Midweek Message2/26/2025

MIDWEEK MESSAGE #237

Hello everyone and welcome to Midweek Message #237! It is good to have you join me. Thanks for taking the time to read it!

WAIT! BEFORE YOU GO ANYWHERE ELSE!!
Don’t forget tonight is the pitch-in at 6:00 at OVCF! Someone has graciously volunteered to buy chicken for the meal tonight so come and enjoy it, as well as all the other food people will bring! Most of all, come enjoy the fun and fellowship with your church family.

Remember to pray for our educator of the week: Carol Watson, the principal at Gosport Elementary School. Once a month I have the opportunity to read to the kindergarten class taught by Gabby Corder, one of our OVCF family. GES is a good school with a lot of nice people. Pray for a good week for Mrs. Watson and for the school.

I’d like to officially welcome Jerry and Carol Sturgeon to our church family. Jerry and Carol have been attending and involved with OVCF for many years and recently transferred their membership. They have a daughter, Jade and a son, Hunter. They’re also grandparents to Sage (they might be just a little bit crazy about her!). 😊

This coming Sunday, Caleb and Gabrielle Corder are going to be baptized in the YMCA pool at 12:30. Someone asked me Sunday if I can let people know if a baptism is taking place so they can attend. Sometimes we just arrange it that week; sometimes we know a week or so ahead of time. I am happy to be able to let you know about Caleb and Gabby. Feel free to join us to celebrate the occasion with them! (We have plans for a baptistery of some kind in the new addition. I’m looking forward to that!)

YOUTH CORNER

• • Some of this news is developing so I will give you more details as I know them. Several of our young people are wrestling;
  • Jordan Mangia began wrestling this past Monday.
  • CJ Wood (Mike and Cristi’s daughter) and Maisy Pendleton (Josh & Becky’s daughter) are both wrestling. I understand Maisy had quite a year and went to State!
  • Jase Collier was having a fine year until an accident with a teammate put his season on hold. Jase had surgery two weeks ago for a broken eye socket. He told me Sunday that he can start wrestling again in 5-6 weeks.

Other related youth items:

• • Aubrey Mangia’s 8th grade girls’ basketball team advanced to the finals which were played last night. They were victorious over North Putnam 34-27 to win the WIC conference! 😊
  • Did you know one of our visitors this past Sunday was a classmate of one of our girls? She told her parents about the “No Complaining Rule Challenge” I gave for this past Monday. Her dad said she already blew it. She quipped back, “It doesn’t start until tomorrow!” 😊It made me chuckle but also made me proud that the girls who were visiting listened. And one more thing: they went home and asked for the Bible app for their phones so they could look up the Scripture I included with the 5 rules. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited that made me to get a text from one of the mothers telling me that.

The No Complaining Rule is the book by Jon Gordon I referenced in Sunday’s message. It included 5 Things to Do instead of Complain. I have also added some Scripture to fortify it from a spiritual standpoint. So here they are:

1. 1. 1. Practice Gratitude. Counting our blessings instead of our misery changes our perspective.
         We are confronted each day with positives and negatives. Practicing gratitude takes our eyes of ourselves. Phil. 4:4, 8-9 tells us to “rejoice always” and then the latter two verses tell us to think on the right things.
      2. Praise Others. We ought to be thinking how we can thank and praise others for acts of kindness. The Bible tells us to “encourage one another” and Hebrews 10:24 tells us to “think of ways to motivated one another to acts of love and good works.”
      3. Focus on Success. A few weeks ago my perspective got twisted a little and I was a grumbling, bumbling mess one morning. It was actually the morning I was going to implement including this in my sermon. It took me a few moments to reflect on what God has been doing here at the church, and in people’s lives I love, to realize that I had much to be thankful for. I began to focus on how God has blessed me and I found myself wallowing in praise instead of misery. Pr. 4:25-27 are great verses to keep us on the right path.
      4. Let Go. Focus on things you have the power to change. Focus on things you have control over, not those you don’t. For example, can you control the weather? Can you snap a finger and the weather go from 10 to 90? My guess is no. 😊 Ps. 20:7 says, “Some trust in chariots; some trust in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Pr. 21:31 also reinforces that thought.
      5. Pray and Read Scripture. Jon says Pray and Meditate but I’m leery of the connotation of that so I choose to replace meditate with Read Scripture. Great Scriptures to read are Psalm 57 & 58 and Proverbs 27. They are too long to print here.

Good things are happening at OVCF! Kid’s Church was stuffed to the gills on Sunday with an abundance of kids. We had to put out extra chairs for the adult worship and it was so good to see new people and connect with those whom I miss out on greeting. I hope you sense that God is doing something here! I’m excited. I  hope you are also. Love you much.

Pastor Bill