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CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH CALVARY CONNECTION

FROM PASTOR JEFF’S

Are you keeping your Lenten Vows? What are they? Merely a tool to help us focus more on Jesus during these 40 days as we prepare for Easter.

During this time each one of you are encouraged to:

1. Give something up, so you may think more about Jesus and less about yourself. Many people will give up food items or TV etc.

2. Take something on. This means to take on an act of service or kindness or maybe even generosity for others. Often, but not always, these are done in an anonymous manner. Why? Because we do them for Jesus.

You may want to take on an additional worship service, Bible Study group, SS class or small group. The key is to do something for Jesus that will cause you to love him more, serve him effectively and prepare you heart in anticipation of the holiest season of the year-Resurrection Sunday.

So what are you doing to prepare your heart for Easter? It’s not to late to take on a vow. It’s a promise you make to Jesus.

The Calvary Baptist Church is a part of the American Baptist Churches of the USA. The ABC is divided up into 35 different regional organizations. Kokomo is in the ABC of Indiana and Kentucky. And our region is divided up into 4 areas. To no one’s surprise, we are in the North West Area.

There are about 70 churches in our area and Calvary will host the annual meeting on Saturday, March 8 from 10-3pm. Approximately 100 people will be in attendance and our own Dick Norris is a part of the program and will share his experiences from our mission trip to Pass Christian, Mississippi. Georgia Simmons has graciously created a service team to help with the meals and coffee times. IMPORTANT NEW ALERT! We just found out that the Executive Minister of the ABC-IN/KY, Dr. Larry Mason will be in attendance along with three other of the executive staff ministers in our state. Shine your shoes. Comb your hair and for heaven’s sake, smile.

You may want to attend to find out a little more about what is happening in our area.

Join us each Sunday as we continue our sermon series: 40 Day’s of Faith-Facing Life’s Fear’s With Faith. This series presents the perfect opportunity to invite someone to Christ and our church. The remaining weeks themes will be:

9^th Testing Faith: Growing My Faith Through Life’s Challenges. There will be no Communion this day. We will have communion on Maundy Thursday.

Sunday, March 16^th is the beginning of Holy Week. Our children will process into the church with Palm branches announcing the arrival of the King of Kings. Join us on this special day as we conclude the 40 Days of Faith series with the sermon: Hopeful Faith-Growing My Faith By Not Giving Up.

Each family who attends will be given a palm branch to take home and place on your kitchen table. It is a visual reminder that this week is different than all other weeks. This is the beginning of the Holiest week of the year.

On Thursday, March 20^th, we will remember our Lord’s betrayal, death and His institution of the Lord’s Supper. It is important for us to remember because we are prone to forget his great sacrifice. As a result, we do not live for Him as we should. Maundy Thursday services are a “booster shot” for our faith.

No. We do not have the most eggs. But we do have a couple of the largest you’ll ever see. Not only that, we will have a lot of fun on Saturday, March 22^nd.

Our church will host over 200 people who will be in attendance as we share what the Bible says about Jesus and his resurrection. Mr. E. Bunny will share the wonderful story of the risen savior. This is an evangelical event.

We will need dozens of volunteers, tons of individually wrapped Easter candy and prayers that many people from throughout the community will attend. Will you do your part? What can you do?

1. Pray that God would be honored as the message of Salvation is shared with families.

The World’s Largest Easter Egg Hunt is more than a fun event for families. It’s one of the way’s we can reach out to our community and share the good news. Will you help?

The Holiest day of the year is Easter Sunday. You absolutely must be in worship on this great day. Our choir will sing, we’ll baptize our newest converts and celebrate the fact our Savior rose from the grave.

We know that more non-church attenders are open to accept an invitation to go to church on this day than any other time of the year. We must invite others to hear the life changing message of the cross. Who will you invite? Who will you pray for? Who will you bring?

On Sunday March 30^th after worship we will have a meeting to find out who would be interested in going to the Holy Land and see the important site’s of our faith. To walk where Jesus walked. We will pass out brochures and give you other information about the cost’s and places we will go.

This is an informational meeting only. No commitments will be made so you can feel free to come, see what it’s all about and make a decision later.

PJ will lead the meeting and this will be his third trip to Israel and the second tour he has led.

Each year our church has one of the largest delegations to attend our state mission’s conference. It is very important for our church to attend, learn more about missions and implement what we have learned.

This years meeting will be in nearby Alexandria on Saturday April 5. Calvary will be a part of the program as PJ will be leading a workshop detailing how to plan to go on a summer mission trip.

Registration is at 9 am and will conclude by 3. Come stay as long as you would like. We will caravan from the church parking lot at 8 am. The cost is $12 per person if you register by March 21. It will be $15 is you register later.

AMERICAN BAPTIST WOMEN’S MINISTRY

THE JUDY DEROLF CIRCLE WILL MEET AT JODIE TAYLOR'S HOUSE AT 12:30 WITH GEORGIA SIMMONS GIVING THE LOVE GIFT.

