Please, have a seat!

It was such a great blessing to sit in our 51 new chairs this morning. We thank the Lord for those people who generously contributed to replace our old well worn chairs for new chairs suitable for worship! Today the sermon was "Godly Resolutions for Life" based on Romans 12:9-18

The north and south of it!

This Sunday was a bit of a challenge! Parkwood Baptist Church on the south side invited me back to hear more about our church plant ministry. I agreed but told them I had to be out by 10:30 in order to get back up north to our church in time to preach at 11:15. It's about a 35 minute drive if traffic is in your favor. It was, and I was able to speak to the Parkwood folks for about 20 minutes and then "ran" out the door as they finished their service and I hopped back in the car and made it to River North Baptist Church just as my visiting brother who was filling in for me, was closing a session of prayer. We so appreciate Parkwood and their willingness to become involved in our ministry and I thank the Lord for His great timing in allowing my brother and his family to be here this weekend not only to visit but to pinch hit for me again.

Home for the holidays!

Today was the last Sunday for several of our college students as they leave for home for Christmas break. So we gave them a "sweet" send-off. Two of the ladies baked cookies and Tamra and I assembled some other candies to thank the students for their faithfulness to the church. It was a great day in the Lord, even sunny and warm! As always, I am so blessed by the friendships and Christian love that I see growing and strengthening our church. Please continue to pray for our church plant through the Christmas season. Beth (left) a student at Moody shares a good bye with Nancy, a new believer who lives 45 minutes to the north but commutes in each Sunday with her boyfriend Hector who is also a new believer. Beth and Nancy were strangers in September, but have grown closer this fall & winter!

Slow Train Coming!

I received a last minute request to speak and present our ministry at both services at a church downstate. The pastor was off to visit his brand new granddaugthter and thought this would be a good time to introduce River North Baptist Church to his flock for future consideration of support. It is a five hour drive which I did not relish in the face of an oncoming snowstorm and single digit temperatures. So Amtrak became my best option at $66 round trip. I could sit and work on the stuff I needed to finish before Monday! After waiting 90 minutes to leave it was a pretty uneventful trip except for one little problem. It was dark and I could only see an occasional light whiz by so I didn't really think too much when the train came to a slow stop. I thought it was just another station. When the train began to move backwards I got a little concerned. "Don't worry folks!" the conductor announced, "we hit the brakes a couple miles back and slid to a stop due to ice on the tracks, we slid passed the station and have to go back." Huh? A two mile skid? ok now I was worried; but we got along fine and eventually made it to our stop 2 hours late. I was so grateful for Brett, Ryan and Mark who filled in for me Sunday and Dan, a grad student at Moody, who preached. Tamra also stayed behind to be the ring leader for our morning worship. We had 30 in attendance with four new visitors, thank the Lord!

Thanksgiving Dinner

As we continue our thanks giving to the Lord for a great year, we celebrated with a meal today. My wife and a couple other ladies labored to put together a tasty turkey dinner including pumpkin pie! We had 30 people attend. Next week, many or our college students will be going home for the Thanksgiving holiday so we had our meal today. What a great blessing it was! The Lord continues to bring us people from all walks of life who are willing to become part of our growing and diverse congregation. Many of these folks are needy, not only spiritually, but financially. Roger and Larry are two homeless men who have become regulars and have expressed sincere gratitude for the manner in which they have been received at RNBC. Several of our willing workers are indigent or troubled with addictions or emotional illnesses, yet they do what they can and attend each week to hear the Word of God.

Happy Birthday & Good Bye

Today we celebrated our one year anniversary with some cake and a long list of the things that God has done for us in the past year. Sadly, we also had to say good-bye to Erin Terpanier, who serves in the Navy Reserves. She was in Chicago for a few months to take classes and attended our service faithfully. It was good to see many of our folks wish Erin well. We enjoyed cake for both occasions and celebrated God's goodness!

Music to My Ears

A few Sundays ago, after the service, I was talking to some folks by the door as they left. Suddenly, I heard one of the sweetest sounds ever in our young church. Four angelic voices began to harmonize together around our piano in an impromptu sing-a-long. Four of our college students were just "foolin' around" and I recruited them to sing for us. Today, we heard them and it was such a blessing. We are so thankful for the wonderful Spirit of encouragment and love the Lord has given us!

