Pleasant Grove Baptist Church of Neese, Georgia

By Amy Tolbert

Have you been wondering if VBS will happen this summer at PGBC? The answer is yes… and no! We will be having VBS, but like you've never seen it before!

It's called Club VBS, it's from LifeWay, and it's great! It is different in that we meet for Bible Study, Craft/ Recreation, and snack time, only on Wednesdays, only for a little over an hour, and only for five weeks.

Spring Out! closes this Wednesday with our church-wide softball game. Next Wednesday we will have Prayer meeting at the regular time, 7 p.m. Then, June 13th we will crank everything back up with Club VBS for kids ages 4 to 12, Youth meetings with Steve McElroy, and Adult Bible study and prayer with Pastor Jonathan.

The "Snack Shack" (a.k.a. the Fellowship Hall) will open up for the children and youth at 6:30 pm. for fifteen minutes, then at 6:45 pm ALL other Wednesday night activities will begin. Did you get that, folks? There will be a new meeting time of 6:45 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. for adult and children Bible studies on Wednesday evenings, starting June 13.

Here is your part:

• Pray for prep and planning process, for workers, and especially for the kids who will come.
• Grab a few flyers in the foyer and give them to your neighbor’s kids or your grand kids, cousins, nephews, nieces, etc…
• Pray about serving!

By Gail Lester

David, Bobby, and James send many  thank-you’s to their friends at PGBC for the trunk load of gifts. Ramona Booth and I took  the items to the Appalachee DDM Home on Wednesday, and what a blessing we received!

Mrs. Butts (home parent, along with her husband) and the three residents gave us a warm welcome, as we enjoyed a time of fellowship together. David was excited over a card he had received in the mail and shared it with us. James shared pictures of his visit home with his parents. They had fished in the lake and he was proud of the really big fish he caught. Bobby wanted to be sure we saw their rooms before we left, and each was very happy to show off his room. Everyone helped unload and excitedly held up popular items. I think the Macaroni and Cheese Dinners and toothpaste were the most popular items.

By Pastor Jonathan 

How's your heart doing? Not that organ in your chest. The one that impacts decisions, feelings and emotions, desires, and ultimately actions.  Let’s do a little heart checkup today.  To know and understand our heart is extremely important.  It is also, at times, impossible!

“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). 

That is a little hard to swallow and accept for us at times, isn’t it?  We would imagine that we may not know another’s mind or heart, but at least we can know our own heart, right?

• Have you ever cried unexpectedly?
• Have you ever said something cruel, crass, impure, unkind, bitter, etc. and seconds afterwards said or thought “Now where did that come from?”
• Have you ever fallen for a trick or temptation of Satan that you thought you had conquered years ago, months ago, or maybe never been tempted in?
• Have you ever caught yourself daydreaming about something so preposterous, something so evil, something so untrue, and thought “Where are these thoughts coming from?”

If you have answered yes to any of these, then join the club, you don’t fully understand your heart.  Proverbs 27:19 says “As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man.”  That can be disturbing news. 

Jesus said: “The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders” (Matt. 15:18-19).

Consider:

So how is your heart today?  What is coming out of it?  What is your mind dwelling on today?  That which goes through the eyes, is thought about, is listened to, will find its way into our heart.  Then, it can be regurgitated from our hearts to come out another way.  Are your feelings truthful?  Are they feelings based on God’s Word and the message that God’s Spirit longs to fill you with?

As you take that inventory be encouraged that: “Light shall shine out of darkness” and that “God is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”  “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing…”

“We do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.  For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not see; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4).

By Gail Lester

If you were not at Spring Out this past Wednesday, you missed a lot of fun and joy observing the youngest to the oldest having the time of their lives taking on Pastor Jonathan’s amazing obstacle course.

What a great design: Start, run to first pad, somersault, run to and around tree, climb on top of bench, swing out on rope over kiddie pool of water, drop (hopefully) on the other side, run to tunnel, through the tunnel, run to table, up and over, run to two more pads for two more somersaults.

Then it was on to the event that took the longest, the soda cracker (Saltine) table. Eat one cracker, swallow and whistle. If you can’t whistle repeat “she sells sea shells down by the sea shore” or something similar. Then, on to the great “kiddie bike” course to the finish line.

Each one ran the course at least twice, being timed with a stop watch. Brains began to be creative as to how to defeat the great time-eater, the soda cracker table. One six-year-old came up with the idea of running with his mouth full of water to help dissolve the cracker. It actually worked for him, and he posted one of the better times.

I watched and appreciated the adults who were playing with the children, pouring cups of cold water for the thirsty and cheering them on. But I was also sad, because I knew that three who usually attended Spring Out had been placed in foster care the day before and could not come.

If for no other reason, Spring Out has been a success because these three children experienced the fun and attention of people who cared about them. We may never see them again, but I hope they will carry with them the memory that people at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church played with them, ate a meal with them, and showed the love of Jesus to them.

And the King will tell them, “I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” Matthew 25:40 NLT