Dear Church Family,

I hope that everyone has been successful at beating the heat for the

past two months. We are entering an exciting time for Mount Elon Baptist

Church, in the next two months we will have deacon elections and home-

coming. I just wanted to take a second to remind everyone to keep your

choice of deacon in prayerful consideration. We will need to elect for church

members to replace the four rotating off and I believe this is no small task.

In the book of Acts the first deacons are mentioned and called to serve the

church. So, I ask you to seek God’s wise counsel and allow Him to show

you the four we should elect that will serve God’s church first and our

church second as an honest, dedicated, and loyal Christian.

Homecoming is just around the corner and I believe it will be excit-

ing and that the atmosphere at Mt. Elon will be a joyful and worshipful ex-

perience. We would love for you to invite family and friends as we celebrate

180 years of being an established church and the 100th anniversary of the

completion of our sanctuary. If there is someone you would like to invite

please get their name and address to Mrs. Shelby Galloway so we can get

them a special invitation in mail.

Joshua 24:15,

Rob Brazell

Memorials given in memory of

Mrs. Pauline Howell James:

June 13, 1926– June 8, 2011

Mr. & Mrs. Tom McTeer

Mr. & Mrs. Cecil Grooms

Mr. & Mrs. Tom Yarbrough

A Josey Sunday School Class

Mr. & Mrs. Allan Arrants

Ms. Mary Whitehouse

Ms. Emily Jean Andrews

Mr. Billy Lloyd

Ms. Susan Lloyd

Mr. E. Russ Tyner

Mrs. Marguerite Perkins

Ms. Becky Lloyd

Taking the long way

It’s human nature to look for shortcuts. We want the quickest, surest route to our destination. Delays, detours and dead ends are frustrating and discouraging. Consider this: “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer ... . God led the people by the roundabout way of the wil-derness toward the Red Sea” (Exodus 13:17-18, NRSV). The Red Sea looked like a fatal wrong turn, but God was protect-ing the Israelites. He had a plan in place to lead them to the Promised Land. When God seems to prefer delays and detours in your life, keep in mind that the long way just might be better.

Sink or

Swim?

People’s stories about learning to swim often sound like this: “My dad tossed me into the water. I didn’t have a choice — I flailed around until I found myself swimming!” But an elderly Christian tells a variation of this story: “Wanting to teach me to swim, my father threw me off the dock into the lake. I sank.” But then he goes on: “So my father jumped in with me.” The storyteller’s wisdom shines in his application: “God doesn’t toss us into life and leave us alone to sink or swim. By sending Jesus, God jumped right in with us to save us from death, hold us protectively and help us navigate life.”

A love offering for the food closet

will be received

Sunday, August 7 during the A.M. Service

It takes about $10

to prepare a bag

of food for distribution

and we need enough

for at least

seventy families.

God’s Powerful Word

The Bible contains about 800,000 words, depending on the translation.

This is about four times as many works as are found in a book of average

length. Although the Bible is so long and deals with the greatest themes that can

engage the human mind, its vocabulary is singularly limited. It uses only

6,000 different words, a very small number compared to the 20,000 words

that Shakespeare employed while writing his plays. Not only is the Bible’s vocabulary limited, but the average word in it con-

tains only five letters. However, many of these short words are full of the

deepest meanings and are worthy of earnest study. For example, consider

these five-letter words : grace, peace, faith, saved, serve, glory and Jesus.

Pomegranate Because the pomegranate has an abun-dance of seeds, the fruit is used to repre-sent hope and future life. It also symbolizes the many believers who are individual members of the universal Christian church.

Fellowship Family Night

December 16

6:30 pm

Bring Covered Dish/Desserts

Business Meeting

Sunday, August 21

12pm after

A.M. Service

Property Committee Meeting

Sunday, August 28

9:00 am

NO

Keen Teens

Meeting for August

Meetings will begin again

in September

NO

Hannah Plowden

Meetings for August

Workers for August

Nursery Workers Toddler Church

7 Adam Howell & Amanda Harris 7 Lindsay Brazell & Angie

Raines

Adam & Shannon Privette

14 Lindsay Brazell, Missy Grooms, 14 Paul & Ashley Reardon

Lori Johnson

21 Mike & Libby Welch 21 Brantley & Stephney Norris

Wayne & Pat Howell

28 Daniel & Jennifer Tiller 28 Russell & Shannon Howell

Charlie & Angie Raines

July’s Perfect Attendance

The Fall Revival is set for September 16, 17 & 18,

2011 with Homecoming being on Sunday, the

18th. If you have someone you would like to

invite, please give the name(s) to Karen in the

church office, thank you.

