Our ladies meet the first Thursday of every month 12:15 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall. We have several mission projects that we are working on and would love to have you join us. Our “Undie Sunday” project is going well. We ask the congregation the last Sunday of each month to bring in underwear and socks for children. These items are taken over to Helping Hands and distributed from there.
As things gear up to collection week in November, we shift into high gear to get ready. We will be having a packing party on the 21st of October at 10AM to pack all the donations you’ve given during the year. We have 120 boxes to pack and that’s where the fun happens. You get to pack a box for a child that will receive it who might never have heard the name Jesus and how much He loves them. So join us on the 21st and let’s have some fun. For the month of October we will be collecting money to ship these boxes. Just place a check in with your regular offering and mark it shoeboxes and it will get to the right place. As always, keep this ministry in your prayers as they distribute these boxes to children around the world and share the love of Jesus.
Helping Hands is continuing to help the people of Beckley and Raleigh County and your support and prayers have gone a long way in helping us do this. As summer draws to a close and the weather starts to turn cooler, we need blankets and lots of them.
In one week in September we served over 200 families with food and clothing and this is where you can help. We need non-perishable food and meat. Our food shelves and freezers are almost bare which means we have to go to the grocery store or the food bank and buy food and with the rising cost of food, as you well know, this uses money that might otherwise be used for other purposes. Your prayers are appreciated as we continue to lend a helping hand to those in need.
For the tenth year we are providing weekend food for children at Beckley Elementary who may not have adequate food at home. I know it is hard for us to imagine our own children being in this situation. Our church congregation and our friends have made it possible to feed these children during the school year. We Praise God for your giving to our Backpack Ministry to make it successful all these years! Thanks to each one of you!
For the month of October, please donate pudding cups.
For many, the month of October isn’t the beginning of, well, much of anything, but the end of several things. It marks the dwindling sunlight with shorter days, the end of the harvest, the end of warm weather and the end of that feeling in the air, the feel of summer. These feelings are only regional for the Northern Hemisphere because this is the beginning of early autumn. It is also the celebration of a new year according to the Jewish calendar (Sept/Oct; Leviticus 23:23-32). In fact, there are three festivals celebrated during this time in Judaism, the Feast of Trumpets (Jewish New Year; Rosh Hashanah Numbers 29:1-6); the Feast of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur Leviticus 23:26-32) and the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles or Ingathering Nehemiah 8:13-18).
So why do so many look at October with disdain or depression? My dad never looked at this time of the year that way. We would enjoy rides through the country fascinated at the colors of the changing leaves. This was also time for my dad’s ability to prepare his signature pickled corn in an old-fashioned crock. There was another practical reason dad enjoyed this time of year, long sleeves. This would mark the end of sweating for the Knight generation. We could finally walk outside without a sweat towel. It’s this idea of things ending that October ushers in that holiday which for some is marked with darkness and creepy things, Halloween!
Where did this celebration of the dead come from? How should a Christian approach such a celebration supposedly rooted in paganism? We must look a little closer to the origin and then consider our own hearts in the matter of the celebration. We must enter the land of Ireland/Scotland.
Tradition holds that a group known as the Gaelic’s lived in this area and celebrated Samhain, a festival that marked the end of the harvest and beginning of winter. Often celebrated on October 31st and November 1st. Samhain is believed to have been rooted in Celtic paganism and is mentioned in Irish literature and mythology. The early customs were to gather all resources to close proximity. They would choose which livestock to consume for food over the winter and gather the dead crops in piles to be burned. Some of these piles were very large and considered bonfires that accompanied rituals. But this is not exactly where Halloween spawned. The Romans celebrated Lemuria, a feast where they would attempt to rid their homes of fearful ghosts on May 13th. According to the promptings of Pope Gregory III (731-741; most powerful/influential pope in history) the feast of All Hallows’ day was moved from May 13th to November 1st in an effort to overlap two pagan/false religion festivals. This ultimatly led to the currently known holiday of Halloween.
So how are Christians to approach this festival/holiday? I can’t help but think of Romans chapter 14 where we are presented with the Law of Liberty and the Law of Love. Christians understand God to be sovereign and He alone has allowed things to come into being, including Halloween. However, in light of God’s Word in Romans 14 we should not provoke our brothers and sisters who view this holiday to be a stumbling block to participate. Allow those who wish to refrain to refrain, but for those that wish to participate, as your shepherd, I only ask one thing, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31. That being said, we should understand that God alone is LORD and no other. Regardless if Halloween has roots in a pagan holiday, we should avoid applying validity to false worship, for their bonfires and festival rituals meant nothing, because they were dedicated to “nothing”. Only God handed them over to their depravity.
