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Issue Number Forty

Don's Schedule
Please pray for these
ministry opportunities
in November, December and January

  • First Baptist Church of Fairborn
    Fairborn, OH

  • Covenant Life Church
    Gaithersburg, MD

  • Cornerstone Bible Church
    Lubbock, TX

Twitter Updates

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Things Well Said

Listen to a brief conversation by Russell Moore with a couple on ways to start an adoption fund for orphan care in your church here.

Recommended in Audio

Dr. Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, recently interviewed Don on “Christian Discipleship and Growth.” This 9Marks Audio recording is sixty-six minutes long and available for listening or downloading here.

Featured Bulletin Inserts

Take Up Your Cross Daily and Follow Jesus - .doc .pdf A4

Recognize the Spirituality of Work- .doc .pdf A4

Do What You Can - .doc .pdf

Fellowship Face to Face, Part 1 - .doc .pdf A4

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New bulletin insert

Ask often,
"What does the Bible say?"

Some of the most important changes in my life occurred when I thought to ask, "What does the Bible say about this?" The way I spend the Lord's Day, for example, and my thinking about what activities please God in worship were dramatically changed when I purposed to study what God's Word said about those matters.

Far more often than we do, Christians should ask such questions. In our relationships, finances, use of time, priorities, parenting, simplifying, and everything else, we should more quickly ask, "What does the Bible say about this?"

The wisdom of frequently asking this question is obvious if we believe truths like these:

Click here to finish reading this article, or to download it as a free MS Word-formatted bulletin insert.



Faithful service to God
—neither small nor in vain.

When I think of a faithful willingness to serve, I remember a quiet little man from a church where I was a staff member. On Sunday his arrival was always unnoticed, he would come long before anyone else. Yet he burrowed his old car into an obscure corner of the parking lot to leave the best places for others. He unlocked all the doors, got the bulletins, and then waited outside. When you walked up he'd give you a bulletin and a big smile. But he couldn't talk. He was embarrassed when newcomers asked him questions. Something had happened to his voice long-ago. When I met him he was into his 60s and living alone. When he had car trouble, which was often, he never let anyone know and so would walk more than a mile to the church. Because of his vulnerability he was robbed and beaten several times, at least twice during the three years I was in that church. Some long-time church members told me they suspected he lost his voice as the result of being beaten years before. He had extensive arthritis, which stooped the shoulders and prevented them from turning his neck. It made hard work of unlocking doors and handing out bulletins. But he was always there, always smiling, even though he couldn't speak a word. Everything about his life worked to keep him unheralded and in the background, even his name—Jimmy Small. Yet despite his drawbacks, setbacks, handicaps, and a plethora of potential excuses, he willingly served God. And he served in a disciplined way, which in the sight of God, was neither small nor in vain.

[Taken from page 128 of Don's bestselling book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Find out more about this book here.]

Family News & Notes

Don has been working hard to finish a years-long writing project. Please pray for him to complete this very soon.

Caffy has just two more class sessions this semester with her seminary wives group. She serves under Mary Mohler as Discipleship Director of the Southern Seminary Wives' Institute. She recently finished work on a room at the newly-renovated Old Kentucky Governor's Mansion. A group of designers was asked to contribute their talents to renovate this two-hundred-year old home, which now serves as the Lt. Governor's residence, and one of them turned to Caffy for art work. A photo of some of her work appears in the current issue of Kentucky Homes and Gardens magazine. Her latest project is a 4 x 36 foot mural (on panels) that will appear on the barn of the Bullitt County Cooperative Extension Service. The photo above is of one of the 4 x 12, low-detail panels.

Laurelen has been doubling up in school with both high school and college work. In addition to singing with Caffy in the music ministry at church, she's a busy girl. Here's a photo of Laurelen that I'm SURE she's VERY proud of—a picture of her and the "Snappy Tomato" himself at the grand opening of a pizza place nearby.

Farm & Garden Report

Don donned a John Deere t-shirt, John Deere overalls (modified with an Arkansas Razorback patch), and borrowed a John Deere tractor to do a little bushhog work earlier this week. We've had an unseasonably warm week in the upper-60s and 70s that's permitted a little catch-up time with the seasonal outside chores. Would you believe we're still picking a few raspberries and even a couple of blackberries? And while putting the strawberry patch to bed for the winter, we spied a handful of still-ripening strawberries. It's near mid-November!

Speaking of raspberries, they were probably the most successful thing we've ever grown, and about the simplest. Man, were they good! We commend them to you; try growing them yourself. On the downside, our blueberries did very poorly. It's possible that the over-abundant rainfall which helped the raspberries kept the blueberries too damp, and they don't like to have wet feet.

We're still clearing debris from the January ice storm. And there's lots of concern with what the color and fuzziness of the wooly-worms portends about this coming winter. Hmmm. At any rate, we hope to be a little better prepared this winter if there's another power outage. God willing, we won't see another eight days without power again.

Caffy was disappointed with her bees. Apparently there were "robber bees" again this year. (Something we'd never heard of until she started keeping bees.) The result was she didn't get to harvest any honey this summer, which is the main time for gathering honey. So unless she gets a good "fall flow" from them—which can permit a small second harvest—she will have to leave all the honey for them to feed on during the winter. We'll let you know in the next newsletter.

Prayer

Pray for perseverance for all as we head into the final weeks of the semester.

Please ask the Lord to give us wisdom as we must replace a car soon.

Pray for the Lord's blessing on our family's growth together in grace. Ask His blessing upon our reading of Scripture, praying, and singing each day in family worship.

Finally, continue to pray for the major writing project about which I have often requested prayer, but hope to complete in the next few weeks.

"The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you" (2 Timothy 4:22).


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