THE EVENING CIRCLE (NORMA DENNY) WILL MET AT JEN PARRISH'S AT 6:30 .CAROLYN WILSON WILL GIVE THE LOVE GIFT WITH DORIS RICHARDSON GIVIN DEVOTIONS. THE PROGRAM FOR BOTH CIRCLES IS ENTITLED "CHILDREN IN POVERTY”, AND WILL BE GIVEN BY JOYCE FARR.

NEXT MONTH, WE WILL BE HAVING A COMBINED CIRCLE MEETING AT GEORGIA SIMMONS WITH THE PROGRAM BEING ON OUR STATE PROJECT, 'BREAK THE CHAINS; SLAVERY IN THE 21ST CENTURY’. WE WILL BE ALSO HAVING A SURPRISE. SO COME AND CHECK IT OUT.

WATCH FOR THE DATE AND TIME OF THE SPRING CONFERENCE IN APRIL AT FAITH COMMUNITY.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR AND COME JOIN US AT ONE OF THESE CIRCLE MEETINGS. WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE EACH AND EVERY WOMAN AT ONE OF THEM. WATCH FOR MORE EXCITING NEWS COMING UP.

REMEMBER PHILIPPIANS 4:13 - I CAN DO EVERYTHING THROUGH HIM WHO GIVES ME STRENGTH.

The AB Girls of Faith and Hope will meet on Wednesday, March 26^th at 6:30pm. We will be talking about missions and things that we can do to help both near and far away.

This will be a great weekend that you do not want to miss out on. I will give out registration forms at the April meeting.

CALVARY SENIORS

On February 19th, twenty-four of us met at Golden Corral for lunch, a short business meeting and games.

Our next meeting will be on March 19th at the Glass Canopy which is located in the Career Center at Kokomo High School. We will be served by students training for careers in food service. Please be there by 11:15 a.m. We hope to see you there!

You may wish to keep April 17th free so you can attend Senior Adult Day which is in Bloomington.

CHURCH WOMEN UNITED

Church Women United Wells Bible Study will be on March 3rd from 9:30 - 11:00 a.m. at Russiaville United Methodist Church. Dorothy Haulter will lead the Bible study . CWU Wells Bible Study will meet at Calvary on March 10th at 10:00 a.m. This will be a carry-in luncheon with Gerty Burton being the hostess. The meat & potatoes will be furnished. Pastor Jeff will lead the Bible study. CWU World Day of Prayer is at Main Street United Methodist on March 7th. Coffee is at 9:30 a.m. and the program will begin at 10:00 a.m.

WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A MEN’S SOFTBALL TEAM THIS YEAR!!! ANYONE INTERESTED IN PLAYING, PLEASE CONTACT RANDY BORUFF.

We are very excited about the spiritual and numerical growth that we are seeing in Jr. Worship. Children are volunteering to pray as well as expressing a desire to give their lives to Jesus.

We have had as many as 25 children on several Sundays. In an attempt to be more age sensitive with our lessons, we are in the process of starting a new format where the children will rotate to age specific teaching experiences. Several have already volunteered to help; Linda Lauderbaugh, Michael McCune, Carolyn Murphy, Doris Richardson, Jodie Taylor.

Calvary B.L.A.S.T. (Believing, Living And Sharing Truth)

We want to send out a BIG THANK YOU to everyone for your support during the Valentine fundraising dinner. We had 58 people attend the dinner with 8 youth serving with the help of the youth team. This was a very fun event to put on and we just appreciate everyone so much. Thanks to the youth team for stepping up and being right in there helping cook, clean and everything.

This month we will be busy working on getting things ready for the Easter Sonrise Service. We pray that God will put it on your heart to come to church early Easter morning.

The youth will be meeting for a short time on Saturday, March 1^st before the Bible Bowl. All youth should be at church at 5pm. We will then eat at 6:00 and attend the Bible Bowl at 7pm.

We will meet on Saturday, March 15^th at 6:00pm at church. We will be working on Easter as well as some other fun activities.

On March 30^th, the youth will travel over to Marion to the Idyl Wyld Skating Rink for a fun time of skating. We would like to invite the rest of the church to join us. The cost is $3 admission and $2 for skate rental. Admission is free if you are not skating and just want to come watch. We have reserved the rink so it will just be us there and we look forward to lots of fun!

We want to take this time to thank the church for allowing us to attend the National Youth Leader Conference February 22 -25^th. This was an absolutely amazing weekend. We learned so much while we were there and God really spoke to us. We have such a passion for these kids and have been refueled to do what God has called us to do. We have so many great ideas to try with the youth and can’t wait to implement some of these new things into the ministry. We learned fun ways to connect with the youth, ways to help the youth connect with each other and with Christ. I don’t even know that words can express what this weekend did for us both in our personal spiritual lives as well as our ministry so again we just say THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!