On Halloween October 31, 2023 celebrate in the manner you see fit according to your conscience and convictions in line with God’s Word. Celebrate five-hundred-five years ago in history, on October 31, 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses upon the annals of Christendom and dress up in costumes with the intent of sharing Jesus. We are to be the light and salt of the world, so dress up as a candle, dress up as a Maglite, dress up as a container of Morton Salt, you can also dress up as dry bones come to life from Ezekiel 37:1-14. Go Trick-or-Treating with the Gospel on the tip of your tongue, but before you go ask where your heart is at on the matter.
Blessings In Christ, Pastor Bryan W. Knight
We here at FBC have been actively invovled in Operation Christmas Child for over 20 years and for that you should be proud. You have helped spread the name of Jesus and the love of God to over 200 million children who have never heard the name Jesus before. Their lives have been forever changed by someone they don’t even know who cared enough to pack a box just for them.
Due to a restructuring of our southern West Virgnia team, we will no longer be a drop off point as the new central drop off point has been moved up to Beckley to Calvary Assembly of God church right off Harper Road. What this means is we will gather our boxes in November and sometime during the week of November 13th we will take them to Calvary and drop them off there.
We have just about completed collecting for our boxes that we pack here at the church and you’ve been so generous with your donations. You were also given the opportunity to take a box home with you last month to pack for that I thank you. That box needs to be returned to the church by November 12th.
For the month of September we will be collecting children’s socks for ages 2-4; 5-9 and 10-14. There is a large brown box located in the Welcome Center for your donations. As always, please keep this ministry in your prayers as they continue to spread the name of Jesus to children around the world.
Helping Hands has initiated a new project and here’s how you can help. When you go to your favorite hairdresser, barber, bank and any other local business, ask them if you can place a collection box in their business to collect non-perishable canned goods. If they agree, contact Edna Nasby at Helping Hands and she will see that one gets delivered. They are also in need of toilet paper, bar soap, blankets and non-perishable food. With fall coming upon us, that means winter is not too far away so winter clothing and blankets are always needed and greatly appreciate. They continue to serve well over 600 families a month and that need is steadily growing. Please keep this ministry in your prayers as they strive to help those less fortunate in Raleigh County.
School is back in session and we will be packing food for our children as soon as the guidance counselor notifies us they are ready.
We have been shopping all summer for food to stock our pantry. We have purchased several items from the Mountaineer Food Bank including 8oz containers of shelf safe milk, juice boxes, cans of chicken and tuna. They are donating 72 jars of peanut butter which is a great blessing.
God has blessed us over the past 10 years in providing us what is necessary to help these children and we look forward to continuing this help. Thanks to everyone who has donated food, money or prayed for our Backpack Ministry. May God bless each of you!
For the month of September please donate packets of instant oatmeal.
by Pastor Bryan Knight
Growing up around my dad and his dad, I remember hearing them speak of Autumn being their favorite time of the year. As a child I was confused as to why, to us kids it was a return to the school year, colder weather and the beginning of the end of the leaves. Now, I know why Autumn was their favorite. Just like my dad and his dad I sweat very easily in any situation where I’m exerting myself. When I sweat I grow agitated. It’s in these moments I also laugh as I remember my dad working on the house and sweat would drip from his nose and fall on whatever he was working on. I remember cutting wood with my grandpa and seeing the same image, but grandpa always carried a bandana in his back pocket for the sweat.
When I see the seasons begin to change I think of Ecclesiastes 3, I’m sure you do too. In verse 1 we read, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.” Whether you choose to use appointed time or season we understand that life comes in cycles or periods. When I was the kid cycle I played and helped my dad and grandpa, but I don’t remember paying much attention to sweating like them. Now, in my appointed time of adulthood I understand fully the misery brought on by sweat and just like my grandpa I have my own sweat towel!
But this article isn’t about the sweat of our brows, it’s about God’s sovereign hand involved in our cycles of life. You see verse one is aided by verse 11, “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” We understand with this verse that though things may come to an end it is because another “thing”, appointed time/season is about to start. Just as there are cycles in our personal lives, there are cycles at every level, up to and including God’s design of the universe. I write this article to remind us all that though things may end, they end in order to allow other things to begin. So, the end of an appointed time also means the beginning of an appointed time.
Ecclesiastes 3:2-8
2 A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
3 A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
4 A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
5 A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
6 A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
7 A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
8 A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.