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Reaching Out to the Community

Well now that fall is officially here, the ministry of Helping Hands continues to help those less fortunate in the Beckley and Raleigh County areas. We are taking donations of fall and winter clothing only on Tuesday mornings from 9:00 until noon. As always, we are also taking donations of non-perishable food, bar soap and toilet paper. These donations can either be brought to Helping Hands or placed in the large black container outside the church office.

We are also in desperate need of volunteers to work. Due to age and some medical issues, our crews are down each day which just makes it harder on the ones still there. So please, if you can spare one morning a week, your help will be much, much appreciated.

We will also soon be asking for donations of blankets and winter coats for both adults and children for those who are either homeless or live in an environment where these is no heat. More details will be coming on that.

As always, we thank you for your support of this badly needed mission project and ask that you keep us in your prayers.

Kicking Things Up Another Notch

As the temperatures start to lean more towards fall, OCC is kicking things up another notch. With collection week getting closer and closer, our focus turns to what kind of difference can I make. My answer to that is, as I always say, a shoebox can change a child’s life and that impact can grow and grow from the child to the family, to their town or village and from there it just multiplies.

Speaking of collection week, the dates for that are starting November 15th and concluding on November 22nd and that’s when I really need your help. We will be open Monday through Friday from 10 until 2 and then have shorter hours on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. So when you see my name come up on your caller ID on your phone, you’ll know what I’m calling about and the answer I want to hear is “yes I can help – when do you need me?” As in past years, we will have a loading time on Saturday the 20th of November. More details on that will be coming.

For the month of October I am asking you to bring in children’s gloves and toboggans. Even though some of these boxes may go to warmer climates, God knows which box needs to go to which child and he will direct it to just that child. As always, a collection box is located in the Welcome Center for your donations. I want to thank you for your prayers and support of the shoebox ministry. It is through your prayers and support that this mission effort can continue.

Please keep us in your prayers as our collection week comes closer that God will put the right person in the right place at the right time to help spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to children around the world.

Fall is Here!

Fall is here with cooler weather and shorter days. It won’t be long before we will need to start shopping for our Backpack Children’s Christmas gifts. If you would like to shop for one or more of our children please let me know. It is fun to shop for them. We provide $100.00 for every child and a wish list for that child. We wrap every gift and return them to the school just before their Christmas vacation. Thanks to everyone who has donated food, money or prayed for our Backpack Ministry. May God Bless You!

For the month of October please donate pudding cups.

Master Creator

by Pastor Doc Adkins

Here we are and it’s fall again in West Virginia. Also, in a while it will be just beginning to cool off from the summer heat. Some of the trees are just beginning to lose a few leaves but eventually the fall weather will be here and the leaves will turn to their beauty and fall completely from the trees.

Fall is one of the most glorious times of the year. It’s filled with the chill of the air in sharp contradiction to the warmth of the colors of the leaves, making it just breathtaking. It leaves us just in awe of the how wonderful God is and how so perfect each of His creations are.

As I look at the fall leaves and enjoy being out in a tree stand hunting or talking a drive with Sarah, I think about how beautiful a creation of God those are and I wonder how and what kind of a change God has for me. Think about how leaves change color can be such a lesson to us.

Did you know that the yellow to orange pigments are there inside the leaf the whole time but we only see them in the fall because they are masked by so much green pigment? During the summer the growth of the tree is making food inside cells in the leaves, which contain chlorophyll, which gives the leaf its green color.

In the fall the chlorophyll breaks down because of certain elements, which cause the other pigments to break out, and we see what then becomes our beautiful fall leaves. There are three basic elements that affect that chlorophyll breaking down. Those are temperature, light, and water. During the fall the temperature drops having an effect. The days are shorter so there is less sunlight, and there is less water because of the rain level.

Considering all this, set me to thinking how that is how we are as Christians. When we are sailing along without any problems we stay green and in the comfortable zone, but if it weren’t for the little less sunlight of a few bumps in the road in the way of trials, a few cold days of heartaches, and a little less water when we feel we can’t handle the burdens, then all of a sudden we become beautiful as a Christian.

God uses all those bumps, heartaches, and burdens to bring out our color and brilliance so that we can be a reflection for Him. He is the Master Creator. He knows what He is doing.

