Faith, Love, and Family

Last night was the first night of our first annual Faith,  Love and Family conference.  I thoroughly enjoyed it!  Pastor Patterson of Jacksonville Baptist Temple preached for us and he will be speaking tonight as well.  Bro. Patterson preached about how Adam chose Eve over the Lord when he decided to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, how that if your home doesn't have the Lord there cannot be harmony and peace in it, and how that God introduced grace in the garden (to be continued tonight!).  In attendance we had one of our faithful members, one adult visitor and several of our children.  After the meeting as Raymond was dropping off the children he said they had some interesting conversations.  One I am excited about sharing with you today.  We will call the young boy (age 10) Carl.

Carl:          He is a good preacher!
Raymond:  Yes he is.
Carl:          Where is he from?
Raymond:  Jacksonville.
Carl:          How does he know about this church?
Raymond:  He started this church.
Carl:          Oh, so he is like the boss of this church.
Raymond:  I guess you could say that.
Carl:          What happened to that other guy?
Raymond:  Who?
Carl:          The tall guy who used to preach here?
Raymond:  You mean Bro. Parker?  He went to start another church in Alabama.
Carl:  Oh, he left.
Raymond:  Yes.  He is starting another church just like this one.
Carl:  Are you gonna leave too?
Raymond:  No, I don't plan on it.

That just blessed my heart.  This little boy, by the way, started out as one of our "problem kids", but is becoming Raymond's little helper and every time the doors are open (and he is not grounded for fighting at school) he wants to be at church.

Raymond knows that there is a strong probability that the majority of our services will be attended by mostly children.  He is not disturbed by this.  He has asked our speakers not to be disturbed by this and not to hold back any punches.  These children are taking the messages they hear at church back to their homes.  We know this for a fact.  One parent told us that her daughter said that if she was going to have boyfriends and children then she needed to get married.  What a blessing!  If the parents won't come to church to hear the truth, then maybe God will use these children to take the truth to their parents.  They got an ear full last night and I am looking forward to the rest of the week!
Until next time,