1. Mature disciples understand their need for a Savior. This is the first and most important. We have all been physically born cutoff from God spiritually and there is “no way” to make a connection with Him except through Jesus Christ. John 14:6 – Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” NKJV
2. Mature disciples know the God of the Bible. We know and worship too many other gods. If there are things in our lives that take top priority over the God of Heaven, then we are not mature disciples. Maturity comes from knowing what takes priority. Immaturity places my wants first.

Here are 2 of 8 characteristics of a mature disciple of Jesus. Think about it, more to come soon.

 

What’s Happening Right Now

 

• This Monday our Men’s Golf Scramble makes a difference. Monday, August 31 there is a benefit 9 Hole Golf scramble being held for Landon Matheny at Wynridge Golf Course. Calvary will have 3-4-man teams involved and supporting this great cause. I think it is an amazing thing to see the men of our church enjoy recreation and fellowship together each Monday afternoon and now have an opportunity to turn that into something to minister to someone else. We need 1 more person to fill all three teams. Let me know if you would like to participate.
• Men’s Bible Study begins on Thursday, September 3. There are 2 times to choose from: 6am or 7pm. The bible study will last for 1 hour and this year’s study is “How To Be A Man-Learning from real men of the Bible”. A sign-up list is available at the Welcome Center.
• Ladies Event is being planned for Saturday, November 7. Be watching for more information coming soon!

Current Ministry Needs

 

• Cleaning Team > there is a need for 4 people to help sanitize the sanctuary on Sunday’s. Please help in this area. You give us your timeline. If you can help for a week, month, 3 months’; you let us know. Anytime at all will give someone else a break.
• Van Ministry > there is a need for van drivers to go and pick up families for church on Sundays. What a great ministry of going and bringing in people for church.
• Security Team > Our Calvary Security team is needing to add 2 more men or women who would be willing to serve once a month protecting our church and her members during Sunday services. If you would be interested, please contact the church office. There is a training requirement.

• Children’s ministries have kicked off at Calvary Baptist Church! Last night the Fellowship Hall was full of children and their parents signing up for GA’s, RA’s and Children’s music ministries.  There seemed to be a long anticipated excitement in the air as everyone normal again.
• Men’s 9 Hole Golf Scramble on Mondays at 5pm. Come join a time of fellowship and recreation on Monday afternoons at Wynridge Golf Course in Troy. We have a short devotional, draw teams, and then enjoy 9 holes of golf. The cost is $23 and it’s open to our Calvary men and their guest.
• Men’s Bible Study begins on Thursday, September 3. There are 2 times to choose from: 6am or 7pm. The bible study will last for 1 hour and this year’s study is “How To Be A Man-Learning from real men of the Bible”. A sign-up list is available at the Welcome Center.
• Ladies Event is being planned for Saturday, November 7. Be watching for more information coming soon!

Current Ministry Needs 

• Cleaning Team > there is a need for 4 people to help sanitize the sanctuary on Sunday’s. Please help in this area. You give us your timeline. If you can help for a week, month, 3 month’s; you let us know. Anytime at all will give someone else a break.
• Van Ministry > there is a need for van drivers to go and pick up families for church on Sundays. What a great ministry of going and bringing in people for church.

 

• Yesterday I would get up and go work out, I would go the grocery store and pick up whatever I needed, I would worship on Sunday with all my family and friends, I would plan events, I would have meetings during the day and at night, and life seemed to move at an incredible pace. But that seemed to change within a 24 hour period. The gym is closed, the grocery store is missing everyday essentials, worship is not in an empty sanctuary, events have been canceled, meetings are on social media, but life has NOT slowed! LOL! (Laugh Out Loud). Now time is consumed with thinking outside the box and trying to take crash courses in Live Streaming and Social Media practices. Through all that is taking place, the God I worshipped yesterday is the same God I am worshipping today. See, I am experiencing challenges and issues today just like I was yesterday.  They may look different, but He still handles them like He did yesterday. He simply asks me to “Trust Him”. That’s what I am going to do!

