Information for the MidTown Building

The Leadership Team has been working consistently to provide the information that we currently have about the MidTown Ministry and the potential of receiving the gift of the church building. We've been able to visit all the Connect Groups, including the Choir, and will be planning on an informational meeting sometime in the next few weeks. In the meantime, there will be new information posted on the Calvary MidTown web page as it becomes available. It is my hope that before the end of the week, we'll have a number of photos, descriptions, and FAQ's on the page. I'll keep you up to date as soon as those hit the website.

As always, feel free to contact me in the church office or by email through our contact page. The email link will be directed to my attention, or you'll find my email address on my personal contact page: Dr. Mark W. Gregory

MidTown Ministry Update

This past Sunday we shared in both worship services the story of the development of the MidTown Ministry. If you were not able to be present, please take time to view the sermon at this link: MidTown Presentation This presentation will provide an excellent overview of how the ministry was initiated and the progress over the last couple of months.

In addition, we will begin spending time in the Connect Groups sharing more details and answering questions. We look forward to hearing from you.

Schedule Offerings for September

I announced this past weekend, and we placed in the bulletin, four new offerings for Wednesday evenings starting September 8th at 6:00 pm.  We will continue to emphasize our Connect Groups (and hopefully launch new ones) but we wanted to provide additional studies that might interest our members and attenders.  The four include:

1. Leadership from the Inside Out: A Leadership Class that I’ll teach based on my latest writing project. 2. Experiencing God 3. Men’s Fraternity 4. A Parenting Class entitled: Shepherding a Child’s Heart

There will be more information to follow on the leaders for the other classes and you’ll find this updated on our website as we solidify the offerings. (Click here to follow link to the correct page.)

Also, the staff has been in discussion for some time about emphasizing the choir ministry by moving the rehearsal time from 7:30 pm to 6:00 pm.  This accomplishes a number of things: 1. It gives the choir more time for rehearsal (from 6:00 to 7:20) and 2.  keeps families with children from being here till almost 8:45 pm.  3. and we hope it will foster interest in the choir since it will be conducted during the normal times of our ministries.  We pray the choir will continue to grow and the ministry will bear great fruit on Sunday morning as a result of the new time.  The new schedule for the choir will include the Praise Band, who will now rehearse in the auditorium beginning at 6:0o also.

Our young adult worship experience, DownPour, will move to a later time, 8:00 pm.  After considering the new schedule and comparing our Collegiate and Young Adult ministry to other churches in town, we believe this will work quite well, even allowing our collegiate and young adult members to be involved in serving our other ministries or be involved in choir.

Children’s Promise – August 2

The summer is almost over and school has either started or will start for most of the systems this week.  For us a Church, we are beginning to see the upswing of attendance as people get settled back in and routines return to normal.  That also means it’s time to bring to the forefront the Children’s Promise Campaign.  We kicked it off in late May, knowing that through the summer we would just let it build and grow without emphasizing it – but now it’s time to remind our members to give so that as soon as possible we can design and build the addition to the children’s wing.  We currently have about $38,000, which is a great start, but our goal is $400,000.  Consider what you might give to help us reach that benchmark and get the building underway.  I’ll keep you posted as we re-emphasize this project. 

Mark W. Gregory, Pastor

Sermon Series Conclusion and Smart Phone App for Sermon Notes

I’ll conclude the sermon series this week from Galatians 5 – with an emphasis on the last item on the list: self-control.  I imagine that we all need to work on this area, and fortunately, we have the resources and power of the Spirit to help us in the process of conquering those parts of our lives that come up short. 

A unique feature that we’re starting this Sunday is to make the sermon notes and scriptures available for those who have smartphones – such as the blackberry, iphone, android, palm pre, or other versions of web capable devices.  We know that many people today use their smart phones as a way of reading along with the scripture exposition.  So, you can now use the YouVersion bible app from your market and through the “live” feature on the app, you can select Calvary Baptist in this zip code and the sermon notes and scriptures will be downloaded on your phone.  It’s a great tool that we’re going to try for a few months to see if there’s sufficient interest. Let us know what you think.

If your phone market doesn’t seem to have this app, you can go to youversion.com/download and it will point you to the correct location.  It’s also known as the LifeChurch Bible.

Vacation Bible School for CBC

What a great week it’s been at Calvary with Vacation Bible School.  All the effort and work brought great results – from the worship rallies, staging, teaching, crafts, food, recreation and all … There were no less than 170 children here each of the four nights, and on Tuesday there were a number of decisions to accept Christ.  Thanks to everyone’s hard work and willingness to serve – there was probably in excess of 100 adults and other workers this year.  We’ll report more later, but just wanted to say thanks. 

And remember, this Sunday we will complete the VBS emphasis with church wide rallies in both services followed by a meal and fellowship time.

Update on Children’s Promise 6-8-2010

Just wanted to give you the latest totals on the Children’s Promise Campaign, which puts us at $34,000.  It’s a good start as we move into the summer.  Continue to pray about what you and your family can do to help us reach our goal of $400,000.  Remember, our commitment is to “build it when we get it” so we’ll look forward to the Lord prompting and moving us forward.