Pastor’s Message                                                                                        January 6, 2019

Good Morning First Family!

I hope you have had a wonderful start to the new year.  Many of you know that my father was a pastor.  He was one of my very favorites.  He wrote a pastor’s message weekly for the bulletin, and until June 2018 I have carried on that practice.  One of my goals for 2019 is to bring this joyous work to First Baptist Camden.  I love to write, and God has been faithful to give me a weekly nugget to share with my church family as pastor.  I look forward to seeing how He blesses us in the years ahead.

I was trying to remember when it all started, but I had to look in the box to actually discover my first journal.  I found a very old spiral pad with the first entry dated October 1, 1986.  The verse to live by that day was “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” James 4:17.  As I gazed this week at those fading pages, I truly remember the impact of that verse on that 24-year-old young man.  Here we are 32 + years later and I am still journaling.  I include thoughts, prayer requests, the scriptures I read that day, scriptures I am memorizing, insights, sermon notes, conference notes and other things worth recording in what has become a document of my spiritual journey.  I encourage you to start that tradition if you do not already journal. Some may miss the sermon notes section, but where do those end up?  Might it be a better a discipline to have a secure place where your notes can be kept alongside your own personal, daily journey with God?  Start this week.

May God bless our church family as we…

Love God!  Love others! Serve!

Pastor John