We made it!

At Arbys

On Our Way

Well, we made it off on time. Everyone's excited about the conference
and finding out what our staff assignments are. We're about 45 minutes
away from Birmingham. Pray for us.

Sent from my iPhone

Test Post from My iPhone

Sunday Night

Here are a few memorable things about tonight's service:

1. It was neat to see so many children being recognized for the Scriptures they have memorized this year in AWANA. I hope that the verses they have memorized will stick with them as the verses I memorized as a child in AWANA have with me.

2. The children also presented a humorous take on the story of David and Goliath using music and drama. Seeing our student minister play Goliath (opposite a 7 year old as David) was itself worth showing up for.

--Mark

Dr. Land in Israel

Dr. Land mentioned this morning that he blogged about his trip to Israel last week. Here are the posts if you are interested:

Post 1

Post 2

--Mark

The Gospel and Prayer

Tonight in PowerSource we looked at Hebrews 4:14-16 and discussed how the gospel relates to prayer.

Here is a quote that I shared tonight at the end of the sermon:

"Effective prayer is saturated in the gospel.....You don't move on from the cross to go deeper in prayer. Ultimately, all effective prayer is rooted in the cross.

Think about it. The gospel is the starting point of prayer. Without Christ's blood, you couldn't even approach God. Only in Jesus' righteousness are we invited to enter His presence. There's no mantra we can learn, no catchphrase we can recite, that will move God's hand. We appeal to him based on the person and work of His son. Jerry Bridges writes, "When we pray to God for His blessing, He does not examine our performance to see if we are worthy. Rather, He looks to see if we are trusting in the merit of His Son as our only hope for securing His blessing."

Students of the school of prayer never graduate from the school of the gospel."

C.J. Mahaney from The Cross Centered Life

--Mark

Have you seen Expelled?

On Sunday Dr. Land encouraged the congregation to go see Expelled this weekend because of the case the movie makes against Darwinism and for Intelligent Design.

To view one of the trailers, click here.

The movie is playing at two local theaters this weekend.

The Rave theater in East Ridge at 12:15, 2:50, 5:20, 7:45, and 10:20

The Carmike theater at Northgate in Hixson at 1:00, 3:15, 5:30, 7:45 and 10:00

If you have linked to Brainerd's Blog via the most recent edition of The BBC Mail, feel free to comment on the movie below. To view past editions of The BBC Mail or to subscribe, click here.

--Mark

Romans 7 - 8

Tonight Dr. Land preached on the doctrine of salvation and then we took of the Lord's Supper.

During the sermon he encouraged us to read slowly through Romans 7 -8 at some point this week.

You can read both chapters online by clicking here.

You can read what the Baptist Faith and Message (2000) says about Salvation (Article IV) by clicking here.

Jerusalem Day

The following pictures were taken last Saturday during the Jerusalem day activities. Members of Brainerd spread out across our city to serve the community in a variety of areas.

A picture of our children's ministry planting flowers for residents of a local nursing home

A picture of our children's ministry delivering flowers at the nursing home

Our pre-school ministry putting together care packages for our Sunday Bible Study volunteers

Members of our youth ministry served by doing yardwork for elderly adults

The free car maintenance clinic that was held for single ladies

The rummage sale held in our school's gym

Church Graveyards

Russell Moore has written an interesting article entitled "Should we miss our church graveyards?"

If you have time, it is worth reading.



--Mark

The Weather Channel is Never Wrong

Shortly after getting married and moving to Chattanooga, my wife and I began looking for a church that we could join and get involved in. After seeing the broadcast of Brainerd Baptist's worship service a few times, we decided that we would visit on the following Sunday.

We looked up the time of the morning worship service on the web site so that we would be there in plenty of time.

Sunday morning came and we got up and started getting ready to leave as normal. As we were getting ready I turned the TV on to the Weather Channel to see what the weather was going to be like. Everything was as normal except I noticed that the clock in the bottom corner of the screen was an hour ahead of what our living room clock displayed. I thought to myself that the time difference seemed strange, but continued getting ready.

I went upstairs and mentioned to my wife that it was weird for the Weather Channel clock to be wrong. Moments later, we realized that it was not 9:45 but 10:45 and we had completely forgotten to change our clocks the previous night for Daylight Savings Time.

Needless to say, we did not make it to Brainerd Baptist that morning; although we did make it (somewhat late) to a church that was much closer to our apartment.

I share this story to say, Daylight Savings Time begins this weekend. Don't forget to set your clocks ahead an hour on Saturday night.

(We later visited Brainerd, got involved in a Bible Study class and joined the church a few months later)

--Mark