recordings, announcements, Jan. 16, 2021

Announcements:

• Our Baptist Convention is having its (delayed) annual business meeting for 2020 fully online this coming Thursday. I plan to attend, and if anyone else wishes to serve as a delegate from our church, then we should appoint them tomorrow. There is no major business to discuss, mostly housekeeping, except one extra item which is for my parents’ new little church in Yarmouth to join the Convention. The information about the meeting is at https://baptist-atlantic.ca/event/annual-meeting-of-members-for-2020-online/.
• More births in the communities around us: Lucas and Annie Lange had a little girl and Drew and Ilona Hutchinson had a little boy, both on the same day.
• Here’s a little contest: In January I try to make little improvements I’ve delayed doing the rest of the hear. This week I fixed something in the church building that I’ve been thinking about fixing for years. In fact, it took me 9 minutes to fix it, and 9 years to think about it. I will give a prize to the first person to notice what it is that I fixed.

Recordings: Tomorrow’s sermon is about more of the lies we tell ourselves as we try not to repent. You can come hear it in person, or you can watch the video here, or listen on Dropbox here or on Soundcloud here. You can read the sermon notes here. Older sermons are on Crosspreach here.

The activity sheets for last week’s and this week’s sermons are here.

Announcements, Recordings, etc., Jan. 9, 2021

Announcements: A big congratulations to Crystal Leary on the birth of her grandson Our sympathy and prayers go to Gerald and Helene and their daughter Dawn-Marie and family, as they grieve the sudden death of Dawn-Marie’s husband John. Offering envelopes for 2021 are available in the church foyer. If you are not able to come pick yours up yourself, then please just let me know and I would be happy to drop them off. As many new people are moving into our communities, please be on-purpose to knock on some doors (even if you are months or years late) and introduce yourself. There are invitation cards you can use to make sure they know they are welcome at church. I said in last week’s sermon that things are happening just like Jesus said they would in the last days: because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12 NKJV). Events from the US Capitol this week further confirm that. How much more we need to “stand firm to the end and be saved” (verse 13). Recordings: Tomorrow’s sermon is called “Some Lies About Repentance” from Luke 18:9-14. We tell ourselves these lies to guard ourselves against the call to repent. If you are not able to come hear it in person tomorrow, then you can watch the video here, or listen on Dropbox here, or on Soundcloud here. You can read the notes here. Older sermons are on Crosspreach here. On the web: I was shocked this week to hear about how much child labour and slavery are involved in the global cocoa industry. It came to the surface recently at a US Supreme Court hearing. You can listen to an outline of that hearing here. It made me change the cocoa powder I use. Activity pages to go with last week’s sermon are here.

Announcements, recordings, Jan. 2, 2021

Announcements: A big congratulations to Mitchell and Michele Beck on the healthy birth of their grandson. We will have communion at the end of church tomorrow. Pick up your single-serving cup on your way in. Recordings:    Tomorrow’s sermon is called “A Call and a Key to Endure” from Jeremiah 45. If you can’t come hear me preach it in person, then… The video is here. You can listen to the audio on Dropbox here or Soundcloud here. You can read the notes here. If you weren’t able to come to our Christmas Eve service, or other worship services we’ve had recently, then you can hear the recordings here. I’ve also gotten the rest of last year’s sermons uploaded to CrossPreach, You can go back and hear all the sermons from Feb 2019 until now. Click here. And you can read notes from sermons going back to 2017 here. New discs will be in the flyers boxes this coming Friday morning. Stay tuned for web resources, and word puzzles in coming weeks…

Recordings, announcements, etc, Dec. 26, 2020

Announcements:

• Merry Christmas everyone.
• I am sad to announce that Vivian Eisener died early Thursday morning. May God comfort her family, and may we all give thanks to God for His many blessings to her and through her. There will be an immediate-family-only funeral at the church in Barss Corner on Tuesday morning.
• Ella Henshaw sends the church her Christmas greetings.
• We never take the time to thank all the people who do all the little things behind the scenes. In particular this year I have been thinking a lot about how grateful I am for the people who make sure that the advent candles are extinguished after the service.

Recordings:
    Tomorrow’s sermon is about Deuteronomy 6:1-12. You can watch the video here, or listen on Dropbox here, and read the notes here. I took audio recordings of last week’s church service and of Christmas Eve, and I will have them processed and uploaded for next week.

On the web:
    A friend of mine has been working with his church to bring a man to Canada as a refugee, who had to flee his country for converting to faith in Christ. You can see an interview with the man here. We will watch at least some of it in church tomorrow.

Activity sheets for all ages (crosswords etc.) based on this week’s scripture are here.

Announcements, recordings, etc.

Announcements:

• Our Christmas Eve service in Barss Corner will be at 7 PM. I was in an online prayer group this week where Dr. Strang joined us. He pointed out that the government has been on purpose to allow churches to gather for Christmas, in the midst of shutting other things down.
• Our Christmas Envelope special offering will go again this year toward the nutrition program at New Germany Elementary School
• There will be a joint finance committee meeting Tuesday at 7 PM at Ralph’s office.
• Starting last Sunday, we are back to meeting for worship on Sundays at 11 AM.
• The Groves sent an email earlier this week saying that one of their local workers in Cameroon had been detained by the military (or by someone — it was unclear, and hostilities in that part of Cameroon are complicated) and asking for prayer. Then they sent another email the next day praising God that he was released, and his projector was returned to him, so that he could travel as planned to show the Jesus Film to another village. Praise God for his protection.

