Kenny Hibbard

As Team Church grows and grows…….our need for various avenues of getting information out also magnifies. More than just data, we want to ensure that everyone knows the rhythms of the church purpose, personal devotion and shared responsibility goals that we have.  To this end, we are creating some new sources of information outsourcing so that you can stay better informed, encouraged and involved.  Our goal is to continue to improve our church strategic systems so that everyone understands and flows with the One Purpose of the church. We continue to strive for many people….One Heart Beat!

Starting this week:

• Your Home Team leader will have a new sheet that we are calling the Home Team Huddle. Once a month your Home Team leader will receive this via email, print it out and then walk you through it for a few minutes at the start of your Home Team gathering. The Home Team Huddle sheet will have church wide things to pray for,  a current financial update, new Sunday series information and other things that your Home Team can be aware of and discuss and pray for as a group.  This way we have hundreds of people informed and praying as ONE at the start of every month!

• Each Sunday you can pick up a monthly printed Chalk Talk in the atrium information area.  This will have much of the same information and is designed for those who are not in a Home Team yet, who can’t receive the weekly email Chalk Talk or maybe are new to the church and have yet to sign up for our weekly email or BLOG stuff.  This will be printed at the start of each month and available all month.

• Of course, our weekly Chalk Talk, BLOG, Website, Twitter Page and Facebook will also have this information or a direct link to it.  Variety is the spice of life!

Our goal is that everyone stays current, informed and inspired to be all God wants them to be here at Team Church.  This will lead to continued success in developing a church full of people who just don’t come on Sunday and then check out emotionally and spiritually until the following Sunday.  Our desire is to have as many people growing and moving in the One Purpose of Team Church.

1 Thessalonians 2

¹ You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. ² You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. ³ So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.

⁴ For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. ⁵ Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! ⁶ As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else.

⁷ As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. ⁸ We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.

⁹ Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. ¹⁰ You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. ¹¹ And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. ¹² We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory.

¹³ Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn’t think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God—which, of course, it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe.

¹⁴ And then, dear brothers and sisters, you suffered persecution from your own countrymen. In this way, you imitated the believers in God’s churches in Judea who, because of their belief in Christ Jesus, suffered from their own people, the Jews. ¹⁵ For some of the Jews killed the prophets, and some even killed the Lord Jesus. Now they have persecuted us, too. They fail to please God and work against all humanity ¹⁶ as they try to keep us from preaching the Good News of salvation to the Gentiles. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last.

¹⁷ Dear brothers and sisters, after we were separated from you for a little while (though our hearts never left you), we tried very hard to come back because of our intense longing to see you again. ¹⁸ We wanted very much to come to you, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. ¹⁹ After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what will be our proud reward and crown as we stand before our Lord Jesus when he returns? It is you! ²⁰ Yes, you are our pride and joy.

It was so great to have my daughter at church and on the stage with me for a few minutes yesterday. We have so many new people at Team Church that have never met her or even knew we had a daughter. I feel it is important for our family and our church family to make sure Ellie stays apart of the fabric of our lives as best she can.   I appreciate the emails and comments about how cute she looked up on the stage.She takes after her mom!

More than the fact that she was so very very very cute yesterday…..I hope the teachable point was made.  There will be times in our family life cycle that things happen to us that are difficult and out of our control. What should we do?

• We quickly move from asking WHY to asking WHAT? What is God going to do to get me through this? What can I learn from this? What does God want me to do in this circumstance that will show my faith and His Glory?

I was thankful that Ellie was relatively calm on the stage. Her big brother did a great job talking with her and feeding her M&M’s.  I was thankful to the band and production crew who helped. You could not see it….but Ellie kept us all on our toes while waiting for her grand entrance each service. My wife was a nervous wreck…thinking Ellie may try to take off over the stage or head for the band area to try her hands at the drums!

Having a child with the issues that Ellie has is very tough to deal with….however, with the grace and power of God we have been able to make it and are learning everyday to count our blessings. I wish that Ellie and every other child would never have to live with what they do. However, we take comfort in knowing that God understands and one day Ellie will dance and laugh for eternity in Heaven like everyone else. Until then, we are blessed to have the opportunity to have her live at a place (The Howell Center) that gives her the hourly one on one care she needs and the Howell Center is only 15 minutes away from our house!

Thank you for sharing  a special moment with my daughter on the stage yesterday! I hope our story helps you in your time of challenge.

This week we are going to read the entire book of 1 Thessalonians!

1 Thessalonians 1

¹ This letter is from Paul, Silas, and Timothy.

We are writing to the church in Thessalonica, to you who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

May God give you grace and peace.

² We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly. ³ As we pray to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴ We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people. ⁵ For when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you. ⁶ So you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord. ⁷ As a result, you have become an example to all the believers in Greece—throughout both Macedonia and Achaia.

⁸ And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it, ⁹ for they keep talking about the wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve the living and true God. ¹⁰ And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven—Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment.