ABS newsletter

Hope everyone has a great Easter weekend. He is Risen! I hope and pray that these next couple of days have a significant meaning in your life, over 2000 years ago Christ took my sin to the cross, forever! I hope you all realize that He took yours that day as well. Chris

One Simple Message this Week….. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death. We are one with Him again. Come awake, come awake. Come and rise up from the grave. – Matt Maher Christ is Risen This is an amazing week filled with the awesome and soul-consuming truth that Christ is alive. He is alive TO us. He is alive IN us. He is alive THROUGH us. May the reality and vitality of Easter shatter us from small hopes and dreams and align our hearts with the world-altering truth of abounding hope in an ALIVE Savior. O death where is your sting… O hell, where is your victory… O church, come stand in the light.. The glory of God has defeated the night! – Christ is Risen Glory to God!!

Easter Celebrations @ 9 & 10:30 AM THIS SUNDAY! (No evening activities on Easter)

Have a remarkable Easter Weekend. More ABS news and views coming next week. This week, let’s simply park and enjoy the wonder and awe of our Risen King.

By Grace… For Glory,
Mark

ABS newsletter

I read this note the other day and you will find that I REALLY love this thought (you will see and hear this sentence at our next training sessions). No one’s story is complete until it has intersected with God’s story, which happens best in community being enriched by the stories of others. What a gift of grace to be grafted into the story of God through faith in Christ. Even better, we share and shape that grace-gift in context of community and our lives (and the lives of those around us) explode with hope and promise because of Christ in, around, and through us. What a story that we find ourselves in.. a story of redemption and promise and passion and hope and life and freedom!?! May the story that permeates Valley View be the story of the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ and may His name be the only famous name among us!

3 Things You MUST know:

- The Passion, featuring “The Promise” is Fri – Sun, April 15 – 17 @ 7 PM. Three amazing nights of remembering and celebrating the glory and reality of the Cross and the Resurrection. Pray for these nights. Pray for our choir and drama. Attend and Invite!

- Due to dress rehearsal, there will be NO ACTIVITIES on the Valley View campus Wednesday, April 13. Only those involved in ‘The Promise’ will be on our campus as they prepare for the launch on Friday, April 15. (No adult service; No kids service; No youth service)

- All of our missions offerings (support for Hondura’s/ Royal Family/ Individual Missionaries/ etc) were enveloped into our budget in 2011, EXCEPT Annie Armstrong Easter Offering (sustaining North American missions endeavors) and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering (sustaining International Mission endeavors). We are encouraging our folks to give to ‘missions’ year round and these dollars will be dispersed to National and International Missions. You are welcome to encourage your folks to give, above the tithe, to Annie Armstrong as an act of worship during this Easter season. Also, our children are doing a ‘Bike-a-thon’ for Annie. Missions = joining with God in making His name famous in nation, tribe, tongue, and people.

God is transforming lives….

- Our Prov 31 women (MS & HS girls) will gather tomorrow night and be challenged and encouraged to be women after God’s heart. Our girls are being invited to be women of the Word and, in very practical ways, to recognize what it means to live Godly lives. I love it!

- It has been amazing to see all of the paper-work, monies, etc arrive in preparation for the Honduran trip this year. Lives will change and hearts will be turned toward Christ in a matter of weeks! We are expecting salvation and healing to erupt. Hallelujah!!

- I love Easter! The weather is amazing…. Hope abounds….. Expectancy is at a peak…. All of creation shouts of new life…. our church prepares to celebrate life…. and the resurrection stamps ‘finished’ on sin, death, and the grave. Praise God for Easter! Thanks be to Christ for His triumph!!

- I just sat with a wild-eyed Royal Family kid leader who is stoked for Jesus. Lives are being TRANSFORMED. Even more, we are experiencing MORE kids who want to be in this ministry and to attend our camp. We don’t have the answers of ‘how’ yet, but we do know that God is inviting us to reach 15 – 20 MORE abused and neglected kids through our summer camp than expected. What an awesome opportunity. Let’s make the most of it!

- Our pastor will be parked at the Cross for the next few weeks on Sunday AM. The teaching will be phenomenal! The cross is eternity altering.

- Experiencing God, on Wednesday nights, is compelling us to discover truths about knowing and doing the will of God. Wednesdays are rich nights of prayer, worship, and teaching.

