By the time of his death in 1850, Burma had sixty-three churches with 163 missionaries and native church leaders to carry on his mission.
Dear brothers, it is always a blessing to address you knowing about our love and service to the Lord.
We started and fulfilled last month with classes for pastors where we shared information about Church-growth and Homiletics. These classes lasted 4 days, making a total of 16 hours. We gathered pastors from different places, approximately 25 per day.
The Second week of January we had the V Ladies’ Congress, event which happened in the Baptist College Macedonia, and which in its best day, it had an attendance of 270 people. We gathered sisters from different cities of our country. It was taught by pastors’ and missionaries’ wives, one more demonstration of what we, as a team, can do together.
Moreover, we had a special day on Sunday 17th, a dedication from children in Smyrna and Hunter Churches, 55 in total. We covered the topic of “how to improve as parents, and how to improve our relationships with our children
This February we will emphasize the topic of spiritual growth at Smyrna. A quite big group of people will attend the Conference of Evangelistic Fire which will take part in Efata – Lima on February 2nd and 3rd.
At Hunter Baptist Church we will talk about “Your Faith and Your Money”, and each Sunday we will have our SBS (Summer Biblical School), where we hope to have a great group of children and parents. On Monday 22nd we will start classes at the Christian School. A lot of students continue subscribing and we have our list of teachers who are brothers and sisters dedicated to this ministry.
Both churches participate in the Youth Camp which will occur between all the Macedonia Pastoral Churches Team, it will be done from February 8th to the 12th in Ite – Ilo. Beside, both churches will have the Vows Renovation for married couples, on Sunday February 14th, a quite moving event.
A group of churches will have a retrieving gathering at Ilave – Puno, on the second week of the month, and we have coordinated the participation of Pastor Pablo Villegas, together with two youngsters of his church, for him to teach and preach there. Another group of young brothers and sisters will have a campaign at La Paz – Bolivia, and seven brothers, (between students and former students of our College), will be supporting this event from February 15th to the 28th. The Pastor of the group of youngsters from Hunter Church, Pastor Alfredo Pari, will direct the team work.
I ask your prayers for:
- Sister Victoria de Navarro, mother of the co-pastor of Hunter Church. She has been detected cancer at the cervical vertebrates, and she will start chemotherapy right after surgery.
- The incomes from the Christian School , so as to cover all the expenses.
- The events which will be happening at Smyrna and Hunter
- The starting of classes at Macedonia Baptist College, Tuesday, March 16th.
Numbers 3:13 Because all the firstborn are mine; for on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast: mine shall they be: I am the LORD. When all the firstborn of Egypt died God set aside for […]
Leviticus 25:35 And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. If your brother gets in trouble you are to help him. It doesn’t matter if he is a stranger or […]
Full time Deputation! It is finally here! We are on full time deputation to start churches in Thailand. We have been preparing for this day for 10 years, and the Lord has faithfully brought it to pass. Our schedule is about to change quite drastically, and we need your prayer that we would be able […]
Tonight will be Vision Baptist’s monthly “Goer /Sender Coalition” service. This is a spectacularly exciting service that you do not want to miss! This service will feature Vision Baptist missionaries, and missionaries in training, all preaching mini messages! Instead of one message, there will be several, shorter messages, and there will also be several inte […]
Leviticus 22:32-33 Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you, That brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD. He brought them out of Egypt to be their God. He rescued, […]
