April 15, 2010 AD

“Behold His Wonders”

Dear Beloved Friend in Christ:

ATTENTION ALL FACEBOOK AND TWITTER PEOPLE: You touch a lot of lives! Consider putting something on your Facebook page or Twitter about “40 Days of Community” and invite others to come at 9:00 and 10:30am. You touch a lot of lives and your invitation may be the catalyst moving someone closer to God. Offer to meet them at FBCO! Thanks for doing this because we are “Better Together”!

We know we serve a God of wonders. Yet, occasionally, He will make Himself known in wondrous ways beyond what we can imagine. Such a thing happened to us recently.

We had 1,860 here on Easter. That’s good! What impressed me even more were all our people who worked to bring great

glory to our awesome God. There were those who drove golf carts, ushers and greeters who welcomed people, Preschool and Children’s workers, others played instruments or sang, worked in the A-V booth, ran cameras or worked in engineering, etc. An army of volunteers serving with full devotion to Christ and He is glorified.

God blessed your service! The Wednesday after Easter was busy. I returned from a meeting in Broken Arrow and felt like I needed to go to St. John’s Tulsa to see two FBCO people. As I left the hospital a Hispanic lady approached me and, in very broken English, asked me if I were the pastor of FBCO she’d seen on the webcast. I said, “Yes”.

She told me she worked "deep nights" and didn’t get off in time to come Easter. However, her kids recently moved to Collinsville and were coming to FBCO on Easter and told their mom she could watch the service on the web. The mom logged in to FBCO's webcast and started looking for her kids. She said, “I understood every word clearly in my language, Espanola.” She thanked us for webcasting the service in Spanish — music, message, welcome, etc. The message made her think and she purchased a Spanish Bible and will go to a Bautista church near her apartment soon.

The only issue is...we didn’t do a Spanish service on Easter. We didn’t even use a translator on Easter...or ever. What happened?

Acts 2:6 says, “When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.” On the day of Pentecost, when the Christians spoke of God’s wonders, people heard in 16 different languages. For years I’ve taught “the miracle of Pentecost was not an unknown language, it was a known language. The miracle was not in the speaking but in the hearing of the gospel.” Did God reach down from Heaven to a Hispanic lady who was looking for her kids on the web and allow her to hear the gospel in her language? You decide. I still stand in amazement of our awesome God!

In Heaven we’ll see how, when we serve God with full devotion, He comes in and does what only He can do and lives change for eternity. That’s why last Sunday we started “40 Days of Community”. Together in the church, God’s forever family, we are learning how we fulfill the 5 purposes God created us for: Worship, Discipleship, Evangelism, Ministry and Fellowship. I encourage you to do 4 things in these 40 days:

• Be faithful in large group experience called Worship. The messages will be a different slant on the Biblical material you are getting in Sunday School. You need both Worship and Small Group.

• Participate in a Small Group called Sunday School at 9:00 or 10:30am.

• Serve with others in doing a project with your Small Group to help people who can’t possibly repay us — just like Jesus.

• Read the “40 Days - Better Together” devotional you got in Sunday School during this 40 day journey. Let God do His perfect thing through you, His child.

SUNDAY’S SERMON: “Reaching Out Together” Mark 2:1-12. Last Sunday you learned of Mission Owasso. This Sunday you will hear from one of our Sunday School groups who is doing what we are talking about.

Thanks for posting an invitation to “40 Days of Community" on Facebook, Twitter, or anything similar. It may be just what someone needs. Because you touch a lot of lives, we are “Better Together”!

I love each of you! Write and tell me about your project for the “40 Days of Community”. I will pray for you and come help you if time permits.

The shepherd loves the sheep,

Pastor Roger