E-Encourager

North Grand River Baptist Association

The Encourager 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

Volume 39, Number 12

December, 2015

“Churches working together to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission.”“Churches working together to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission.”“Churches working together to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission.”“Churches working together to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission.” Matthew 28:18Matthew 28:18Matthew 28:18Matthew 28:18----20202020

In This Issue DOM Report 2 WMU Report 4 BSU Report 4 Financial Report 7 Church Reports 5-6 Birthday & Anniversary 3 Men’s Breakfast 3 Bookstore Sale 3 Apartment Ministry 3 Evangelism Conference 5 Sparrow Ministry 8-9 Grand Oaks 10-11

Director of Mission’s E.J. Barnes

Ministry Assistant Debbie Dickinson

BSU Director Diann Barnes

Assistant BSU Director

Christina Boatright

North Grand River Baptist Association’s Purpose- “To mutually and prayerfully support, encourage and challenge one another as churches to exalt Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, to edify and equip His disciples to serve him and one another, and to evangelize those who have yet to come to know Him personally.” Matthew 28:19-20

Alpha

Edinburg Gallatin

Galt

Jameson Jamesport

Laredo

Lineville Medicine Valley

Mercer

Modena Princeton

Ravanna

Rural Dale Salem

Shelburne

Spickard Tenth Street

Trenton First

Union

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Christmas BlessingChristmas BlessingChristmas BlessingChristmas Blessing

May Jesus Himself draw near and

be with you in all your Christmas celebrations.

Wishing you a

Wonderful Christmas and A Joyous New Year

In our Lord

The staff of NGR

E.J. & Diann Barnes Debbie Dickinson

Christina Boatright Elizabeth Leeper

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From My Heart to YoursFrom My Heart to YoursFrom My Heart to YoursFrom My Heart to Yours

It is Christmas time again. (WOW! - this year has literally flown by.) Luke 2:8-20 shares with us about the shepherds in relation to the birth of Christ. There are three truths that come from this passage I believe we should act upon dur-ing this Christmas season and throughout the New Year.

1. The shepherds proposed in their hearts to act upon what they’d heard con-cerning Jesus. They made it a priority to seek Jesus and to experience Him personally (Luke 2:15-16). We also should make time to seek our Lord and spend time with Him.

2. The shepherds proclaimed with their lips to others what they’d seen concerning Jesus (Luke 2:17-18). We also should make time to share our witness to others about the marvelous truths about Jesus that we have experienced that they may experience Him too.

3. The shepherds praised and glorified God for what they’d heard and seen concerning Jesus (Luke 2:20). We also should take time to express our appreciation and adoration to God for His revela-tions of Jesus Christ in our lives. He is worthy!

Let’s again remember “the reason for the season!” Let our focus be on Jesus our Lord and Savior! May we have many opportunities that we take advantage of to experience Christ in special ways, to share him with others and to worship Him in Spirit and Truth!

Have a merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year-

E.J. Barnes

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December SalesDecember SalesDecember SalesDecember Sales November 30—December 4

Bibles and Bibles Covers– 10% Off

December 7-11

Books & Devotion Books– 10% Off

December 14-18

DVD’s & CD’s– 10% Off

December 21 –23

Children’s Toys, DVD’s, Novelties– 10% Off Selected Journals– Handmade in Italy- SALE-

$6.00

Now available “The Most Important Story Ever Told” $2.00

These are the evangelistic books that OCC use with the shoebox ministry.

Christmas CD’s– DVD’s

Lots of novelty items for Sunday School gifts- Christmas pencils, toy cell phones, dish sets,

Trucks, eraser sets and much more

Trenton First Baptist

Saturday, 8:00 am

December 19, 2015

All Men Invited!

