The Natural

I only wish I could add that music from "the natural". This is one of my favorite photos from last night's softball game. For those of you who weren't there, it was a phenomenal game. At one point we were down 12 to 4. We ended up winning in the bottom of the final inning 15-14. I won't mention who hit the winning run in with the bases loaded, but his initials are CH and he happens to live with me (no, it wasn't caleb).
If you can't tell, this is Mike Williams our illustrious class director. More pics to follow.

Happy Anniversary to the Trouts

Congratulations to Gil and Julie who celebrated the anniversary of the addition of their son Nathan to their family yesterday. What a blessing! Is it just me, or does this child look like the perfect blend of his mom and dad?
This picture was taken at our annual class mission trip in Nebraska where we go to minister to the Winnebago Indian tribe. Gil and Julie have participated every year.
Also, if you are wondering what is going on with our class as far as activities go, or if you want to volunteer to plan an activity, then Julie is the one you need to talk to. She is in charge of our social calendar and we all appreciate that.
So Happy Anniversary Gil, Julie and Nathan!!

Ouch!

Wow, another amazing Sunday. Dr. Marshall preached an amazing sermon about the importance of each one of us in the body of Christ. He preached about Mt. 13:31-32 where Jesus spoke of the mustard seed. One thing that he said that really stuck with me was, "when God wants to accomplish a huge purpose in His kingdom, He always starts with a small start". This fits so perfectly with what Mike has been talking about in class the past few weeks. We may not think that there is a place in ministry for our particular gift (see previous post), but God uses those yielded to His purpose. If you missed the sermon get the cd, it's definitely worth your time.
Now on to our lesson with Dave. I have only one word to say (okay, we all know I'm going to say more than one word) here it is: OUCH! I don't know about any of the rest of you, but this week's class stepped on my toes a bit.
We've been working our way through the book by Chuck Swindoll, "Marriage: from surviving to thriving" and have spent the past several weeks on chapter six, What Families need to Thrive.
Our scripture for this week was Eph. 4:25-32. There is no way I can do Dave justice with everything that he taught, but can I just hit some of the highlights? (I'll take your absence of a response as a yes)
"Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another." (Eph. 4:25 - NASB)
- the same truth can be used to build up or to destroy
"Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity." (Eph 4:26-27)
- the Holy Spirit must be a pressure barometer for our anger. we must submit our anger to God.
- the old self sees anger as a tool for destruction; the new self sees anger as a tool for edification
**If there is an area of my life about which I am consistently angry, it is an indicator of an area of my life that is not yielded to God.
"He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good so that he will have something to share with the one who has need." (Eph 4:28)
- what do we steal from our spouses in our marriage? time, joy, intimacy and vulnerability, for starters
"Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear." (Eph. 4:29)
- the word, "unwholesome" in the Greek means, rotten, corrosive. We need to let the Holy Spirit filter our words.
"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." (Eph. 4:31-32)

There were so many great things that we discussed as a class this week, but I'm afraid I'm going to lose you all for lack of interest. :)
I will be posting class announcements in a separate post.
God bless you. Don't forget to pray for our classmates, especially those with prayer concerns on the prayer sheet.

Is This a Ministry?

Welcome to the Mercer-Williams sunday school blog. We are a married adult Sunday school class at Second Baptist Church here in Springfield, Missouri. (www.secondbaptist.org)
Yes, we are that "hip" and "with it" that we have our own blog. I would love to tell you how this all came about. And then I will tell you all the ways we will be able to use this blog!
The idea for this online blog began a couple of weeks ago when our class coordinator, Mike Williams, challenged each one of us to write our spiritual gifts down on a piece of paper. He then gave us the paper and had the class quiet down so we could do it. He was not messin' around.
So he got me to thinking, how can my gift fit into our class? My first two gifts are preaching/teaching and prophecy. I had been using the logic that Dave and Mike are teaching, so God must have other plans for me. HA! I need to learn that when I think God is just letting me do my own thing I am not listening well enough, because here is something that I love to do. I love to scrapbook digitally, I do some minimal graphic design stuff and I do a lot of photography. I am on the computer, either editing or playing, at least an hour out of my day. (Cameron says more)

I think I will save the introduction of myself for another post. My plan is to post on Sundays (or by Monday) with a synopsis of Dave's lesson. (more on that later). Then at some point during the week I am going to select one couple out of our class and we are going to get to really know these guys. I am wanting to know your all's testimonies. I want to know what God has done and I want to see what God is doing in your life right now. Dave asked the question a few weeks ago: "who are you? who are you becoming?" I want you to be thinking about the answers to these questions. I'm going to ask you your spiritual gifts and post them here so we can all try to come up with ideas for plugging you into our class. I would also like to post pictures of you guys as a couple. I want to see what your kids look like and we will have a little introduction of every member of your family along with pictures (I hope!) (you all will also learn that I am just a bit obsessed with pictures, so you are going to be seeing a lot of pictures of the kids in this class with their parents)!

There are so many other functions that this blog can perform. I'm hoping to put a calendar on here to keep track of class events and birthdays (making that easier for Jeana) :) If you have urgent prayer requests you can let me know and we can post it on here along with posting the follow-up. It's getting so hard to keep everyone informed.

I am open to any kinds of ideas to improve on this site. Let me know what you think.

I guess in conclusion I'd like to answer the question posed in the title line of this post. Is this a ministry? I'm not sure. I am hoping to be able to serve you all as a class, bringing us closer together and trying to glorify my Lord Jesus in the process. If I can do that, then heck yeah, this is a ministry!!