Skip to content

Pastor’s Paragraphs: July 28, 2017

Many of you have known about the work of Dr. Kline Johnson in the Family Resource and Counseling Center of the Montgomery Baptist Association.  He began that work twenty-two years ago and has continued to give outstanding leadership to this urgently needed ministry in our region.  Recently that work has expanded to include what has come to be known as the “City of Refuge” ministry which provides a short-term residence and support for Pastors in transition.  Depending on personnel and funding, it is anticipated a future ministry will include expanding into the field of addiction and recovery ministries.

I am pleased to share with you that the Montgomery Baptist Association has recently chosen to name this work in his honor.  From now on this ministry will be known as the Kline W. Johnson Center for Family and Pastoral Care.  We consider this a great honor and deserved recognition for Kline, but also for our church family where he also devotes himself to faithfully teaching God’s Word every Sunday and where he and Martha have been such faithful members.  I know you will join me in offering our congratulations to Kline for his faithful work through the years and the naming of this center in his honor.

Most are not aware of the extensive service the Family Resource and Counseling Center has given to so many through the years.  Appointments are fully booked week after week for people all across our River Region and beyond.  While the fees are modest and do not nearly cover all the expenses of this ministry, you should know that no one has ever been turned away from counseling due to a lack of funds.  You might also like to know that Dinah Bundrick serves as Secretary for the Family Resource and Counseling Center.

You will want to remember Greg Gosselin and a team from our church who will be joining others for a Mission VBS and witness in Germany next week.  Others from our church are Miles and Anne Stepp and Laquanda Hall.  Please pray for them as they leave on Friday and return late next week.

We rejoice in recent additions to our church and pray that others will come to know Christ as Savior and Lord in coming days.  Continue to invite others to the Lord and our church.

Share this post

Related posts

FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

God Leads Us

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge…

God is Enough

Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.…