3 Lewis Rogers 6 Linda Niffen 16 Kenny Wilson 26 Jennifer Trunk 29 Dan Wilford

Pastors Prayer & Fellowship Time at Pizza Hut 2nd Monday

of each month

Thank you so much for your prayers for my girls as they are going through this time of health strug-gles. I so appreciate all your prayers and

words of encouragement you have given to me. When I reached out and asked for your prayers before Denise’s surgery, God’s wonderful peace overcame me as you interceded for us. We will find out in the middle of December what they will be doing for her cancer. I am so blessed to be a part of this association.

Apartment

Interest Meeting

There will be a meeting on December 7th at the Mission Center at

7:00 pm

If you are interested in this Ministry, we encourage you to come to this meeting.

Volunteers Needed! Medicine Valley Community Ministry needs volunteers to help with the preparation and distribution of the Food Pantry Ministry

December dates to help with food distribution at

Medicine Valley Community Ministry December 15th– Prepare Boxes at

Newtown Baptist Chapel– 9 am to noon

December 17th– Food Distribution

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Christmas Cups of Appreciation Ministry

The Baptist Women’s World Day of Prayer Program on November 2nd at FBC Trenton was led by Virginia Crumpacker. The program highlighted missions work around the world. Some of those attending gave reports on local missionaries” Paul and Lori Babb in Ukraine, Greg and Andrea Brummitt in the Czech Republic, Don and Diane Combs (formerly from St. Joseph) in Moscow, Ewe and MaDonna Meurer in Taiwan. MaDonna is the daughter of Ann Eckert of Jamesport. After each report was give, prayer was offered for the missionaries. Virginia read I Thessalonians

5:17 and other scriptures. Afterward we enjoyed a delicious luncheon and time of fellowship. December 15th at 10:30 am will be the Association Ladies’ Christmas Celebration at the Mission Center. We will be filling cups of appreciation for our County Courthouse employees. Please bring items for the cups such as gum, hard candies, individual tea bags, hot cocoa packets, individual coffee packets, small snack bars or snack crackers. A covered dish luncheon will follow. Have a Merry Christmas! “’and she will bear a Son’, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

BSU @ N. Central Missouri College For the entire month of October the BSU students focus on collecting “Pocket Change” for the Ronald McDonald Houses ministry. This year our BSU students received $300 from NCMC students campus wide and contributions from Jim’s Building Supplies for the 3 homes in Kansas City. On Saturday November 4th this donation was delivered to

the homes in the form of 699 rolls of toilet paper. That seems like a lot of toilet paper, but when you consider that the ministry maintains about 100 bathrooms, you realize that 699 rolls will not last very long. Our students are planning to broaden this effort with hope that the donation next October will double. The other significant ministry that has begun this month is the introduction of a new Free cell phone app that was introduced to us at the Missouri Baptist Convention this year. This application, that works with Android and IPhone cell phones can be obtained through your cell phone application store, and installs in less than a minute on your smart phones. It is a 10 week, 5 lessons per week application tool that walks the user through the process of not only growing deeper in their discipleship relationship with Jesus but also trains the individ-ual how to become a disciple maker themselves. Jesus last words to his disciples was: “Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, [a] baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matt 28:18-20. Seventy-five students and adults have been given this information about the cell phone application, and three are currently going through it. Can you imagine what God would do in our area if every believer decided to obey God’s command to “Make Disciples” and use this tool to do it? If you would like to investigate this, go to your application store on your smart phone and search for “LifeCoach Dis-cipleship” with Brandon Parks. To verify the icon will be a Red square with white swirl and titled “LifeCoach Discipleship with Brandon Parks. If your the least bit curious, install it on your phone and do the lessons. Who knows, you might find yourself being obedient to God’s command, “Go Make Disciples!” He Is Worthy to Receive the Rewards of His Sacrifice—Souls

Diann Barnes

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Gallatin- Pioneer Club Award's Night will be Wednesday, December 2nd, and there will be no Pio-neer Club until January 6th. Keenagers will have their Christmas Luncheon on Thursday, December 3rd. Discipleship "NOW" Worship at Gallatin First Baptist Church beginning Friday evening, December 4 at 5:30 pm through Saturday, December 5th around 5 pm. Annual Ladies Christmas Ornament Exchange will be on Sunday, December 6th at 4 pm.

