Christmas Look

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around Highland Drive Baptist Church. Thanks to everyone who helped setup the outside display and the inside decorations. I just love Christmas. I have been listening to Christmas music for several days. We have also already begun to watch Christmas movies. I guess I am just a sentimentalist. We are still a day away from the beginning of December, but let me wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Thanks for all of the positive comments about the recent sermon series, "Packing Your Child's Suitcase." It was a joy to preach it and a pleasure to receive the positive comments. If you missed one or all of the sermons, you can get them from our website, www.hdbc.org, or you can listen through podcasting on iTunes.

Blessings

It is Monday morning and I am still enjoying the blessings from yesterday. We had a wonderful day of worship with the HDBC family. One young adult was saved during small groups. Two other individuals made open professions of faith in Christ and requested baptism. A family of four united with the church. Also I am getting many comments related to the current sermon series. These are exciting times at Highland Drive and we praise God for it.

I am looking forward to a wonderful Thanksgiving week. Joy will be coming home on Tuesday. Jan's brother's family and her mom and dad will be with us Thursday and Friday. On Saturday Jan and I will travel to Starkville to watch the final football game for Mississippi State as they play their in-state rival, Ole Miss. Looks like a fun week.

Computer Work

It is official. We are computer-dependent. Glenda's hard drive decided to die yesterday and it pretty much brought her to a screeching stop. After running all the possibly diagnostics and attempts to fix that bad boy hard drive we gave up and picked up a replacement. In case you are wondering about the size of the new hard drive, it is one terabyte. If you are like me you are now wondering what a terabyte is. Well it is one thousand gigabytes. A gigabyte is one thousand megabytes. A megabyte is one thousand kilobytes. A kilobyte is one thousand bytes. Are you still with me? I remember when we measured hard drives by kilobytes. Now we are in the terabyte era. At least she will be able to store a few pictures and videos.

In case you are wondering what comes next . . . petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte, and yottabyte. Now you are ready for the future!

See you Sunday.

Hurting People

There are a lot of hurting people in this world. It breaks my heart when I look around and see good people who truly love the Lord going through extremely difficult experiences. It reminds me of the need to be more sensitive to the people around me and to look for ways to encourage. I want to look beyond the surface and be more discerning of those who need a special touch or and encouraging word. Lord, open my eyes today to see those who are in need of what only You can give through me.

Packing

Packing is not one of those things that most of us enjoy doing. But it is necessary when we leave home. All children will eventually leave home in order to enter the adult world. It is the job of every parent to pack their child's suitcase with the essential things that they will need as adults. That is the subject of the current sermon series at HDBC. Join us this Sunday as we continue to look at four key things that every child needs before entering adulthood.

See you Sunday.

Harvest Festival 2009

Harvest Festival 2009 was a huge success. God was so good to bless us with gorgeous weather. HDBC members came out in unbelievable numbers to volunteer their time and energy. Youth, children and adults all pitched in to make it all happen. Special thanks to Trinity Church for allowing us to use their parking lot. Without their generosity we would not be able to do it. And the people came . . . and came . . . and came. We registered close to 700 children. This doubled the number of children from the previous year. We gave away snow cones, hot dogs, cotton candy, popcorn and thousands of pieces of candy. Most of all, we shared the love of Jesus with our community. Thanks, HDBC family, for caring enough to reach out to the community.