Church Family,
In our last issue of the Forerunner, I wrote about our major local missions initiative, Impact Week. During the week of September 12-18, Fee Fee Baptist Church is having this local missions push for the third consecutive year. Over the course of this one week, our church is going to give hundreds of volunteer hours to different non-profit organizations and the city of Bridgeton. Our church has been serving this community faithfully for over 200 years, and I am praying that Impact Week will help us continue that tradition and let us be exposed to, and meet, many different needs around us. I want to encourage you to sign up to serve if you haven’t already.
In addition to Impact Week, I wanted to take a moment to share with you something exciting that we are going to be doing to celebrate the conclusion of our week of local missions. We are going to have an off-site worship service and church picnic at Redemption Ranch on Sunday, September 19! Redemption Ranch is a Christian camp/retreat center about 40 minutes from our church in Winfield, MO.
This retreat center has a great amphitheater where we will have a worship service, and then a covered pavilion where we will have lunch. There is a lake to swim in, hiking trails to walk on, a sand volleyball court, a disc golf course, gaga ball, a playground, and more! Our Athletics Committee and Children’s Committee are going to have different activities set up as well. We will also have the option of board and table games and cards in the shade.
As we have been studying Acts 2 and the early church, we see that they devoted themselves to fellowship and breaking of bread. These last 18 months have been a trying time for all of us. After talking and praying with our staff and our deacon body, we all decided that doing a worship service and church picnic/fellowship at Redemption Ranch could be a great way to promote fellowship within our church family. I know that it is definitely abnormal to not have our worship service on our church campus, but we felt it was worth trying something different to really press into the idea of sharing a meal and sharing our lives with one another. I just want to encourage you to remember that the church is not a building. We can be the church and gather for worship and glorify God whether it is in our sanctuary or out at Redemption Ranch!
I want to encourage you to do a few things leading up to this celebration Sunday. First, please be in prayer for our Impact Week and our celebration service at Redemption Ranch. We want to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our community and then we want to have true biblical fellowship with one another! Second, I want to encourage you to sign up, either in the Connection Center or online, to tell us you are coming out to Redemption Ranch. We definitely don’t want to run out of food, so please sign up by September 12 so we can make sure we have enough for everyone!
Third, on our app and website is a list of “What to Bring” and other important info about our celebration service, or there are handouts in the Connection Center. Please make sure to get that information so you can be prepared for our special Sunday.
For those of you who are unable to make it out to the ranch, we will have a special service online that will be available to view at both 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on September 19.
In Him,
Pastor Zach