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Vol.
46, No. 42 SOUTHSIDE ORACLE
January 2, 2004
The
Bulletin Board
The York College Concert Choir
will sing at Southside at 7:00 p. m., Friday, January 9th. We will
house about fifty young people. Quite a few have volunteered their homes,
but we still need additional housing for some of the chorus. See the sign-up
sheet if you can help. Plan to attend. You will be richly rewarded.
Blood Drive. Southside will host
a blood drive on January 17th. We need to have 35 donors to justify the
blood drive. We need a few more. If you can help, please see the sign-up
sheet. If you have questions contact Trevonna Parker.
“New Beginnings” is the title of a
new Sunday morning adult Bible class to be taught by Bobby Valentine
starting Sunday. It is a class on the basics of Christianity and is
designed for those who have been baptized in the last two or three years and
for newcomers to Southside. Those who do not fall into the above
classifications should attend another class instead. The class will be
limited in size to improve communication. The other classes taught at the
same time starting in January will be “Galatians”, Wayne Alexander,
teacher, and “The Pastoral Letters” (Timothy and Titus), co-taught by
Dana McMillion and Rodney Windell.
The Parent to Parent
video/discussion is planned beginning Saturday, January 31st. This is for
parents of children of all ages and we encourage friends and neighbors to
attend. For specifics see the printed flyer or talk with John Giemza or
Daryl Miller.
ATTENDANCE RECORD
Two years ago Last year
Last week Goal
Bible classes
133 143 123
170
Morning
worship 229 232
*202 250
Evening
worship no count 75
40 80
Contribution
$3561.04 $2920.88 $4596.15 $4200.00
“The Good Samaritan doesn’t wait for the
media to arrive before he does his thing.”
Talent Sheets – A new
talent sheet is being distributed to indicate those areas in which our
members can be involved in our work at Southside. The questionnaires are
being distributed initially to those attending the joint group meeting at
the church building on New Year’s Eve and will be made available to others
afterwards. When you receive your talent sheet, please fill it out and
return it promptly. We want everyone in the church to be involved in some
aspect of our work and this is the means of learning your individual
interests and talents. This talent sheet is replacing the one previously
distributed, so please fill out a new one.
The Sick - Elfriede
Wandsnider is now in rehab at St. Luke’s Hospital ….Steve Allen, son-in-law
of Dana and Debbie McMillion, has been hospitalized for an extreme loss of
blood. As of this writing the cause has not been determined. McMillions,
who were away over the holidays, have been with the Allens in Searcy, AR.
Remember all of the sick in your prayers.
In Retrospect – As we begin 2004,
it is appropriate that we look back to what happened in 2003. Thirteen were
baptized and other families became a part of Southside. We lost one member,
Irene Bohach, by death. Bobby Valentine completed his first full year with
us as minister of the gospel. Five deacons were appointed bringing the
total number to fourteen. We restructured our work so that each deacon now
reports to a single elder. We had a record Sunday morning worship
attendance of 311 on April 16th and in May a record 150 attended the
mother-daughter banquet. Noteworthy among our many activities was the youth
service trip to Menominee, MI in June to assist this small congregation with
its highly successful youth outreach. We continue to have first-time
community visitors almost every Sunday as a result of our annual mail-out of
40,000 brochures. Our outreach has been enhanced by a new lighted sign in
front of the church building and a splendid web-site developed by our youth
minister, Daryl Miller. We continue to have multiple opportunities for
growth. Our challenge in 2004 is to take advantage of them and to more
effectively retain those that we have reached.
Address Change – Sevea Shilts, (contact
us for details).
Turning the Page
As a new year begins, it is
customary for businesses to take inventory. While inventory is essential for
tax purposes, it is also vital for future planning. A business needs to
know where it has been to chart its future course.
We Christians, too, need to take
account of our lives. In reflecting on the past, we will naturally consider
our failures and lost opportunities. Resolutions for the future proceed
from an awareness of the mistakes of the past. But let us also remember to
thank God for our answered prayers. We often pray for the recovery of the
sick, but neglect to give God credit when he answers our petitions. Any
survey of the past should balance contrition for our failures with
thanksgiving for God’s blessings.
But now we must look to the future.
Paul wrote of his personal resolve, “Forgetting what is behind and
straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize
for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:13, 14).
Paul’s approach to the future was to set his eyes on Jesus as the means of
reaching the ultimate goal. As we turn the page of a new year, let us shape
our plans for the future on the basis that heaven is our ultimate goal and
following Jesus is the way we hope to get there. Resolutions that do not
take God into consideration may have little merit, but those that are
controlled by our relationship to God through Christ will meet with much
success. __Monroe Hawley
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