The Friendly Church
One almost does not want to believe that 2020 happened. But I do not want to join everyone else and just say this was the worst year ever, no it was a year that produced mixed blessings. It was a year of change. It was a year of testing, and it was a year of great discovery.
When the US sneezes, the world catches a cold. What happens when it has severe covid-19?
I saw this title online and became sad. When this article was written, in the middle of this year, gloom was predicted for the world by the end of the year 2020, which would be felt in 2021. There would be shrinking of the US economy and so will the economies in the rest of the world. Unemployment will rise, more people will join or go under the poverty line and there will be serious social unrest. From the standpoint of the Reuters’ columnist, there will be economic and social chaos.
We woke up on Friday morning October 2, with the news that the President of the United States and his wife were tested positive for the corona virus. Whereas we are saddened by this and we pray that they will both recover well.
This is a question that Jesus asked on several occasion and particularly in his encounter with Mary and Martha. I’m borrowing the question, not expounding the text.
Dear members and friends of BBC, as we approach this new month in the year 2020 and another Emancipendence, there is cause for celebration and concern.
We celebrate 100 years of witness as a church. We revel in gratitude to our foreparents for their faithfulness, vision, courage, resilience, fortitude and obedience to God as we acknowledge with awe the grace and goodness and mercy of God.
Recently I was introduced to this book,” Rebooting Church”, by Walter Franklyn Davis on Amazon. It is about how the church can access the current technology to attract more members and also to deepen its relevance in a world which is seeing a decline in church membership by 20 percent over the last two decades. Davis sees the threefold goal of the church in pursuing this path of becoming more technologically astute as, Re-thinking, re-imagining and re-booting.
Just prior to Easter most of our churches closed their doors as it was seen more prudent to do so than to open for the required number of 10 persons to congregate in light of COVID-19. A few churches never closed their doors but found creative and sometimes risky ways to keep them open, sometimes encountering the wrath of the law in doing so.
The Jamaica Baptist Union has just completed its 170th Annual Assembly So what does this mean? The JBU is over 170 years old, or put another way, it is over 170 years since the Union has been meeting together as a family of Baptists. That’s a pretty long time. It may be of interest to some of us while to others, it means nothing at all.
The practice of fasting has been observed by the religious community which has informed Christianity ever since we can recall. Moses fasted for forty days and forty nights and in that time wrote the Ten Commandments as given by God (Ex. 34:28). Daniel decided that he was going to fast for three weeks by refusing to eat meat and the choice food of the Babylonians as a means of protest and preservation of his faith. (Dan 10:3) Esther had to make a grave decision, which was to petition the King, her husband on behalf of her people.
Last month I invited you to dedicate some time to prayer and fasting for the church Let us continue in prayer and fasting and particularly for the Millennials which is our focus for this month.