It’s been a pretty neat few weeks for my family. My dad retired, last week, after 20 years of leading the Florida Baptist Convention as Mission’s Division Director. So, after retiring on Friday, he headed to Indianapolis to become the interim Executive Director for the Indiana Baptist Convention. This next season could comprise 6 months to a couple of years. When I wrote Bro. Billy to tell him of this amazing opportunity, he teased my dad and me that Dad was ‘failing at retirement’. Knowing my pops, he will completely fail at retirement, but he will spend the rest of his days on this planet lifting up the name of Jesus Christ and giving His time, energy, and zeal for the sake of the cause. I love having a Dad who teaches me to mature (mature = get old), yet not in his maturity to become increasingly passionate about the Kingdom and the King of glory.

I am so privileged to share life with you guys. God is alive and well at Valley View and He is transforming lives. Pray. Prepare. Expect…. Experience Transformation.

By Grace…. For Glory,

Mark

Is this thing on?

Mission Update

Sunday morning I covered some info on mission opportunities, but went over them pretty quick, so heres the information again. Read at your leisure.

• Disaster Response Team: I will be in contact with the Alabama Baptist Assoc. this week to schedule the training for the team. We will be responding to natural disasters in our immediate area as well as going out to other locations that may get hit hard and need extra help. If we go out a good distance not everyone will want to go, and I realize that, but the opportunity will be there if you want to go. I haven't talked to anyone pertaining to equipment or in depth details yet on what will be expected, but I will tell you that if you are willing, we will be able. This is not limited to our class so if you know of anyone that might be interested please give them this email address and have them put their contact information in the email and I will contact them with details, vvdrt@comcast.net. There is plenty to do in a disaster situation, so anyone who is willing to give their time to help those affected can be used, ex. passing out water, food, light debris cleanup and also the heavy stuff, use of chain saws, climbing ladders to roofs, etc. If you have any questions please call me or just post a comment on this and I'll get in touch with you.
• Angel Food Ministries: Angel Food Ministries is a non-profit, non-denominational organization dedicated to providing food relief and financial support to communities throughout the United States. The program began in 1994 with 34 families in Monroe, Georgia (between Atlanta and Athens), and has grown to serve hundreds of thousands of families every month across 45 states. Angel Food Ministries crosses denominational lines and has spread the good news of the gospel of Christ through salvation tracts that are placed in each food order. By buying food from first rate suppliers at substantial volume discounts, Angel Food Ministries is able to provide families with approximately $65 worth of quality nutritious food for $30. Angel Food Ministries does not use out-of-date food or inferior products. This is information from their website www.angelfoodministries.com, if we are willing as a class we can collect money once every other month and team up with a church in our area and purchase food that can be given to those that may not be able to afford it for themselves. Check out their website and post some comments here so we can decide if this is something we want to do as a class.
• Yoshi Owasaki: This is from an email and also the blog post that Josh Bridges had sent a couple of days ago: My brother Todd Bridges has a friend who is a pastor in Tokyo named Yoshi Owasaki. Todd has been to Japan with him and met him when he went to Christ For The Nations. A couple of the ABS classes are planning to help with a monetary gift and he asked me if I would share it with our class. Yoshi's congregation is eager to reach out to those who are suffering all around them from the Tsunami/earthquake. In Japan there is a lot of idol worship and this is a great time for the people to come to know the one true God Jesus Christ. By providing a monetary gift, Yoshi and his congegation can get supplies and meet the needs of the people who have lost so much!More importantly they can share the love of Jesus with the people. I am pretty sure they will be collecting money through the Sunday of April 10th. If you want to write a check be sure to make the check out to Valley View Baptist. As far as I know we won't be at church Sunday morning but Todd is in the ABS class that meets right after us. You can give the money to him or his wife Jess. It is not an obligation but if you feel the Lord leading you to give, know the money would go directly to meet the needs of hurting people. Thanks! If you have any questions or would like to help those in Japan out then either send me an email or Josh or call either one of us and we'll get you the answers you're looking for.
• Project Blessings: ProjectBlessings.org is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help local low-income and underprivileged homeowners repair their homes to achieve a better quality of living. They rely on volunteers to make their projects happen. Here is their website, www.projectblessings.org check it out and again leave me some feed back on what we are thinking as a group. This particular opportunity will require more than just a couple of hours and is not something we have to do every month but I think it would be awesome to help them out maybe twice a year. If we want more information I can set up a time for them to do a presentation for our class, that way all questions will be answered and we can move from there.

When we put things together for missions, I would like to have as much feed back from the class as possible so I know what direction you would like to go, remember majority rules so if there is no input then that leaves me and Wes as the Majority and we will make the decisions on what to do for missions projects. We both would like as much involvement as possible so please let us know what your thinking. Thanks for taking the time to read all this information and visit the websites, hope you all have a great week and I look forward to reading your comments on all these opportunities we have.

In His Love,

Chris