April 7, 2015

Hurstbourne HighlightsHurstbourne Baptist ChurchEdition

8800 Shelbyville Road Louisville, KY 40222

(502) 426-2444 www.hurstbournebc.org

Hurstbourne Baptist ChurchHurstbourne Baptist ChurchHurstbourne Baptist Church Making Disciples through Worship, Relationships and Service

4/06 - Gary Heilmann, Kim Spaulding, Candy Ailstock 4/07 - Beverly Hicklin 4/10 - Jennifer Bippus, Marilyn Boyd, Marsha Sanders, David McDonald, Tyler Seaver, Mary Williamson 4/11 - Joyce Allison, Ron Richardson 4/12 - Laurie Cerqua, Jake Ringstaff, Michael Edgar, Jack Dreisbach 4/13 - Claire Barham 4/14 - Becca Heller 4/15 - Bob Campbell, Mike Stiles, Jeff Owens 4/16 - Judy Stallings 4/17 - Don Ladenburger, Johnny Ringstaff, Nicholas Heilmann 4/18 - Flo Bushman, Sheila Heller 4/20 - John Nelson, Kobi Hart

HBC Offering Goal: $13,800 Given to date: $11,885 Thank you for giving to

North American Missions during the month of March!

Special Called Business Meeting There will be a special called business meeting on April 19th at 6:00pm, to consider recommendations regarding a new

Nominating Committee member and a ministry position change for Vince Scarbrough.

Prayer Room Prayer room sign-ups are available

for April, May and June. Sign-up at the Welcome Center

or call the church office!

Fountains of

Friendship

Thursday, April 23rd

7:00-9:00 pm Tickets are $5 at the Welcome Center

Women’s Ministry

HBC

Elizabeth Hoagland, Speaker Savor Your Season Daily

Spring Break Schedule Due to Spring Break, there will

be no evening activities on Wednesday evening (4/8)

except for Bible & Prayer and choir practice.

CHURCHWIDE MISSION ACTION

This month our church is collecting individually wrapped snacks for the Redeemed Christian Church in West

Louisville for their summer kids program. The church prepares

lunches for approximately 40 kids weekly. Please place your donated

snacks on table outside church library.

Suggested snacks: cookies, cheese and peanut butter crackers, fruit

roll-ups, chips, and drink boxes.

RA Silent Auction for Easter Offering

The RA’s have worked to-gether to create an acrylic painting on canvas. The painting will be on display Mar. 29th—Apr. 19th. Bid high!

Kids Summer Camp is July 9-11 at Country Lake in Henryville, IN. The camp is open to children entering 1st grade though entering 6th grade. The cost is $100 per child with a family maximum of $175. There will be a parent meeting on Sunday, April 12th at 5:30 pm in Room 101. See Vince to sign-up or for more information.

Attendance Report

March 22nd, 2015

Sunday Morning Worship Service 403

Sunday School Attendance 306

Sunday School Enrollment 535

March 29th, 2015

Sunday Morning Worship Service 373

Sunday School Attendance 309

Sunday School Enrollment 539

Financial Report 3/22/15 3/29/15

Budget $15,515.05 $14,136.04

HBC Only $261.34

Annie Armstrong $1,197.00 $1,820.00

Long Run Association $5.84

KBC Only $24.82

Sound System $280.00

Total Receipts $16,712.05 $16,528.04

Weekly Budget $21,212 $21,212

Year to Date Budget Needed $615,135 $636,346

Year to Date Budget Received $727,428 $742.825

Difference Receipts-Budget to Date $112,293 $106,479

HBC Staff

Cameron Debity Pastor - x.308

Chris Kihn Worship & Music - x.316

Vince Scarbrough Children - x.315

Jeff Smith Education /Administration- x.313

Carmen Gibson Comm. Coor. x302

Carolyn Holm Admin. Svcs. Mgr. - x.305

Amos Valentine Maint. Supervisor

Matt Williams Media Director - x.322

Chase Grubb Interim Students x308

Prasad Aghamkar South East Asian Mission Catalyst

Sandra McCormack Worship & Music Asst

Phone: 426-2444 Voicemail: 426-2451

In my personal Bible reading lately, I’ve been going though books like Isaiah and Jeremiah, in which God repeatedly con-fronts the Israelites about their idol worship. Their idol worship grieved and angered God, yet they returned to it again and again. The people obviously had an extremely hard time seeing outside the polytheistic views of their culture. Idol worship