Advent lighting: You can hear sisters Lola Zinck and Phyllis Wentzell do this week’s advent reading and prayer. The video is here, the audio is here. Thank you very much to Crystal Leary for recording this. As many years as Lola and Phyllis have lived apart since their childhood (Phyllis turned 100 last summer), the sisters were reunited this year when Phyllis moved into Rosedale. I really enjoy picturing them listening to our church recording together each week.

Recordings:

• Tomorrow’s sermon is on Micah 5:2. You can hear it by coming to church, or by watching the video here, or by listening on Dropbox here, or on Soundcloud here. the sermon notes are here.
• You can hear me preach last week’s sermon on Parkdale here, and you can hear the first part of the worship service here.

On the web:

• Tomorrow I will mention what it is like with COVID 19 in Bethlehem this year. You can read about it here.

Word puzzles:

• activity sheets to go with tomorrow’s sermon are here. For young and old alike.

Announcements, recordings for Dec. 13, 2020

• Like I announced a few days ago, we are resuming in-person church services tomorrow (Dec. 13).
• Our special Christmas offering envelopes this year will go toward the nutrition program at New Germany Elementary School.
• Our Mexican brother Felix is on his way home to Mexico from PEI right now. Please pray for his safety (from the virus etc.) as he travels. He had a great season working with potatoes, as much as he missed being with us and we missed him. We are very grateful to God for how it worked out.
• As people upgrade their internet, some of you will be changing your email addresses. Please let me know any changes.

Recordings:

• You can hear David and Andrea light the third advent candle here. (We will play the recording in church tomorrow.)
• Tomorrow’s sermon is about water from Bethlehem, and what happened when King David longed for it, from 2 Samuel 23:8-19. You can watch the video here, or listen on Dropbox here or on Soundcloud here. The sermon notes are here.

Crosswords:

• Each week Connie makes crosswords and word-searches for the children, from my sermon notes. We realized recently that grown-ups like them sometimes too. This week’s are here.

On the web:

• Someone sent me a beautiful, impactful story to read, “The people keep a comin’ and the train’s done gone.” It is here.

Worship services to resume, beginning Dec. 13

As COVID cases have decreased in our province, we will resume church services, beginning this Sunday, Dec. 13.

Recordings for Dec. 6, 2020

We are not meeting in-person for church tomorrow (Dec. 6) as we try to be safe. COVID case numbers in NS are going in the right direction, though. Please stay tuned for whether we will meet next week. (And please keep praying for our public health workers, etc.)

The following are your recordings for tomorrow:

• Some Mexican friends came by to say hello while I was preparing this, so I recorded them saying Feliz Navidad to us. You can watch the video of them here, or hear them here.
• The Greek family recorded this 2nd Sunday of Advent’s candle lighting. You can watch them on video here, or hear them here.
• For music, I went back into the records and found a Christmas piece by the Parkdale choir from 2 years ago, you can hear it here. And you can hear a Christmas piece by the Barss Corner choir here from 3 years ago.
• The sermon for this week is the 2nd in a series on the background of Bethlehem. This week is “The Rebellion that Began at Bethlehem” from 1 Samuel 16. You can watch the video here, or listen to the audio on Dropbox here or on Soundcloud here. Sermon notes are here.

On the web:

• every Christmas for the past few years, I enjoy listening to Colin Smith’s sermons preached from the perspective of different characters in the Christmas story. You can listen to them for free online at https://unlockingthebible.org/series/christmas-stories/

Recordings for Nov. 29

There is no church tomorrow (Nov. 29) or next week. We are pleased to see the COVID numbers gradually decrease, though, and we are hoping and praying that they will be down far enough to gather again in mid-December. Please be safe. And please keep praying for our government and public health officials, to be able to do their jobs wisely and effectively.

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent. You can hear Yvonne do this week’s advent reading and candle-lighting here.

Sermons during Advent will be about Bethlehem: background Jesus would have thought about whenever he traveled near the place of his birth.The name “Bethlehem” means “House of Bread,” and this week’s sermon is about the time When Bethlehem Ran out of Bread, in Ruth 1. How do we respond when promising situations disappoint us?

• watch the sermon as a video here
• or listen to it on Dropbox here, or on Soundcloud here.
• and read the sermon notes here.

You can hear me sing a good Advent hymn, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, here.

Announcements:

• I’m in the process of lining people up to do the advent readings. If you are keen to do one, then let me know. I can get you the reading and I can record you over the phone.

On the web: I’ve been enjoying a new podcast of old radio sermons here.

church services cancelled until mid-December

Due to the high COVID 19 numbers and community spread happening in Halifax, the deacons and I have decided to cancel in-person church services. We will re-evaluate in the middle of December. Our prayer is that our public health officials and our population will be successful at getting the virus back under control in Nova Scotia, and that God will give us a safe and joyful Christmas.

Online sermons and worship will be available, like in the spring, as well as CD’s. Stay tuned, and stay safe…

Yours in Christ,

Sam
Barss Corner Baptist Church and Emmanuel Baptist Church of Parkdale-Maplewood