Live Streaming Schedule

•      Sunday’s @ 9:30am – Family Bible Study -Armor of God
•      Sunday’s @ 10am – Morning Worship
•      Sunday’s @ 6pm – Evening Worship
•      Wednesday’s @ 5:30pm – Youth WNL
•      Wednesday’s @ 6:30pm – Recharge
•      10:30am – Tuesdays and Thursdays – Bro. D’s Reach Outs
•       ***COMING SOON*** Children’s Ministry efforts are in the works!

 How To Watch

•      Our efforts are to stay in touch with our Calvary family and community. We are working everyday trying to provided resources and opportunities to connect with your church staff and church. We have currently established a FaceBook Live feed on our Calvary Baptist Church of Union City Facebook group. We have discovered that this group is our private group. We will be adding our Calvary Baptist Church Union City TN page to the live stream. Our plans are to also add a YouTube channel and live stream there by this Wednesday night. With that being said. You should have access to any of those feeds through apps on your smartphone. Many would like to watch these feeds on their tv’s with their families. Most smart tv’s have YouTube available. Once our feed makes it to YouTube that will be a great option. Other ways of seeing the feeds on tv is through mirroring your phone to your tv through special apps or devices. I plan to go over many of these options on a post to Facebook soon. I will try to copy that post here too! There is another simple way that is easily overlooked. Most laptops now include an HDMI out. That means you can connect your laptop up to your TV with an HDMI cable just like you would a DVD player and any content you access with your laptop would also be available on your TV.

This past weekend we had our first Guy’s Retreat!  This was a great opportunity to spend some time with teenage guys and to teach them things like grilling, hunting, automotive maintenance and how to safely use power tools.  The funny thing to me was that this came across as a great idea and needs to be done more!  Why does that strike me funny?  Because those should be staples of men’s lives taught by dad, granddad or other father figures during those young impressionable year’s of a boy’s life.  I know that there are going to be some exceptions, but that’s just it.  It should be exceptions, instead it seemed to be the norm in most of the young men that participated this past weekend.  They understood many of the concepts, they knew these things were done by somebody, but many of them didn’t have a clue about some of the common things we went over.  They didn’t understand cleaning out the charcoal grate, piling up the charcoal to light and get a burn started, that a car even had a spare tire someone, (and why it was so tiny!) or that hunting could be so much fun!  By the way, our young men need to work out more muscles than the ones in their thumbs, not one of them could break loose a lug nut on a wheel.  It is no wonder our society is in such a “dependency on others” mindset!  We are not passing on “Life Skills” to our children.  We have got do more in our “Family Time” then just play sports and have vacations.  Family time could also be cooking together, washing clothes together, changing the oil in the car together, building something together, gardening together, doing the dishes together. etc.  I just thought I would share a little bit of my experience this past weekend.  By the way, the fellas loved it!!!!  Enjoy the Fullness of Life with your family!

Easter is this weekend!  Are you looking forward to it?  Have you ever wondered when the cross shifted from a symbol of condemnation to a symbol of hope?  I know that the death of Jesus on the cross is the point that mankind’s penalty of sin was forgiven for all who believe.  But when did the cross become such a treasured remembrance among the world of believers?  I ran across a devotional that gave some direction to the beginning. It is believed that a mother started it all.  Helena the mother of emperor Constantine was given the challenge to discover religious relics that would ignite passion in the people as they spread the gospel. The time was the fourth century and it is believed that Helena was brought to the location of where the 3 crosses where buried.  The discovery happened after Helena has a pagan temple destroyed on the holy site and a Christian temple built.  During the excavation the 3 crosses were discovered.  Rumor has it that a terminally ill lady from the community came to the area and touched all 3 crosses.  The first 2 she touched did not cause any change, but the third one she touched miraculously healed her body of her sickness.  Seeing this, Helena had that cross broken into splinters and miniature crosses to be spread all over the country and to awareness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  As this effort ignited passion in Christians, the cross became a symbol of hope for the rest of eternity.  Just something to think about as Easter approaches! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_(empress)