The Celebration Choir of Gallatin First Baptist Church, under the direction of Linda Arnold, will present "Believe in Christ-mas" on Sunday morning December 13th at 10:40 a.m. The First Baptist Church of Gallatin Children's Choir will be performing the musical “Cookin' Up Christmas” (Where Love is the Main Ingredient) Sunday December 13th at 7:00 pm. Garrett and Jennifer Trunk will host a Parsonage Open House on Wednesday, December 9th from 6 to 8 pm. Gallatin FBC will host their annual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service from 5 to 7 pm

Missouri State Evangelism Conference

“Desperate Desperate Desperate Desperate forforforfor JESUS”””” February 4-5, 2016

Crossway Baptist Church, Springfield

“Desperate for Jesus,” the 2016 State Evangelism-

Discipleship Conference, is for Missouri Baptists, particu-

larly pastors, church staff, evangelism church leaders, Di-

rectors of Missions, and spouses.

• Join God on His mission despite uncertain circum-

stances.

• Be certain of your own “Macedonia” call.

• Lead your church with new zeal for making disciple-

makers.

• Churches are encouraged to participate in 21 Days of

spiritual preparation conducted Jan. 14-Feb. 3 to pre-

pare for personal revival. Those who register prior to

Friday January 1, 2015, will be given a free guide.

The Mission Center and

Bookstore will be closed in December on the following

dates: December 24th December 25th

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Medicine Valley Community Ministry- We are planning a series of pre-Christmas rummage sales in December at the former Home and Country building in Milan to help fund the benevolent ministry of Medicine Valley Community Ministry.

Finances made available will enable us to develop, “non-food purchases funds”, to help cover the ongoing office, transportation and other costs incurred by the food pantry.

Items for sale will include furniture from the offices at Harris and the parsonage at Newtown. Also included will be furniture and miscellaneous other items presently stored in the garage and attics of the pastor’s home in Humphreys. Donations of items by others will also be welcomed.

The weekend sales will take place on Thursday thru Saturday December 3 thru 5; 10 thru 12; and 17 thru 19.

A large variety of furniture, household items, collectibles and miscellaneous items will be offered for sale with additional items being added daily.

In October the food pantry provided assistance to 242 individuals in 83 households. We expect to assist some 300 peo-ple in over 100 households in December with special “Christmas Food Boxes”.

Sunday services at Newtown remain stable and we now have a good group meeting for Midweek Bible Study on Wednesdays at the pastor’s home in Humphreys.

Again, our thanks go out to all who have and all who continue to support this “Mission in Your Own Back Yard!”

Princeton- Have a blessed day in the Lord and give him all the praise and glory for what he has done for you. Nov. 14th we held a hayride and bonfire a wiener roast, hot chocolate and made s’mores. Everyone had a good time of fellowship, want to thank those who help getting food ready, cutting sticks for the hotdogs and furnishing the trailers for the hayride. Nov. 15th we held our Annual Thanksgiving Dinner, was well attended with lots of good food and fellowship, believe eve-ryone left being overstuffed. Our youth group are averaging 16-20 each week. TeamKid numbers have increased each week. WOM I & II met on November 2nd & 3rd, with a salad luncheon. Our mission for the month of November was collecting for the Shoe Boxes. This ministry is helping others in foreign countries that have so little and giving is a true blessing from God. We finished collecting snacks for the Police and Ambulance departments. At our monthly business meeting we voted to pay off our church loan at the end of December, hallelujah! Our guest speaker on Nov. 22 was Rev. Richard Nations, he is the Director of Missions at Thousand Hills Baptist Asso-ciation in Kirksville

Trenton FBC- Our Church WMU hosted the Association WMU on November 2nd with the Baptist Women Word Day of Prayer. Virginia Crumpacker led the program.

