May Newsletter

To the Church Family at Faith Baptist Church;
              When I was in my first church out of seminary, I had a vegetable garden. May was a busy time with the garden. Nothing was ready to harvest (except maybe the green beans
if I had planted them early enough) but there was weeding, hoeing, and applying pesticides.
Jesus often used agricultural illustrations. One was the parable of the Sower. In this parable some of the seeds didn’t get a chance to germinate, some sprang up quickly but wilted, and some were choked by weeds and therefore produced no crop. 
Let’s focus on the plants that were choked by the weeds.  The month of May might be a good time to examine your life.  What is choking out your spiritual growth and productivity?  In Jesus’ parable, it was the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches that choked out fruitfulness.  It is very easy to focus on the urgent to the neglect of the important. We get caught up with many anxieties. We can focus so much on earning a living and accumulating material things that we neglect things that matter much more in the long run.  Therefore, ask God to show you what is choking your fruitfulness and then weed it out of your life.              
Also, pray that Faith Baptist Church will be fruitful as a church, being what God wants us to be and doing what he wants us to do in Swansea. Ask that we will have his clear direction. Ask that he will guide and empower us by his Holy Spirit to spread the Good News and minister in Jesus’ name to the needs around us. Pray that we will have an outward mentality that enables us to see and respond to the spiritual,
physical, and material needs around us. Together, let’s be fruitful for God’s kingdom.
The month of May is usually a busy time in churches and Faith Baptist is no
exception. As you will see elsewhere in this newsletter, on May 5 we are having VBS leader training, May 12 is Mother’s Day, and we are planning to have a baptismal service on May 19 In Jesus’ parable, some of the crop did produce a crop.  I hope you have a joyful and a fruitful May.
Your pastor,
 Ken Harmon