was their big blind spot. The good news is that the Israelites did eventually forsake those other gods and admitted that there was only one God. The bad news is that it took more than a thousand years, a shattering defeat, exile, and a hum-bling return to a broken land. And it makes me wonder about big blind spots we have in our culture, blind spots that even Christ-followers have a hard time seeing. I think that consumerism is one of those blind spots. We’re so embed-ded into a consumer mindset that until someone points it out, it’s really even hard for us to name it. What’s a consumer mindset? It’s the reasoning that “more is better,” bigger is better,” “faster is better,” and that our qual-ity of life is tied to these definitions of “better.” This kind of evaluatory thinking is just assumed, unchallenged, in our culture. Voices that contradict this reasoning sound odd. For instance, if some-one comes along and says we need to reduce, slow down, do less…well, that sounds strange to most of us. Sure, we all know we occasionally need to purge some stuff or take a vacation. But it’s difficult for us to process the idea of slowing down as a way of life. Don’t we need to always be thinking more, bigger, faster? Don’t we always need to be wanting something? Unfortunately, it’s been too easy for the cultural attitude of consumer-ism to pervade the church too. More is better. Bigger is better. More activi-ties, more programs, bigger programs, bigger buildings, bigger budgets. All this must be better, we reason, because it’s reaching more people for Je-sus. But what if it’s not? What if we’re doing all we can to be more and big-ger and faster, and yet we don’t see more people being reached for Jesus? What if we’re doing the best we can to be open and welcoming and in-viting and yet we still see shrinking numbers of people coming to Jesus? Of course, we can’t stop trying to be open and welcoming and inviting. We know that. But we have to stop and ask ourselves if our ideas of “more, bigger, faster” is always better, especially if we see increasing distance be-tween our church and the lost people around us. Less could be better, if that frees us to be on mission with our lives. Smaller could be better, if that helps us establish closer relationships with people separated from Christ. And slower could be better, if that helps us equip people to become fruitful followers of Christ. May God help us see our own consumeristic tendencies in our lives and in our church. And if God calls us to be “less, smaller, slower” for the sake of his kingdom, then let’s be brave enough to follow his lead.

It can be quite painful when God reveals our heart to us. We cruise through life feeling pretty good about ourselves and our motivations for why we do what we do. Then, all of a sudden, God reveals our true motives and our true in-tentions. Recently, God used an egg hunt to reveal some things in my heart. As most of you know, we have chosen to support

the city of Lyndon in their egg hunt on Saturday, March 29th. Initially, we had unknowingly scheduled a hunt for the same day as theirs. When we learned our hunt would be less than one mile from the one put on by Lyndon, we adjusted our plans in order to reach out to our neighbors and offer our support for their hunt. My heart wasn’t bound up in the “Awwww, we don’t get to do ‘our’ egg hunt.” I am really looking for-ward to meeting our neighbors in Lyndon and serving beside them. My heart was bound up in the fact that we will not be able to give out these cute little booklets that tell kids about the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Really? Concerned about a little booklet? Here is where my heart condition revealed itself – I have allowed the giving of a little booklet to take the place of my personal responsibility of sharing the truth of the resurrection. In the deep recesses of my heart, I had resolved to allow that little booklet to take on the role and responsibility that has been given to me by my Savior. While it is per-fectly acceptable to use resources to share the gospel, it is not OK to use those resources to remove my biblical responsibility. You see, thanks to that booklet, the urgency to share my faith was removed. I didn’t have to look for opportunities to share my faith or point others to Christ. I could simply allow that little booklet to take care of that. I could just sit back and hope that the family who received the booklet would sit down and flip through the booklet together and learn all about Jesus. My heart was exposed! I am afraid that much of what we do for Jesus is couched in imper-sonal, responsibility-removing actions and activities. As we move for-ward with opportunities to serve our community, let me encourage you in three small ways. First, allow people to be the first priority. I am task oriented, and as such I tend to put tasks ahead of people. Pray that God will prepare your heart to put the person in front of you ahead of the task at hand. Second, you don’t have to meet and engage every single person. Pray that God will lead you to the one, or two, or six people that you can truly connect with. People that you can link up with them through occupation, activities, or lifestyle, and make an intentional effort to connect beyond the event/activity. Third, be honest about why you are doing what you are doing. Gladly proclaim, “We are doing this because we love our community and we want to lovingly proclaim Jesus through our words and actions.”

Vince Scarbrough

Jeff Smith

Visit our staff blog at www.hurstbournebc.org/blog for more posts!

Heart Check from Egg Hunt Seeing Our Consumerism

David Platt: How much is enough

en Hatmaker: Consumerism will kill your missional commu-nity

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