Sunday Drive

I bet your Sunday wasn't as exciting as Joey Logano's. I am proudly a NASCAR geek and this happened during Sunday's Dover race. OUCH! The fact that no one was seriously injured in the wreck says a ton about the safety of those cars. My favorite Logano quote after the wreck was, "It was an exciting ride. You won't find any roller coaster that will do that." To that I say, "Thank goodness."



-- Peace, Jamie

Belle Mitchell

If you were at REVEAL on Sunday, then you heard me talk about Belle Mitchell. She is the youngest daughter of our Youth Pastor, David Mitchell.

Last Thursday (9/24) she went to see a neurologist for some strange symptoms that she was having and they admitted her to Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte. The initial MRI results showed that she had a mass on the left side of her brain. The decided to operate on Monday morning (9/28).

The surgery went well yesterday, but unfortunately, the tumor was malignant and there are spots on her spine. It has not yet been determined if those spots are cancer. Belle will be having another MRI this morning (Tuesday). Her team of doctors will be meeting Wednesday to decide on treatment options.

Please pray that she responds well over the next 48 hours from the surgery.

Pray for her recovery from cancer and for her parents, David and Kelley, to experience God's peace. Also pray for her siblings (Taylor, Emily Beth & Jack).

You can follow the updates on Belle here.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger! (Especially in Belle's situation)

Will

Sunday Recap

Every Sunday seems to be busy these days. But yesterday may have been one of the busiest. Left the house yesterday morning at 8:30 and didn't walk back in the front door til almost 10:00 last night. Here are some of the highlights of yesterday's Marriage for Dummies worship gathering at Reveal:

• We kicked off the worship with a video from Worship House Media called "Now Is the Time." I thought it was a great intro to the gathering and got a lot of positive feedback from it.
• The band had a great worship set planned that wrapped up with a version of "I'll Stand By You" which I first remember from The Pretenders but was later covered by Carrie Underwood.
• We made a transition from music to message with a video that Hunter Platt did using the Plain White T's song "1,2,3,4." (See below). As always, he did a very good job, although he did get the length of my marriage wrong. For the record, Marjorie and I have been married 19 years, 9 months, 11 days, 21 hours and 10 minutes as I type this.
• Steve sermon focused on why men and women need each other using Genesis 2:18-24 as his text.
• "God was hands-on in Adam and Eve's relationship. He wants to be hands-on in our marriages and relationships."
• "Most of the problems in marriage are caused because we make marriage about 'me' instead of about our spouse."
• "If you care about your spouse, you don't use or deny your spouse out of selfishness or ignorance" - Willard Harley, His Needs Her Needs
• "Marriage is a relationship of mutual ministry."
• Steve also used Harley's book His Needs Her Needs to highlight the five most important needs of men and women in relationships.
• Men's five greatest needs - sexual fulfillment, recreational companionship, attractive spouse, domestic support, admiration
• Women's five greatest needs - affection, conversation, honesty, financial support, family commitment

We had another great Sunday at Reveal. Attendance has been very good this month which has led to some awesome times of worship. Next week, we will continue our Marriage for Dummies series. If you need to catch up, check out www.marriagefordummies.net.

-- Peace, Jamie

Couple Talk 09.27.09

His Needs
Sexual Fulfillment
Recreational Companionship
Attractive Spouse
Domestic Support
Admiration

Her Needs
Affection
Conversation
Honesty
Financial Support
Family Commitment

Get Started: Each of you take a moment and pick the two needs in the above list that are most important to you and explain why to your spouse.

Affirmation: Share with your spouse what he/she does that meets any of the needs listed above.

Sunday's Sermon: Pastor Steve mentioned during the sermon that marriage is a relationship of mutual ministry, in which each spouse has an unqualified commitment to be an instrument of God to meet the other one's deepest personal needs. What does this mean for you and how do you feel about it? Do you agree?

Learning: Share with your spouse the one need from the above list that you wish he/she did more to meet. Discuss the ways he/she could meet that need.

