Acts of Faith
APR
2021
MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF FAITH BAPTIST CHURCH We are a family of faith, sharing God’s love in a spirit of hope.
HOLY WEEK Throughout Holy Week, a series of reflective prayer stations will be set up in the church. You are invited to sign up as an individual or family to walk through this self-guided time of prayer and reflection. Times are available throughout the week to ensure limited contact with others. Click here to sign up. On Friday, April 2, we will join with other congregations for a community-wide Good Friday service at noon outside Ed Davis Learning Center. This service is sponsored by Pastors & Priests of Scott County. We will sing, read scripture, and be reminded of the significance of Jesus' death on the cross. Bring your own chair and a mask. Registration is not required.
EASTER We will have two services on Easter Sunday: a sunrise service at 7 a.m. and our regular 11 a.m. service. The sunrise service will be in person outside by the playground and will not be streamed online. This service will include congregational singing. Masks and physical distancing are required and you will need to bring your own chairs. The 11 a.m. service will be streamed online
as usual and registration is required to attend in person. Masks are required and congregational singing is prohibited. Because in-person attendance is limited at the 11 a.m. service, we ask that you only come to one in-person service.
EASTER MISSIONS OFFERING The Missions Committee invites all our Faith family to join us in supporting the annual Easter Missions Offering. This year all gifts will be equally divided among three of our missionary friends: Scarlette Jasper—CBF field personnel serving those in persistent poverty in Appalachia through the Together for Hope Rural Poverty Initiative Oleg Turlac—Baptist minister aiding victims of persecution and human trafficking in former republics of the Soviet Union Carlos Navarro—Texas pastor on the U.S./Mexico border partnering with CBF to assist immigrants seeking asylum in the United States The Missions Committee sincerely appreciates your generous heart for missions, and asks you to prayerfully consider your gift to these important missions. You can mail your donation to the church (116 Pocahontas Trail) or give online (select Easter Offering in the drop-down menu).
IN-PERSON WORSHIP & ACTIVITIES We have been able to hold in-person worship in the sanctuary for the entire month of March! The incidence rate in Scott County has remained low and we are grateful to safely gather again. We have also continued to have good participation on Facebook Live. Worshiping together as a church family, whether in person or virtually, has been a blessing during this past year of uncertainty and stress. If you would like to attend worship in person, you can register at this link or by calling the office by Wednesday each week. Masks and physical distancing are required. Congregational singing is prohibited. This month the deacons and Administrative Committee will review a regathering plan outlining our steps for resuming in-person activities and the easing of guidelines. Part of this plan includes a survey to determine the level of vaccination among adults in our congregation. Your participation is vital to assessing our readiness for gathering safely so we are asking everyone 16 and older to fill out a survey. Click here to take the vaccination survey.
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CHILDREN’S CORNER This has been a difficult year to say the least. With so many fun activities and trips being canceled, not being able to attend school for chunks of time, and no playdates with friends, I imagined children without smiles and desires to participate in Zoom meet-ups. But my experience has proved otherwise. Each of my meetings and encounters with our children have lifted my spirits and put a smile on my face. The children have so often reflected the light of God to me when I have had trouble seeing it myself. I am so grateful to them for showing up each week and to the parents who make that possible. This past month, the children have been Diggin’ Deeper into Easter and Lent. Each child received their very own Resurrection Garden kit. The children have been able to build their own gardens with a tray, dirt, grass seed, a cup that serves as a tomb, a rock to roll away on Easter, and crosses. Over four weeks the children looked at Bible stories that explored God’s promises, Jesus’s transfiguration, how we should pray and how God invites us to be a part of God’s good work! We get together over Zoom every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. to talk about the story, tell jokes, and pray together. HAPPY EASTER! To help celebrate Easter in a fun way, as a community, families of children and youth have been invited to sign up for an Easter Egg Hunt! Families are paired and then each family will plan, prepare and create an egg hunt for the other. We hope this will be a fun way for families to connect in a safe way! WHAT’S NEXT? For the spring, the children’s team is working on a hybrid schedule for our Godly Play and Wednesday night programs. We are hoping to provide safe ways for children to gather and learn in person for those who want to, but also provide opportunities for children who want to stay virtual. Stay tuned for more information regarding both!
