First Baptist Church

‘Update’

January 2015

Our Mission To produce fully devoted followers of Jesus, who love God and people!

Brad Martin Associate Pastor-Helps brad@fbcpekin.com

Chris Garrett Associate Pastor-Worship chris@fbcpekin.com

Jeremy Elliott Director of Youth Ministries jeremyelliott777@gmail.com

Rebecca McIntyre Director of Children’s Ministries becky@fbcpekin.com

Shelly Hochstetler Kids Hope Director shelly@fbcpekin.com

Connie Dick Office Manager connie@fbcpekin.com

Kendal Springer Building/Grounds Manager kendal@fbcpekin.com

Gayla Long gayla@fbcpekin.com Bookkeeper

First Baptist Church 700 S. Capitol St. Pekin, IL 61554 309-347-5965 www.fbcpekin.com Sunday Services Traditional 9:00 a.m. Contemporary 10:30 a.m. Office Hours M-Th 8-noon & 12:30-5:00 Fridays 8-2

Mark your Calendars!

Jan 7 Town Square Resumes

Jan 19 Official Board Meetings

January SpeakersJanuary SpeakersJanuary SpeakersJanuary Speakers

4th Brian McIntyre

11th Bill Allison

18th Paul Seidl

25th Bill Allison

As our search committee

continues the process of finding our new Senior Pastor, please

remember them in your daily prayers…

“Father, give us wisdom for

exactly who You want to lead your body of believers. Only when You are asked can we know

your will in all matters.”

(Our search committee members includes: Lyle Benefield,

Dan Wamsley, Scarlet Coers, Melanie Nievar, Jim Doering and Lisa Kerley)

Church News

Official Board Members for 2015…

We welcome back returning board members and welcome the new members on our board!

Deacons: Jim Wolf Terry McIntosh Lyle Benefield Mike Kerley Larry Brees Dan Wamsley Tom Dick Clayton Horton (new)

Trustees: Gordon Menk Steve Fitzanko John Henderson Don Spangler Stan Coers (new) Mike Watts (new) Barb Thorne (new)

Deaconesses: Kelly Bradford

Ennie Menk Susan Wolf Sue Munge

Heather Fitzanko (new)

We want to thank our 2015 Board Members for their commitment for 2015. As you lift our church in prayer for the coming year, please remember these folks as they prayerfully consider the business of the church, and how God would have us proceed with His ministry here at First Baptist. Feel free to contact our staff or any board member with concerns, ideas, or questions you may have concerning our church.

May God give us all His clear direction as we seek to further His kingdom!

Brad Martin (Associate Pastor of Helps) Staff Notes

Another year has passed, and as I said in last month’s Update - the time really flies. Each new year naturally causes us to look back. I like to think through what life has put in my path during the last 12 months. As in most years, Jeanne and I saw grief, and blessing. The grief for was Jeanne’s father dying. He had been struggling with his health when he went into the hospital for a surgery that he never recovered from. The outpour-ing of love and support from so many of you was a real blessing to both of us.

We also had great joy this past year. Jeanne and I recently celebrated our 35th anniversary (something I am very proud of). We had a new great niece born. We got to spend another year with family and friends; we also spent another year being part of the FBC family. Through joy and grief, Jeanne and I feel we have been very blessed in 2014. Just as it is for all of us in our personal lives, our church goes through changes as the months pass. Some of those changes are good, others not so good. In 2014 we had members of our church family go to be with the Lord, some of our family members suffered terrible personal hard-ship, we saw Pastor Mark resign. Yes, we have had our struggles this year, but we have had a very blessed year as well. God has given our church a heart for people, and this year FBC continued its efforts (with success) to reach our community for Jesus. Ministries such as the food pantry, Grief Share, counseling to hurting… all have made a difference in people lives. We are greatly blessed that God has allowed us the privilege of serving Him in such a big way. In September our outreach to the hurting grew with a new care ministry called “Single & Parenting”. This ministry is designed to help those raising children alone find ways to cope, and succeed with this very tough job. My prayer is that God will continue to allow FBC to have an impact on the Pekin area by reaching out to lost and hurting people in 2015. My prayer would also be that you all will have the best year of your life. Maybe not a year free from heart aches, but a year of growing closer to God. Thank you all for what you do for God, and for allowing Jeanne and I to have our part in this family…it is a real privilege for us.

Happy New Year & God Bless from the Martins!

Chris (Worship Pastor) Staff Notes

A Season for Everything and a Thing for Every Season

Well, we made it! Christmas and New Year's have passed and we're still alive. But that leaves an odd feeling around us. The quiet is strange. What do I do now? Yes, clean up after the festivities. Yes, settle back into a weekly routine. But are there things that I leave on a season that I should bring with me into the routine?