Saturday, August 20

8:30 am

Fellowship Family Night

Wednesday, August 17

6:30 pm

Covered Dish and/or Dessert

Ann Howell

Ruth Elmore

Johnny Howell

Carolyn Cribb

Jerry Cribb

Susan Lloyd

Noah Brazell

Zana Brazell

Tracy Spencer

Tom McTeer

Jim Huggins

Carey Privette

Gary Privette

If you have perfect attendance for

each month, please be sure to sub-

mit your name to Missy Spencer.

We appreciate your faithfulness.

7 June Perdue

14 Patricia Arrants

21 Becky Lloyd

28 Mike & Libby Welch

August

Flower Calendar

Deacon’s Meeting

August 14

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered

into the heart of man, the things which God hath pre-

pared for them that love Him.

1 Corinthians 2:9

KJV

Wednesday Night Schedule

7:00 pm Adult Bible Study

Prayer Meeting,

TeamKID and Youth

7:30 pm Choir Practice

Sunday Schedule 10:00 am Sunday School

11:00 am Worship Service

5:00 pm Praise Team

Practice

Birthdays

August 2011 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 Adult Bible Study &

Prayer Meeting

TeamKids & Youth

7:00 pm

7:30 pm choir practice

4 5 6

7

Food Closet Love Offer-

ing

8 9 10 Adult Bible Study &

Prayer Meeting

TeamKids & Youth

7:00 pm

7:30 pm choir practice

11 12 13

14

Deacon’s Mtg 8:00 am

Praise Team 5:00 pm

15 16 17 6:30pm

Family Fellowship Night

18 19 20 8:30 am

Food Distribution

21 Business Meeting

12:00 pm

22 23 24 Adult Bible Study &

Prayer Meeting

TeamKids & Youth

7:00 pm

7:30 pm choir practice

25 Ladies eat at Mr. B’s

11:30am

26 27

28 Property Committee

Meeting

9:00 am

Praise Team 5:00 pm

29 30 31 Adult Bible Study &

Prayer Meeting

TeamKids & Youth

7:00 pm

7:30 pm choir practice

No Keen Teens

2 Bert Beasley

3 Glenda McTeer

Ashley Reardon

David Williamson

4 David Howell

Sarabeth Windham

5 Ashlyn Cutchin

Candyce Chapman

7 William Cecil Grooms

Will Smith

9 Martin Howell

11 Payton Howell

12 Jacob Raines

14 Tim Huddleston

Jaz Skinner

15 Gene Norris

16 Tommy Worrill

18 Harlee Russell

19 Herbert King

21 Jimmie Perkins

Missy Grooms

Richard Russell

22 Jon Flowers

23 Avery Woods

1 Roy & Miranda Loyd

9 Jerry & Carolyn Cribb

18 Wayne & Pat Howell

22 Tom & Elizabeth Worrill

31 Adam & Shannon Privette

Let go!

Much attention is being paid to the heavy backpacks kids now lug to school. My fifth-grader’s backpack weighs nearly 20 pounds — more than one-quarter of her body weight! This year I bought my kids backpacks with wheels to ease the mus-cle strain. Problem solved? Wrong. They continue lugging the packs on their backs, and I keep reminding them to put the packs down and roll them. I don’t understand it — or do I? We adults carry heavy burdens, too. They pile up and weigh us down. The cumulative weight can be crushing. But we don’t have to carry our troubles. Jesus tells us to let him shoulder the load (see Matthew 11:28). Jesus already took away our biggest burden by dying on the cross.

Who was Bartholomew?

On August 24, the church commemorates St. Bartholomew, who is listed among the disciples. Because he is never named in the book of John — while a follower named Nathanael is mentioned only there — many scholars believe Bartholomew and Nathanael were the same man. Further, Bartholomew’s name is next to Philip’s in Matthew, Luke and Mark, while in John, Philip intro-duces Nathanael to Jesus (who says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” [John 1:47, NRSV]). Besides the Bible, Eusebius, the father of church history, is first to mention Bartholomew. Eusebius reports that Bartholomew gave a Hebrew translation of Matthew’s gos-pel to Christian converts in India. Bartholomew also preached in Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt and

The right road

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. —Thomas Merton

Taming the monsters

Children know a lot about monsters. Although opinion varies on what the creatures look like, consensus exists on several points. Monsters lurk under the bed, are noc-turnal, are frightening beyond reason and disappear in the presence of light. I think kids might be onto something. You see, grownups have their own “monsters” to face. They don’t match up with our childhood fears but can be just as terrifying. Ordinary problems that seem manageable during the daytime can be-come monstrous at night. When fear and worry rob us of our sleep, we can tell them we’re in no shape to deal with them. We can trust God to handle our con-cerns. He’s more than capable of dealing with the monsters under every bed. —Adapted from HomeTouch

How many animals did God tell Noah to bring into the ark? A. Two of each kind B. Seven pairs of clean animals and one pair each of unclean animals C. Both A and B D. None of the above Answer: C (See Genesis 6:19-20 and 7:2-3.)