But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. Job 23:10

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

When we get back to realizing that God is the Master Creator and begin taking in how awesome and powerful He is, just like we take in the beauty of the fall, it will cause us to be a little more vibrant in our color. Perhaps a little more vibrant in witnessing, reading our Bibles, our prayer life.

God knows us in such a personal way. He knows each situation, each thing that becomes important for us, and each thing that we have weighing on our heart. He knows every one of our joys, burdens, and sorrows. We forget sometimes that He gives us our color in only ways that He can. We sometimes in a sense forget that He is God.

Be still, and know that I am God… Psalm 46:10

Late Summer Reflections

by Rev Robert A Wendel

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3)

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Now remain in my love. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.” (John 15:12-14)

Recently, I sat in my living room while my house grew quiet. I sat alone, just thinking about a new school year beginning soon. My thoughts floated back to 1958, when I started public school. As it is for everyone, school would be a new adventure with new classmates. Suddenly, I recalled more than a handful of school experiences which didn’t end until 2005. The result of all that was that I learned how to pastor five different churches and work in a half a dozen hospitals as a hospital chaplain.

What struck me about all that was that my life experience has been enriched by every one of these experiences. All of our lives are different as we move in and out of group experiences.

As I reflected, I realized that I do not know where any of my old classmates live now. Scattered over the world as they must be, there is no way to track them down, telephone them, or even send an email. Sixty-three years ago seems locked in the past and secluded in a “different world.”

So, for the next twenty minutes, I “called the roll, saw their young faces in my memory’s reflection, and uttered a prayer for each of my long-lost friends. Somehow, I sensed a spiritual reconnection. And I intuited that all of life is moving toward “sweet reunion” in a dimension that our physical eyes cannot see and our minds cannot comprehend. More than ever, it is true that the people in the Beckley church will always hold a special place in my memory.

“I believe that some obstacles . . . work out for the better because God knows that without those, you wouldn’t be as strong as you are.”
Simone Biles
Olympic Champion Gymnast

ABW Ministries at FBC

Even though our Lizzie Lewis Circle is not currently meeting, we are continuing to work on our mission projects and thank you for your help.

We are collecting used postage stamps for one mission project. There is a container in the church office on the counter where you can leave them. We are also involved in a great program at Weirton Christian Center where we collect quarters for a program called “Quarters for Grades” at the Weirton Christian Center. These quarters are sent to them on a regular basis where they are used as incentives for the children who come there to get good grades. What a way to help a child’s education.

Join American Baptist Women’s Ministries on Sunday, September 19, 2021, at 6:00 PM EDT, as we celebrate 70 years of ministry with an online celebration! Our keynote speaker will be the Rev. Dr. Pamela Durso, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. We hope you’ll join us for this free celebration! This is a virtual celebration and pre-registration is necessary. Contact the church office for further details and registration info

Join us September 18-19 at Parchment Valley for our Spiritual Growth Retreat. Early registration is from 7:00-9:00 p.m. on Friday and on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. The program starts at 9 a.m. This year’s theme is “We Are Family.” Registration forms for this event are in the church office. The deadline is September 1st but walk-ins will be welcome although a meal cannot be guaranteed.

Something Different for September

by Debbie Vanaman

First of all, I want to thank all of you for your generous support of Operation Christmas Child this year. Your gifts, both of money and items for our shoeboxes, is greatly appreciated. Even during this strange year that we are still living, your support has been awesome.

Now for the month of September we’re going to do something different. What we will be collecting for the month of September is children’s socks. Depending on where you sit on Sunday mornings, that determines what size socks you need to buy. If you sit on the bank side, you are in charge of the two to four-year-old boys and girls. The people who sit in the middle part are responsible for the five to nine-year-old boys and girls. The ones on the college side are responsible for the 10 to 14-year-old boys and girls. If you can’t or would rather not shop, a monetary donation is always acceptable and we’ll do the shopping for you. This is something we’ve never done before and I hope it is successful.

Collection week is getting closer and closer. The dates are November 15th through November 22nd. That’s when the shoeboxes from the area churches and individuals will be collected in our Welcome Center where they will start their journey to a child some place in the world. I will be reaching out to you for help during that week.

Please continue to keep this mission project in your prayers as boxes are constantly being distributed around the world sharing the name of Jesus and the love of God.

Lending a Hand

Let me first thank you for your support of Helping Hands. With your donations of non-perishable food items, toilet paper and soap, we can continue to serve the people of Beckley and Raleigh County. There is a large black container outside the office for your donations. We are taking donations of clothing Tuesday through Friday now.