"Bridge Night" for River North Baptist Church

The Bridge is a program where ex-offenders can find a transition back into society and life through the local church. The men and women who attend this program are believers who are seeking solid Bible believing churches as their support group. I have been preaching there for several months and this month I brought along some folks from our church to help serve food and fellowship with the people of The Bridge. Each week, The Bridge asks a host church to come in and provide a meal and serve it to the attendees. The service consists of some songs and preaching. The ex-offenders hand in written questions and each week and three Pastors are invited to answer those questions, sermon style, for 10 minutes each. This gives the group the opportunity to hear, from the Word, three perspectives of the answer to their questions. The men and women respond well to this approach and are able to “connect” with Pastors in their area and so that they can visit that church. Our very own Brother Gerald introduced “The Bridge” to everyone in attendance. Gerald is very active in “The Bridge” every week, encouraging the newly saved parolee’s to get to church and start “livin’ for Jesus”! We appreciate Gerald’s ministry and faithfulness to River North Baptist Church, but more importantly, his heart for evangelism and passion for Christ! It was also a nice surprise and a blessing when Jason, (in red shirt) who has only attended RNBC for three months, was “roped in” to introducing the topic for the evening on his first visit to “The Bridge”. Jason, a structural engineer, willingly agreed to step up to the microphone and represent our church. He did a great job that night and we are thankful for his willingness to jump right in and help! Our thanks go out to Jason, Gerald, Beth, Mandy, Olivia, Jenny and “Pops” (Pops visited our service once, the Sunday before The Bridge) who helped us minister to this needy group. Please pray for these men and women as they seek to walk worthy of Christ!

Whirlwind Sunday

Today was a bit unusual! Tamra and I were invited to present our ministry at a church in Aurora, IL about 50 minutes from downtown Chicago. They wanted us there for a lunch at 12:30. Hmm what to do! I appreciate the flexibility of our folks! I decided to preach right at 10:30 so Tamra and I could "duck out" and the folks could sing and have the discussion groups afterward. No problem for our folks!! Tamra and I dashed out at 11:20 and headed west. We got there in time for lunch at Village Baptist Church and we were graciously received and treated as we presented our church plant progress. After that, we drove to Homer Glen where I had a board meeting at SW Community Baptist Church. We thank the Lord for churches who are willing to pray for us and support us in many different ways. We also thank the Lord for the 33 people we had, including our new visitor of the week "Pops" a former inmate who came to the Lord and began, in his words " a life of prayer" for his unsaved family. A great testimony.

Recharged

This week, Tamra and I had the wonderful blessing of attending a Missions Conference in Wisconsin. Although we missed being in our home church for a Sunday, it was a blessing to be encouraged, fed, blessed and rested during our time away. While we were gone, I asked two of our college students to lead our folks in a prayer and praise time. Ryan led the group in about ten songs and then they broke up into smaller prayer groups for an extended time of prayer. What a blessing it was to hear reports back from our folks about their time together. My thanks to Ryan and Daniel for their willingness to lead the service.

We Are the Body of Christ

After a summer of sobriety, one of our regular attenders who is battling alcoholism has been absent for the last few weeks because she has been losing the battle. She returned today, weak, tired, worn and had clearly been drinking. I was unsure how our growing group would react to her return. I was overjoyed to see many approach her, hug her and show only signs of love and support. Tamra and I spoke to her at length after the service and she left encouraged and loved. I thank the Lord for this unusual (from the worlds point of view) show of acceptance for her. We are indeed His body.

Another Super Sunday

This Lords Day was another blessing as we seem to be developing just a little bit each week. Ryan led our worship time again with the help of Tyler, a piano accompaniest. We also had 32 folks attend and join their voices in worship. Saturday we had the opprtunity to move one of our ladies into a new apartment and I was happy to see a few of our college students come out at 9am on a Saturday (quite a sacrifice) The mens discussion group had to move out to the hallway because we outgrew the small entry room.

Another great Sunday

College student Ryan Reed (pictured) led us today in two worship songs as River North Baptist Church begins to be blessed by the ministries of our own people. It was such a blessing for me to sit in back and watch, sing and listen to everyone singing "The Solid Rock" and "Blessed Be the Name" We are so grateful for the spirit and Spirit in our worship service. The Lord has been so faithful each week and brought new visitors into our midst. We had another "regular" Sunday attendance record with 29! Please continue to pray for us as we seek to stay faithful to our Lord and His Word every Sunday. To God be the glory! Thank you for your ongoing support!