Eggstraordinary Eggtastic Egg Hunt
Families of youth & children egged each other for a fun and safe egg hunt! More egg hunts will take place on Easter weekend.
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YOUTH NEWS As we prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, and as we welcome spring and the newness of life, we begin to see signs of life together, in person! We’ve been working on Lenten devotions and prayer calendars, we gifted fun egg hunts to friends and received fun Easter bags, and we’ve continued to meet on Sunday nights by Zoom. Our Urban Immersion studies have been insightful and thought-provoking. We have one more with a staff member of Metro Baptist Church to discuss all that goes into establishing and maintaining some of these critical ministries. On April 11, we will have our final Zoom meeting of the year! Woohoo!
The choir room has gotten a face lift! The entrance flooring has been replaced and new lights have been installed. The walls even have a fresh coat of paint! All of this is the great work of the Trustee Committee!
William led a retreat for the staff to plan summer activities, complete with colorcoded sticky notes to stay organized!
On April 18, the youth will meet in person! If it’s nice weather, we will meet outside by the playground. If it’s not, we’ll meet, spread out and masked, in the Reception Area! Even if we are outside, everyone must wear a mask and social distance, but we’ll be in person! I can’t wait to see your faces in person! Come with your ideas of how we can serve our community, the gifts we bring to the group, and how we can use them. I can’t wait!! Our youth and family trip to Perfect North in March was snow much fun! Youth families traveled separately and then we all met up to ski and snowboard (or hang out in the lodge). The weather was great and all 17 of us made it home in one piece!
JOY REFLECTIONS April: This is the month the Lord hath made! We shall rejoice and be glad in it! This is the first day of the rest of your life! What a better way to start the season of spring and of hope than with Easter and the promise of a new life. As we look forward to brighter, healthier, warmer days, we are thankful for the friends, family, neighbors, pastors, and fellow strugglers who helped us get this far. All of us can look back on the last year and remember times when we thought we could not make it. And our next memory is one of someone who called or came by, or sent a message that made us feel better. It might have even been a book or a TV show or a podcast, but if we kept our eyes and ears open, we found something that helped. Those of us at Faith, especially in the JOY group, know a wonderful person who shares her flowers, her insights, and herself with everyone. Rose Lewis, retired school nurse, and giver of so much to the children of Scott County, has once again lifted us with her emails of thoughts and cartoons and wisdom. Rose found a way to reach out to us when we could not get together. Her wonderful messages have hit the spot for so many. We have many angels giving of themselves and Rose Lewis is definitely one of them! Thank you, Rose.
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Words from William We are over a year into the pandemic, but hope is on the horizon. We are beginning to see the light of normalcy brought on by a vaccine that will allow us to safely gather with others again! However, now we are faced with the question of what we want normal to be. Our COVID pandemic might be on the homestretch, but over this past year we’ve grown very aware of other pandemics plaguing our lives like systematic racism and poverty. As we begin to taste the return of “the good old days” (a.k.a. 2019), we must ask ourselves what exactly we want to return to. Everyone has learned something from this year. It’s been too pervasive an experience for us not to have. We’ve all gained new knowledge and understanding, created new habits, and questioned things we once knew as certain fact. What do we want to leave behind and what do we want to take with us into this fresh start? Everything doesn’t have to be different than it was before, but it also doesn’t have to be the same. It’s as though we are a field after it’s been furloughed, and now we must decide what needs to grow. This is true in every aspect of our lives: personal, work, church, community, friendships. We’ve suffered through the darkness and desolation of winter for the chance of spring, so now what will emerge from the ground? As we ponder this future we are heading into, I would suggest we start by looking back. Spend some genuine time remembering. Here are some questions that might help you examine our time of pandemic: What have I learned or what new skill do I have? What am I most proud of? Where have I experienced God? What have I most grieved? What has challenged me? What is no longer as important as it once was? Let’s embark on a time of reflection to guide our future plans and ambitions. Through our story of the pandemic, let us take an inventory of where we are and what we need in our faith. God has a knack for bringing incredible new life from death. I’m praying proves this time the same.