I sometimes wonder about how we let the excitement of seasons like Christmas die down. Yet, is this the pattern of the Kingdom of God? When Jesus was born, the angels exploded in celebration that the shepherds were allowed to have a brief glimpse at. (Luke 2) Yet was this merely a celebration of God fulfilling his promise given many times in the Old Testament? After all, we read in Revelation 4 that there are "creatures" at the throne of God who are saying day and night without ceasing "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is, and is to come." Is it possible that the angels are praising God all the time and the shep-herds just got a glimpse for a moment? Whether it is repetitiously repeating a song or conducting your existence (every event and activity of your life) from a posture of praise, it may be possible that the Kingdom of God is a place of continual excitement and celebration. You see, we put a lot of effort into the Christmas season to creatively make Jesus look great! We prepare various presentations, we plan parties, and we invite many friends, neighbors and acquaintances to participate with us. My question is, as we breathe in and recover from the season's activity, let us continue to creatively and enthusiastically think of ways to make Jesus look great! We can do this in our fami-lies, in our work places and any place God may guide us to.

Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth, sing praise to the Lord

(Psalm 68:32)

Becky McIntyre (Children’s Ministries) Staff Notes

A New Year of Opportunities I am prone to look back as the year comes to a close at what we as a team in Children’s Ministries accom-plished during the past 12 months and whether we came close to meeting our goals for the year. As with most years, we have exceeded our expectations in some areas and come up short in others. We have welcomed several new families to Foreverland this year. And we have added nine new volun-teers. What is most exciting to me is the number of kids who keep coming week after week, many of them for several years now. And the same is true of the volunteers - many of them celebrating five or more years of service in some area of Foreverland! TOWN Square has its own good news. Already this fall we have seen three kids ask Jesus to be their For-ever Friend. We have added two amazing teachers to the roster, and we have had so many men join the secu-rity team that some evenings we have more than we need. PRAISE the LORD! Our nursery and registration teams are fully staffed as well. And don’t forget that on January 5 we will celebrate 10 years of TOWN Square! We had no idea it would last this long or be so productive in bringing kids to Christ - 149 to date! Thank you to the many volunteers over the years who have made Wednes-day nights so successful. And thank you as well to the many, many more who hold us up in prayer each week. God bless you all as we begin a brand new year. We know we will have many more opportunities to present the Gospel and minister to our families and kids. Forever… Becky McIntyre

Kendal Springer (Facilities Manager) Staff Notes

A few of the key accomplishments of 2014from Kendal and the Trustees… This year we saw the Capitol Street

house demolished. A few additional cosmetic things were done to the Washington Street home, prior to it being

changed from a rental property to a Mission Home. This allowed us to provide housing for a few months this

summer to the Hackers, a missionary family coming home to the states on a sabbatical. After some suggestions

and inquires regarding more handicap parking spaces, two were added to the west side parking lot. The drain line

for rain water runoff from the sanctuary roof areas was replaced. This was the line that runs underneath the west

parking lot. We’d found that the line had collapsed which was causing water problems elsewhere for us. Another

Fall Work Day has come and gone. We had good weather that day. About fifty people attended, completing sev-

eral projects, making it a very successful day. The most obvious project completed this year has been the new

roof on the sanctuary wing of our facility. The contractors had to contend with frequent rain while working and

we experienced some leaks through the process. After a few call backs, everything was buttoned up and taken

care of. If not for the bouts of rainfall and a shortage of some shingles which they had to wait on, they would

have hit their initial estimated completion date pretty close. All in all

they did a great job, and now we have a nice metal roof that will last

many years to come. In the wake of the 2013 tornado, we decided it

would be good to review our tornado-storm plan, and make any neces-

sary revisions. We consulted with a local architect, Kayse Doering,

whom has both experience and expertise in this arena. From her

evaluation, we found our plan needed to be updated. Kayse provided us

a lot of information and pinpointed key safe zones for us. A revised

plan is near completion and will be rolled out in the first quarter of 2015.

Jeremy Elliott (Youth director) Staff Notes

Welcome to 2015!!! We are very excited to kick off this new year. Core 9am Sunday Chi Rho 6:15pm Wednesday

UPCOMING EVENTS

Sr High Summer Mission Trip Info On 01/07/14 from 8:10PM to 8:30PM This is an informational meeting for those interested in serving on the out of country mission trip for sr highers this summer.

Seven Eleven On 01/18/14 from 7:00PM to 11:00PM We'll have fun as a group playing live mafia and underground church.