Our numbers are increasing just a bit and we know as the weather turns to fall that hopefully that will continue to grow. We are in desperate need of volunteers to work. We’ve had several of our regular volunteers undergo surgery or have had to step down for various reasons which leaves us short-handed most days. Please if you have a few hours to spare, we could certainly use you. We are open Tuesday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. until noon.

Please continue praying for us as we lend a hand to those less fortunate.

Helping the Children at Beckley Elementary

School is back in session and we are once again packing food for our Backpack Children.

We have shopped during the summer and have our pantry full of nutritious food ready for the children.

We had intended to use our packing teams to prepare the food for distribution but the Covid Virus is once again a threat to groups gathering. We will continue to use only a few people to pack until the Covid numbers decrease.

Thanks to everyone who has donated money, food or prayed for our Backpack Kids. May God Bless You!

For the month of September please donate cans of Vienna Sausages.

“Son” Flowers

by Rev Doc Adkins

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11

When I often think of my childhood on the farm with my grandparents, it’s this time of the year that brings back floods of good memories. The harvest of the garden, the hay fields and corn fields are winding down. All the work in the hot summer heat has paid off and only the remnants is left. Rest assured even they will not go to waste. At the ends of the garden my grandmother planted sunflowers. Lots of really big sunflowers overshadowed the garden. Whenever you look toward the garden it was the sunflowers you saw first before anything else. This time of year, the sunflower would take on the colors of majestic guardians of the garden. I’d see their yellow and gold tones and with the colors you just knew Fall was upon us.

Sunflowers are one of those things you see everywhere such as on dishes, tablecloths, pillows, and other things for the home. They are right up there with roses when it comes to popularity.

Did you know that even Picasso and Van Gogh painted sunflowers? Probably because they are such a beautiful and distinctive flower.

Here are a few lessons we can learn from the sunflower.

Sunflowers Track the Sun. Most plants are attracted to light but the flowering head of the sunflower actually tracks the sun following its path and moving toward where it is in the sky all during the day.

I read somewhere that sunflowers track the sun when they are in bud stage. Isn’t that how it usually goes for us as Christians? When we first come to know the Lord, we get excited about knowing all about Him and living for Him, but after awhile we sometimes grow a little preoccupied with other things and get our eyes off of the Lord.

Wouldn’t it be great if as a Christian we’d track the Son of God and follow Him all day long? No matter what was going on in our lives and throughout our day, we wouldn’t take our eyes off of the Son.

Sunflowers Need to be Stabilized. The second thing I’ve learned about the sunflower is that it needs to be firmly planted in the soil in order to grow. Sunflowers grow so tall and their stems become so heavy that they will topple over if they aren’t stabilized in the ground.

I know as a Christian it’s very easy to topple over if we are not grounded in the Word of God. We need to know what and why we believe what we do so our feet are firmly planted and we won’t falter in our Christian growth.

Sunflowers Produce Seeds. Did you know that a single sunflower can have up to 2,000 seeds? When we think about sowing seeds as a Christian, just think of the potential reach that each of us can have to spread the Gospel. It could be limitless if we would just sow those seeds.

Sunflowers Produce Oil. The oil that the sunflower produces is considered a good oil with healthy benefits. As Christians we should be producing the fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith). All of those have some healthy benefits on us as Christians and on others that we meet.

Sunflowers Resemble the Sun. Sunflowers not only follow the sun but when you look at them, they resemble the sun too. Resembling the Son should be one of those things we do as a Christian. Being Christ-like is an essential part of being a Christian.

Conclusion: When I think about the lessons from the sunflower, my mind goes to that fifth chapter of Ephesians where it’s talking about following God and all the ways we are to act as Christians. It starts out in the first couple verses by saying,

Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. Ephesians 5:1,2

The chapter goes on in detail on various topics of Christian living and mentions all those bad things we are to avoid, starting with “fornication” and it goes on from there.

In verses 15 and 16 it says, See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

I’m not going to type the entire chapter out here but I think that whole chapter is so important as guidance to our everyday Christian lives. It is what getting up and following the Son all day and being a SON flower is all about.

It boils down to walking in the spirit, following God, and living Christ-like as a Christian should. We’ve got to live that way in order to “redeem the time” and spread the Gospel of Christ. .

So, are you living like a SON-flower?