Greetings in Christ! Happy Friday to you!
I hope and pray you've had a good week.
I received a phone call this morning from my good friend David Welsh.
Many of you remember that David preached for our Homecoming and 85th Anniversary service back on September 29th.
David told me that his father - Gene Welsh - passed away earlier this morning (Friday, November 8th) in Lawrenceburg, KY.
Gene was very involved in several of the churches and ministries I would be involved in.
He served as Senior Minister at First Christian Church from 1968-1975 and was a graduate of the Lexington Christian Bible College that met at FCC in the 1950s.
While at First Christian, he also served as the very first Board chairman of Teen Mission, USA from 1970-72.
Gene was a great friend to me and always very supportive.
I am so glad that Bill Eckdahl took me up to see Gene recently on Thursday, September 26th.
I had the chance to tell Gene I was the preaching minister at FCC. He knew who I was and he really enjoyed hearing that.
Gene loved First Christian Church and dearly loved his time in ministry here.
Gene Welsh will be greatly missed. However, he is now getting to hear the Lord tell him, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!" I can only imagine the eternal joy he's sharing!
I was thinking this week about our own personal spiritual disciplines and how they are so critical to our individual journeys of faith.
In addition to reading and studying God's word, one of the things we all need to have built into our lives is daily quiet time with God.
For me, it has always been more difficult to make room for daily quiet time than for Bible study.
I'm not good at slowing down and being still without falling asleep or getting distracted!
It takes a lot of effort for me, but it is very much worth it.
I can see there were times in my life when things fell apart due to my daily quiet time being almost non-existent.
The storms of life came and I didn't have deep enough roots to withstand the high winds. When we spend that time alone with God and develop a deep inner, spiritual life, we can better withstand the things the world throws at us. I pray that we would all make this a priority.
I also pray that you have a great weekend. Don't forget about our 2nd Annual MISSIONS DAY @ FCC this Sunday, November 10th.
Michael Hawkins will be our speaker during the 10:30 am worship service that day. Michael serves as the Director of Development for the International Conference On Missions (ICOM). ICOM will be in Lexington, November 14-16.
We will have displays with information from all the missions that we at FCC support in the Fellowship Hall.
Right now, we have SEVEN different missions/organizations who will be with us in person on Sunday.
They include the following: Assurance for Life (Heather Mitchell), ICOM (Michael Hawkins), Kentucky Christian University (Doug Martin), Mission Journeys (Wayne King), Sayre Christian Village (Chris Sparks), Scatter Joy Ministries (Wally & Barbara Rendel), and Delight Ministries.
We'll have a combined Sunday School at 9:30 am on Sunday so we can have as our missionaries each share about their work.
We will be encouraging folks to VISIT the displays from our mission partners in the Fellowship Hall throughout the morning, but especially FOLLOWING the morning worship service.
Hope to see you at FCC on Sunday!
Until then...
God bless,
Greg H.
