Celebrating the McKinney Family

Tyler McKinney was officially voted in last Sunday night as our Interim Youth Pastor. We are thrilled to have Tyler on the team and ask you to pray for him, his wife Lindsey and son Cooper. Also, pray for little baby McKinney #2 who is “on the way” right now.

Let us also celebrate the great team of volunteers who have supported our youth over the past year and helped keep our Youth Ministry (YM) going well. Alongside Tyler, Danny Himmel, Galen Beck and Bre’anne Northcutt have made major contributions. Also, our summer intern Patrick McGowan and present intern Kaitlyn Baker have been wonderful for our YM.

Youth Ministry is hard work and time consuming work, and extremely valuable to our church’s mission. 85% of people who choose to follow Christ do so on or before the age of 18. This makes YM critical for the church and makes outreach to children and youth in our community an absolute necessity.

Tyler has a great vision for leading our YM toward accomplishing the mission of sharing the gospel and serving the youth of our city. He has a great team of volunteers who are also big believers in this mission. Therefore, the future is bright for our YM. So, as Tyler transitions from volunteer to the important role of leading our YM, I urge you all to support him, pray for him, and help him wherever and whenever you are able. Keep in mind that Tyler has accepted this role because He has a call on His life that is from the LORD. He recognizes this and recognizes that God’s calling on His life is for this time and this place, at Shadycrest Baptist Church. We glorify God by recognizing this and agreeing with the LORD. May the LORD continue to bless the work of our YM.

Pray for Compassion / Missions

For the past 40 Days we have been praying for Ingathering. Today is the day. We will give well. We will give sacrificially. Then what?

Our mission is to glorify God by sharing the gospel and serving others. So, that is what we must continually refocus toward, and missional opportunities lie before us we must all get behind. Join us in praying for and serving in the success of these opportunities:

The Compassion Experience—2-weeks from now the Compassion Experience will be here for a 4-Day event. Presently we have over 1,800 registered attenders (Fri – 428, Sat – 745, Sun – 488, Mon – 152). We expect 50% of people to RSVP and 50% of people to simply walk up. Therefore, our estimate of seeing 4,000+ people on our campus for the event is certainly realistic. You can sign up today to help at our Hospitality Center or to work in the Compassion Experience on any of the days they are here, Oct 9-12. Our goal is 100 prospect families and 200+ children sponsored. My prayer is that 20 of those children are sponsored by Shadycrest families. Pray & Serve with us! 

Kids Hope Mentors—we will have 10 trained mentors this year. Pray for them and pray they are matched up with the kids God wants us to help!

Operation Christmas Child—our world missions ministry to care for needy kids at Christmas. Pray for success. Begins in October.

Angel Tree—our local missions ministry to care for needy kids at Christmas. Pray for success. Begins right before Thanksgiving (Nov.).

I Love My Church!

Lately I’ve been contemplating all the great things I love about Shadycrest. As I began to make a list I was overwhelmed by the number of great ministries and great people we have here who serve the LORD so well. It literally made me exclaim, “I love my church!”

I LOVE:

Watching our kitchen crew serve our members with great love.

Hearing the stories of members like Alvin Rose and Gene Weaver who visit our homebound and nursing homebound. 

Listening to the testimonies of our youth (Blaine Israel) about what God is doing in their young lives.

Hearing the giggles and watching the smiles as the children played this past week at our AWANA kickoff carnival.

 Praying with our prayer warriors during our 40 Days of Prayer.

Singing with our Celebration Choir and awesome praise band. 

There is so much to love about Shadycrest! What a great place to serve the LORD!
What do you love about Shadycrest? I’d love to hear your story. If you have a story to tell, please contact me. I’m collecting stories and I truly want to hear yours. Call or write me ASAP, and tell me why you love your church! 

Thank You Jerry & Melody McCurdy

Do you know how rare it is for a pastor to serve 15+ years in one church during his career? Lifeway Researchers recently put out the most up to date data on pastoral tenure and the average tenure today is 3.6 years.

Why so short? The answers vary from church to church and pastor to pastor but I firmly believe we pastors cannot fully form an opportunity to minister well to our community until:

1.      We are planted firmly in the congregation and community.

2.      The congregation or community plant us within them/it.

And, when you survey ministers who successfully serve their church for 10+ years you find some common characteristics, such as:

1.       They pray daily for their members and fellow church staff.

2.       They view their family as their first and most important ministry.

3.       They connect with and love the people in their church.

4.       They choose their battles carefully and wisely.

5.       They expect conflict and criticism and they love people through it.

6.       They connect with other pastors in the community for friendship, support, and unity.

7.       They work hard and serve well.

We say thank you to Jerry & Melody for serving Shadycrest so well for 15 years. You set a great example for us all. And, we look forward to celebrating your anniversary next week on Sunday, June 28^th. Everyone, let’s make every effort to be here (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13)!

Celebrate to Replicate

It doesn't matter if you are leading people forward in their relationship with God or in potty training, what's celebrated is replicated.  If we acknowledge and applaud progress, progress will continue.  If we ignore it, enthusiasm will wane and progress will stop.

Perhaps this is why God designed baptism as a visible and outward expression of an inward reality.  When life change is celebrated within the church it becomes contagious and it inspires people to consider their own lives, often resulting in conversations with God that lead to their own personal change. Don’t you get excited when one of our church members tells their story to you? Don’t you get excited when we have baptisms and the candidate shares their love for the Lord on video? I do!

Therefore, today help me celebrate the great work of our Children’s Ministry. Our Children’s Team are all volunteers and they do amazing work. Last Saturday a great team of Children’s leaders and kids were out at Independence Park serving at the “Paws in the Park” event. Yesterday, our Children’s Team was at the Chic-fil-a meeting hundreds of kids and their parents and providing a fun and adventurous Easter egg hunt. And, today you witness the great work of our Children’s Team as our Kids Choir sings in the Easter Service!

Kuddos to our Children’s workers. Join me in celebrating a great team! If you see one of our Children’s workers this week, pat them on the back and tell them how proud you are of their great work!  

Today, I celebrate with you these great servants of Jesus!