Discussion: Identify which issue listed below is the greater hindrance to you meeting your spouse's need and discuss it.

• I didn't know he/she really needed that
• I'm not convinced that what he/she says they need is a legitimate need
• I'm not sure how to meet his/her need
• I'm afraid to try...because...
• I'm waiting for my spouse to meet my need first
• I'm afraid my spouse will not return the favor and meet my need
• I'm the way I am and I'm not going to change
• I don't care
• Some other reason (what is it?)

Commitment: Based on this conversation, what will you do in order to better meet your spouse's need? Share your commitment with your spouse right now.

Celebrating: Share with each other what you enjoy most about being married to each other.

Set List 09.27.09

Here is the music that we used for 09.27.09 - Marriage For Dummies (Week 3):

[Opening Song]
G - You're Worthy Of My Praise - David Ruis (Jeremy Camp Version)

[Worship Set]
G - Nothing But The Blood - Robert Lowry
G - All Who Are Thirsty - Brenton Brown (Kutless Version)
D - I'll Stand By You - The Pretenders (Carrie Underwood Version)

[Closing Song]
E - Hosanna, You're The King - David Bell

Once again we had a great crowd in worship. Loved it. Besides having no drums in the mix for the first song, I thought that worship went really well.

Steve's messages have been great during this series. If you have missed them, make sure that you check them out on www.marriagefordummies.net

As always, part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Marriage for Dummies

We are two weeks into our Marriage for Dummies series and are hearing some great comments about the series. In case you have missed one of the sermons, you can go to http://www.marriagefordummies.net/ to listen to sermons.

Also, the website has an evite feature that you can use to invite your friends to the service. If you haven't checked out the web site, let me encourage you to check it out. It's a very simple site but a great way to introduce someone to the series, to Reveal and to First Baptist Church.

This week's sermon is Men & Women - We Need Each Other. Hope you'll join us and bring a friend with you.

-- Peace, Jamie

Weekend Recap

Sunday capped off one of the crazier weekends that I've had in a while. Since you've stopped by the blog, you'll be lucky enough to hear my whole story. I ended up with tickets to the Clemson-BC game on Saturday thanks to Terri and Chuck Hood. So Saturday morning at 7:30, I hopped in the car with Elizabeth, Victoria and Sara Catherine Watts and headed toward Clemson. (My directions were to drive on I-85 till I smelled and turn right on Hwy 76 till I stepped in it, but they were wrong.)

Because I had plans on Saturday night, we knew that we would have to leave at halftime. For the first half, the weather was great - overcast with a nice breeze and very little rain. At halftime, we headed to the car. It started to rain as we headed out of the stadium and was raining pretty hard by the time we got to the car. Before we got back on I-85, the game was being delayed because of the weather. Very few times in my life have I felt smarter or luckier, which means you know what's coming next.

Our Saturday night plans were to go to Heath and Joy Dick's neighborhood for a cookout. My job was to bring a cooler of ice. When we pulled up, there were lots of cars parked on the side of the road, so I decided to drop the ice and Marjorie and the girls off and park further away. In the process of dropping ice and people off, I ended up locking the keys in the van with the van running. Yep, not so smart or lucky. Luckily AAA bailed me out because the coat hanger that Heath found for me was pretty useless.

With that as a backdrop, Sunday turned out to be a great day. Attendance at Reveal was close to the highest it's ever been. There were a number of new couples and college students visiting with us. We had lunch for our college students immediately following Reveal and had an awesome time hanging out together. I capped it off with a college Bible study on Sunday night at Heath and Joy's house. Our college Bible study for the fall is based on Lee Strobel's The Case For Christ. I have read The Case For Faith but this is my first time through TCFC.

While Sunday's can be long days, it's the day that I look forward to the most. So much cool stuff happens. I get to see people that I haven't seen all week. I get to hear stories about what's happening in people's lives. I get to see how God is moving and working in different areas of our church body. Plus, I got to tell my Clemson story coupled with my locking-my-keys-in-my-van story multiple times.

-- Peace, Jamie