This Friday at 8:30 will be our final Outdoor Movie Night.  We will be watching the movie below.  Bring your own snacks, drinks, friends and seats.  If it rains we will move inside the fellowship and still watch the movie.

it is a fun film that is enjoyable for the whole family.  Kids will love it but so will adults!

Here is the video from Sunday August 24th.  This one is funny.

Don’t forget that Saturday, starting at 10:00 am, we will be prayer walking our schools.  Prayer walking is a ministry where Christians gather and pray for things as they see them.  As they walk around it inspires them to pray together for different things that are noticed as they see the surroundings.

High Peak will be prayer walking in two groups.  One group will go to Drexel Primary School in Drexel.  After they finish prayer walking there, they will be going to Hallyburton Elementary School also in Drexel.  They will be asked to spend about 30 minutes at each school praying.  Then they will travel to meet the other group at the new Draughn High School.

The second group will start by praying for Valdese Elementary School.  After praying there they will travel to Heritage Middle School and pray there.  Finally they will meet the other group at Draughn High School at about 11:30 for prayer as a group.

Finally, after we are finished praying at Draughn, we will return to the church and pray for our County School officials, like Dr. Burleson, the school board, and the county administrators.

mission08-65

Originally uploaded by highpeakchurch

Our church takes a yearly mission trip to West Virginia. A small community called Fireco is where we go. We hand out school supplies to the kids and do a backyard Bible club. This year we had 10 go. It was rained out a little bit so we just held it in a nearby church basement. We presented the gospel and had 6 professions of faith.

Gary Stephens and his wife Ruth are missionaries to Cameroon.  He spoke at High Peak recently and this is the video he showed of their work there.  He has given us permission to post it here.

One of our members sent an email to me that touched me.  I thought I’d share it here.

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around.  We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, “This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received.”

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.  Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.  The angel then said to me, “This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them.”

I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing.  “This is the Acknowledgment Section,” my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed.

“How is it that there is no work going on here?” I asked.

“So sad,” the angel sighed. “After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments …”

“How does one acknowledge God’s blessings?” I asked.

“Simple,” the angel answered. Just say, ‘Thank you, Lord.’”

“What blessings should they acknowledge?” I asked.

“If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.  And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness … You are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day . If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the  agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation … You are ahead of 700 million people in the world. If you can attend a church without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world . If your parents are still alive and still married …you are very rare . If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you’re unique to all those in doubt and despair.”

“Ok, what now? How can I start?”

“ATTN: Acknowledge Dept.: ‘Thank you Lord, for giving me the ability to share this message and for giving me so many wonderful people to share it with.”

Now, I know this may not be a theological masterpiece, but it does prove a wonderful theological point.  If we offered as much thanksgiving as we do requests, we would all be much happier.  And if we offered as much thanks as God deserves, then both God and we would be a lot happier.

Thanks for the reminder Mandy!

The youth took a mission trip to Hendersonville, NC and did work with an organization called Service Works.  They partner churches with people in need.  Usually this is some kind of house repair or light construction duties.  Our youth helped to fix up a family’s home which had been condemned.  This would have resulted in the family being put out and likely homeless.  And now they won’t be.

Youth Mission Trip to Hendersonville

Just as Jesus used parables, preachers use stories.  Starting on Sunday Nights next week (July 13th) we will be enjoying the series "Messages from Mayberry", a four part series on lessons learned from Andy, Barney, Aunt Bea and Opey.

At the start of each message we will watch a favorite episode of the Any Griffith Show.  And then I will preach on the issues learned from this favorite story from one of the most popular shows in TV history.

Come at 7 PM on Sunday Night July 13th to enjoy this delightful series.

This week we celebrate our independence and the birth of our nation.  One of the key leaders in this country is of course the President of the United States.  There is a web site devoted to inspiring people to pray for him.  It is called The Presidential Prayer Team. You can view weekly prayer requests for the President as well as sign up for email to get daily updates on the President’s needs as well as those of his administration.

Don’t forget our Saturday Night Movie Night. At 8:30 pm we will show an outdoor movie. We have a big inflatable screen on which me will show the movie just like the drive-in.

The film is a family friendly movie. Bring goon snacks.