WEDNESDAY NIGHTS: THE STORY OF THE CHURCH On Sunday mornings after Easter, we will continue our journey with the author of Luke as we explore the story of the church found in Acts. In conjunction with this, on Wednesday nights at 6 p.m. we will offer a Bible study to further examine and offer different perspectives of the texts from worship. This will be the same format as last spring's Ephesians Bible Study. Four people will gather on Zoom to discuss the passage and you are invited to participate through Facebook Live. Those on Facebook will be able to offer insights and questions that will be included in the discussion. Let's dive deeper into the story of the early church and see how it relates to the story of our own church. This series will begin on Wednesday, April 14.
FAITH BAPTIST BOOK CLUB We wrapped up the month of March with a fun discussion of The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany by Lori Nelson Spielman. In a year when none of us have been able to travel, this story took us to the beautiful countryside of Tuscany and stunning Amalfi Coast. Join us next month as we dive into a story about what makes a meaningful life. Make sure to check Facebook or Instagram to vote on which book you would like to read. Our April book discussion will take place on Thursday, April 29, at 7 p.m. The Zoom link will be in the Faith File.
40 DAYS OF PRAYER To encourage a spirit of prayer and build relationships in the community, the Scott County Pastors and Priests group has created a forty day prayer initiative that will start right after Easter. From April 5 to May 13 there will be weekly community devotionals, churches will pray for each other, and community members will be paired with a prayer partner. If you would like a prayer partner during this forty day period, all you have to do is sign up. Participants commit to talk with their partner weekly and pray for them throughout the week. This is a great way to build community and reinvigorate our prayer lives. To get a prayer partner, sign up here.
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MISSIONS COMMITTEE UPDATE The Missions Committee has been meeting monthly this year and has been very active. We have seven major areas of focus: our partnerships with Southern Elementary, the Gathering Place and Amen House, Transform Scott County, CBF, Scarlette Jasper, educational outreach, and local community needs.
Most recently, our attention has been largely directed toward Southern Elementary, where Cynthia Insko is our liaison. She has prepared and presented a gift basket for the Family Resources Coordinator, Torie Hundley, and several church members have written notes of appreciation and encouragement to the teachers at Southern. Another team of Faith members has been preparing video recordings of selected books on the themes of diversity and inclusion for sharing with the students. In addition, Faith has been able to help several Southern Elementary families with much needed household goods and furnishings. This spring, the Missions Committee is also sponsoring our annual Easter Missions Offering. Read more about this on the front page. The Missions Committee deeply appreciates your support of Faith Baptist Church’s missions outreach, and looks forward to many more opportunities where together we can serve our church, our community, our region and our world, always in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Torie Hundley, Family Resource Coordinator at Southern, used our gym to sort donations from Toyota for the backpack program. Remember we have two drop-off sites at members’ houses (409 East Main Street and 168 Carriage Lane) to collect donations for the backpack program at Scott County Middle School.
OWSLEY COUNTY FLOOD RELIEF
RACIAL JUSTICE CONVERSATION
Eastern Kentucky was hit hard during the historic flooding last month and they are just starting the recovery process. Together For Hope Appalachia and CBF Kentucky are inviting people to help restore houses that have been flooded in Owsley County. They are currently working with 31 homes, so there is a lot that needs to be done.
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Kentucky is hosting the second conversation in their Following Christ Together Toward Racial Justice series on Saturday. April 24, at 10:30 a.m. The speaker will be Rev. Dr. Kenneth Jobst, Executive Assistant Pastor at St. Stephen Church in Louisville and Executive Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness at Simmons College. Dr. Jobst will share what he has learned about the black experience in the United States as a white associate pastor of a black congregation. The Zoom link will be in the Faith File and bulletin as the event gets closer. Join with others from CBFKY churches to continue learning and working together toward racial justice.