5 New Year’s Resolutions Your Family Can Live With By HomeWord.com It’s been said that a New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. Maybe this is why many people don’t participate in the annual ritual. One survey found that 55% of Americans either never or only infrequently set New Year’s resolutions and that only 8% of Americans are always successful in keeping their resolutions. With odds like that, why bother? So, what if we reset the “resolutions” bar at a reasonable height? It just might make a difference. With the right attitude going in, the following five “just for today” resolutions can help to get your family’s 2014 off to a positive start. Whether you try one or all, these are resolutions that most everyone has a good shot of accomplishing – something that your family can live with. As you succeed, you might even end up incorpo-rating some of them into your family life and identity. # 1: Just for today, I resolve to pray. This doesn’t have to be difficult. Sometime during the day, just say a short prayer. Thank God for something, or praise God for something, or tell God you love Him, or confess something to Him, or ask Him for something, or ask Him for something for someone other than yourself. # 2: Just for today, I resolve to say, “I love you” to someone. It’s really not hard, and if you try, you really can find the moment it takes to say it, email it, text it, or show it. There are few sayings more powerful in the life of another than these three little words. # 3: Just for today, I resolve to appreciate the world around me. Take a moment or two to smell the roses, or look at the blue sky (or clouds, or rain, or snow, or ocean, mountains, trees... you get the picture) and let the beauty of the world God created roll over you. # 4: Just for today, I resolve to read from the Bible. No length requirements and no reading plan here. To-day, just take some moments to read something from God’s word. Whatever you do here, it will be good for your life and your soul (See Psalm 119:105). # 5: Just for today, I resolve to spend some time with my family. The breathless pace we live life is break-ing families apart. So today, give your family the gift of your presence. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just make some space in your day to be with your family.

Shelly Hochstetler (Kids Hope USA) Staff Notes

Our Kids Hope Gin-gerbread Christ-mas Party was held on Saturday, December 13. We had breakfast, decorated ginger-bread men, made

gingerbread ornaments, demolished a ginger-bread man piñata, and heard “The Legend of the Candy Cane”, read by Donna Brantley. We had 10 of our Kids Hope children in attendance along with 6 of their siblings and quite of few of their parents. Each of the children was given 2 candy canes with the message of the candy cane at-tached. One was for them to keep and one was to give to someone else to tell them the story of the candy cane. I appreciate all of the wonderful volunteers who helped to make this party a suc-cess! I am so thankful for all of our church family who

adopted a Jefferson School family for Christmas.

We bought gifts for 16 families with a total of 45

children. My office definitely looked like Santa

came to visit after all of the gifts were turned in

that you bought. What a blessing it is for me to

be part of this program.

Women’s Ministries

Ladies, join us for a new 6

week RefresHER bible

study starting Monday,

January 19th or

Wednesday, January 21st

at 6:30 p.m.

The DVD study is titled Faithful, Abundant, and True... taught by Kay Arthur, Priscilla Shirer and Beth Moore. You will be challenged to faithfulness in difficult days, pointed to the essential of trust in God’s ability and learn how to discern truth from error in difficult days. There are 2 ways you can participate in this bible study. 1) Come watch the weekly video with a discussion afterwards or 2) Come watch the weekly video with a discussion and do daily homework for a more in depth personal study by buying the book. (Order deadline, Jan 11, with payment of $13 per book). It is your choice, just don’t miss this awesome study led by these three great inspiring teachers. Sign up is available in the foyer till January 18th. Come and invite your friends, too.

MORE NEWS FROM OUR LADIES’ TEA…… A young lady who was invited to our annual Tea called the church 3 weeks after the Tea. She’d been touched and couldn’t stop crying and thinking about the message of the evening and finally gave in, and asked to come and talk about it. She came in for her appointment and left here...a new sister in Christ!!! The seeds planted at the Tea can absolutely be far reaching into the future...God is truly able to take those seeds and bring about good for His kingdom. Please pray for this new believer to get grounded in Christ. (She expressed an interest in the Ladies’ Bible studies starting in January because she needs help in ‘learning all about God and what He wants’ from her life!) THANK YOU GOD!!!

February 1, 2015 is not just Super Bowl Sunday; it is “Souper” Sunday for the FBC Food Pantry. Eve-

ryone is encouraged to bring donations of canned and boxed soup to stock the soup shelves of our

food pantry. You may leave your donations at the food pantry at 8:45 a.m., between services, or

directly after second service. Or you may place your items in the grocery carts at the north, east,

and west entrances. Your participation, as always, is greatly appreciated. Questions…. See Ruth

McIntosh, food pantry coordinator, 353-4881.

Ladies’ Bible

Study resuming

in January!

FBC Family

January 2

Joyce Seiber Jordan Punke January 4

Nancy Wamsley January 6

Joan Vignassi Jim Nievar January 8

Tammy Helm January 9

Tom Powell January 11

Isabella Halverson January 12 Katie Lane January 14

Kim Weaver January 15

Rich Karneboge

January 16

June Lawson January 17 Todd Punke January 18 Ruth Hootman Clyde Laier January 20 Susan Wolf Kendyl Swardenski January 26

Kristin Garrett January 27

Mike Smith January 28 Wilanna Thorpe January 29

James Rice January 31

Rey Wilson

If you have never turned your birth

date into the office, please write us a

note or send us an email or just call

the church office.

Also if you have moved, changed phone

numbers, email addresses, or just

never given the office your informa-

tion, we would appreciate having that

information as well!

Do we have your Do we have your Do we have your Do we have your

information?information?information?information?