On November 8th during the morning worship service we had our parade of international flags honoring our IMB mis-sionaries. That evening we showed the movie “Matter of Faith”. There was a good attendance.

November 11th during the evening we had a church wide OCC packing party. The drop-off Relay Center was at FBC Activity Center on the 16-23rd– and they collected 1001 boxes! They were shipped to a relay center at Kirksville. A group will be going to Minneapolis Minnesota, OCC Distribution Center Nov 29—Dec 2nd.

November 24th our Keenagers had their Thanksgiving dinner at Galt Café and in the afternoon at FBC they had a guest speaker– Kathy Smith, whom shared about the Women’s Shelter and CASA. Refreshments were held afterwards.

November 29th—December 6th was the week of Prayer for our IMB missionaries.

We will be having a Church Singspiration on December 6th. Our choir will be presenting a Cantata during the morning service on December 13th.

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North Grand River Baptist Association 1108 N Main Director of Missions

Trenton, MO 64683 Rev. E.J. Barnes

Fax: 660.359.0200 Ministry Assistant

E-Mail: ngrmission@sbcglobal.net Debbie Dickinson

BSU Telephone– 660.654.0785 BSU Director

DOM’s Office– 660.359.3365 Telephone – 660.359.3897 Diann Barnes

Web Page– northgrandriverbaptist.com Assistant– Christina Boatright

Church Giving Church Service Times October 2015

Reports Monthly Inc.

BSU Inc. SS AM PM Weds.

Alpha $ 163.47 $ 25.00 9:30 10:30 6:30 7:00

Edinburg $ 430.11 $ 47.79 10:00 11:00 6:00 7:00

Gallatin $ 645.55 $ 50.00 9:30 10:40 6:00 7:00

Galt $ 142.00 $ 25.00 10:00 11:00 6:00 7:00

Jameson 9:30 10:30

Jamesport $ 25.00 $ 25.00 9:45 10:45 7:00 6:30

Laredo $ 269.90 9:30 10:30 6:30 6:00

Lineville $ 156.90 $ 48.20 9:45 10:45 6:00 6:00

M. Valley 9:30 10:30 6:00

Mercer $ 221.40 $ 25.00 9:30 10:30 6:30 6:30

Modena $ 102.39 $ 150.00 10:15 9:00 6:00 6:00

Princeton $ 363.83 $ 50.00 9:40 10:40 7:00 6:00

Ravanna $ 111.16 $ 47.64 9:30 10:45

Rural Dale $ 580.68 $ 75.00 9:45 10:35 7:00 7:00

Salem $ 225.09 $ 50.00 10:00 11:00 6:00

Shelburne $ 492.76 $ 75.00 10:00 10:55 6:00 6:30

Spickard $ 70.00 9:30 10:30

Tenth St. $ 964.50 $ 160.75 9:30 10:30 6:00 7:00

Trenton FB $1,074.42 $ 107.44 9:30 10:40 6:00 6:00

Union $ 159.55 $ 140.00 10:00 11:00 6:00 6:00

Total $6,198.71 $1,101.82 Join any of these churches in worship

Chilli, FBC $ 45.00

MBC

Gilman BC $ 200.00

Zion BC

Milan BC $ 89.05

October 2015 NGR Account Beginning Balance $11,410.17 Income $12,140.34 Total $23,550.51 Expenses $10,035.79 Ending Balance $13,514.72

Line Items in General Checking Designated Funds $8,230.00 General Fund $5,284.72 Checking Balance Total $13,514.72

NGR October 2015 (Does not Include designated funds)

Income $9,523.79 Expenses $7,858.96 Difference $1,664.83

Seminary Checking $263.21 Seminary Savings $2,297.01

Benevolent Savings $781.08

NGR Savings $436.56

BSU– October– Income to Expense Beginning Balance $2,676.04 Income $1,559.69 Total $4,235.73 Expenses $1,701.87 Ending Balance $2,533.86 General BSU Fund $2,433.86

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