Randy Napier and William Reilly will be going to Owsley County to help with these recovery efforts on Monday, April 26, and would love for others to join them. Work may include clean up, drywall removal/installation, flooring removal/installation, and many other manual labor jobs. Experience in construction is not required, but you will need to be able to do physical activities. Contact William at william@familyoffaith.net or call the office if you would like to go with Randy and William to help our neighbors in Owsley County. If you would like to help but cannot go on April 26, let William know and he can connect you with other opportunities to serve.
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APRIL With COVID guidance changing regularly, our plans also change. The best way to get the most current information is by joining our email list. Sign up for the Faith File on our website.
SUN 4
MON
Easter 5
TUES
THURS 1
FRI
SAT
2 Good Friday 3
1 PM-7 PM — 10 AM-4 PM — Holy Week Holy Week Prayer Stations Prayer Stations 12 PM — Community Good Friday Service
WED
Linda Richardson
6
7
8
9
10
7 AM — Sunrise Service 11 AM — Worship Service 12 PM — Godly Play Natasha Miller Ryan Oster
Darlene Drake
Erica Malicote
Ava Langlands
Ron Dodd
Kathy Fraley
11
12
13
14 6 PM — The Story of the Church
15
16
17
Lauren Oster Steve Phipps
Logan Lookadoo
Cynthia Inkso Pam Sargent
21
22
23
24
6 PM — The Story of the Church
7 PM — Bylaws Change Discussion
11 AM — Worship Service 12 PM — Godly Play 6 PM — Youth Missions Sarah Glenn Insko 18 11 AM — Worship Service 12 PM — Godly Play 6 PM — Youth
19
Connie Wiggs
Shannon Gullett
Courtney Baird Eleri Hadaway
25
26
27
11 AM — Worship Service 12 PM — Godly Play 6 PM — Youth
Owsley County Flood Relief
Kathleen Mook
Diane Bugg
20
Isaac Dean
Joyce Baird Daniel Gaeddert Bailey McFarland
28
29
6 PM — The Story of the Church
7 PM — Book Club
Brad Hadaway Regan Lookadoo
30
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CARE BEAR VOLUNTEER AWARD There are a lot of people in our church who help make the tough times bearable. This month's Care Bear Volunteer of the Month of the Year Mike Collins is definitely one of them! There's nothing grizzly about him! He shows so much compassion and leadership as our current deacon chair and is always working around the church as a member of the Trustee Committee. He's also been instrumental in helping us navigate COVID! Thank you for being part of our sleuth, Mike, and congratulations on this well-deserved recognition!
FAITH BAPTIST CHURCH STAFF SENIOR PASTOR William Reilly william@familyoffaith.net ASSOCIATE PASTOR OF STUDENTS Sharon Felton sharon@familyoffaith.net ASSOCIATE PASTOR OF CHILDREN & EDUCATION Amanda Langlands amanda@familyoffaith.net CHOIR DIRECTOR Natalie Tilford-Kopp natalie@familyoffaith.net OFFICE MANAGER Angela Earwood angela@familyoffaith.net
BYLAWS CHANGE Q&A A few months ago the Deacons requested a special committee be formed to consider the process of joining the church as outlined in the bylaws. The committee concluded their work in February and returned a recommendation that has been summarized below. In the spirit of creating a more welcoming experience for new members and to more accurately reflect other current practices, the Special Committee recommends that those requesting membership during a public worship setting be considered by the church upon request and the consideration not be delayed until the next business meeting. Their recommendation includes a change to the bylaws that was presented at the quarterly business meeting in February. This recommendation will be voted on at the next quarterly meeting in May. Pastor William and Garvel Kindrick will be hosting an open Zoom discussion at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, about the proposed changes to the bylaws. Contact the church office to get a copy of the recommendation.
CUSTODIAN Linda Johnston ORGANIST Charlotte McFarland NURSERY WORKERS Suada Derakovic Melisa Custard Church Office M-F, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. (502) 863-1537 *The church building is currently closed. Staff can be reached by phone or email throughout the week.
116 Pocahontas Trail Georgetown, KY 40324 502.863.1537 www.familyoffaith.net
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