Agape Baptist Newsletter….Special we now have a blog edition! (Also: Holiness, a call to prayer, and Julio Jones)

Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Agape newsletter - now available online as well as via email! Yes, that’s right - we have now entered the twenty first century with a blog! Rejoice! I’ve already posted all of the past Agape newsletters online, so you can relive them should you have a need to. More on the blog in a moment, but first let’s get to our super fast summary: 

1. Sunday message: The wonderful/terrible fire of God’s holiness. 
2. A CALL TO PRAYER (Sunday morning at 9:15) 
3. A special baby shower…
4. More on the blog Pinsonchurch.com/blog 
5. Wednesday night fellowship dinner
6. The Nest, January 27th

This Sunday (January 18) at Agape, I will be bringing a message that concerns God’s call to His church: “Be Holy as I am Holy”. The Holiness of God is both a wonderful and terrible thing, and His call to the modern American church to be Holy is often either ignored or phariseeized by us. Sunday, as God gives grace, I hope to bring a message out of the unchanging word of God that will call us to challenge our ways, our habits and our words, while at the same time avoiding any sort of ungodly, liberty killing response. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty” vs. “Be Holy as I am Holy.” Both are scripture, yet the church tends towards one or the other “extreme”, though we are called to both liberty and holiness. I hope you join us Sunday to find out how we can be both free and holy! 

God is calling us at Agape to make prayer a priority like never before. I believe that to be true with all of my heart. After last week’s 9:15 am prayer time, David challenged us to move prayer from a side section of the sanctuary to front and center. We heard his challenge, and believe it to be from God, so beginning this Sunday, the entire sanctuary will be devoted to prayer from roughly 9:15am up until small groups begin. The Bridge (our coffee and cookies hospitality center) will be moved to the foyer, and also function as a welcome center for guests. I implore and challenge you to come and pray with us at the front of the sanctuary this Sunday, beginning at 9:15. 

This Sunday, we will be having a surprise baby shower for Tameka, one of the Olivia’s house ladies, that has been joining us for worship lately. The shower will take place during Ann Talley’s small group (upstairs, near the sound room), and I encourage all of us to bring items that would be fit for a mom with a newborn. Let’s wrap our arms around Tameka and show her the love of Jesus!

As noted above, we now have a blog. All of these newsletters will be posted there, as well as other thoughts and musings, videos and random things. When you see something interesting there, please forward the link to your friends! The blog can be found at http://www.pinsonchurch.com/blog . It is not currently hosted on Agapepinson.com due to that server not being able to support blogging software. Late last week, while I was setting up the blog, I got a call from my mom, who had been at the hospital with my aunt for her knee replacement surgery. It turned out that Alabama receiver Julio Jones had surgery the same day that my aunt had surgery, and Julio’s room was right next door! My mom spent quite a bit of time talking with Julio and his mom, she told me about it, and I wrote a blog post about it on our new site. One week later, that blog post has been linked to by at least 15 websites, and our site has been visited by almost 2000 people from 8 different countries (including Djibouti and Kuwait). How funny is that? 

Julio Jones in the hospital story (somewhat off-topic)

Alabama wr Julio Jones

In fairness, if David wants to post a Kodi Burns in the hospital story, he can! ;) This week my aunt was at St. Vincent’s hospital to have a complete knee reconstruction done. Being a nice sister, my mom has been at the hospital the last couple of days to support her. Mom just called to share an interesting story with me:

She said that while she was outside my Aunt’s room earlier in the week, a young African American man was wheeled out of surgery, and into the room next to my aunt. Mom tells me that she struck up a conversation with the mom of the young man who had just had surgery. His mom mentioned that her son was a football player, and my mom asked where, and lo and behold, he played at the University of Alabama. My mom perked up a bit then, and asked who he was, instantly recognizing Julio Jones’ name when told, though my mom still calls him “Julio” with a hard “j” sound.

According to Julio’s mom, he had surgery on his shoulder and left wrist. Julio’s mom said that he played the entire season with a broken left wrist, an injury that he apparently received in high school. Julio’s mom said that he initially didn’t tell the coaches because he wanted to play so bad, so he just played with a bulky wrist wrap, to protect his wrist.

The next day, mom walked by the room, and Julio was sitting up, waiting to go home. So, my mom knocks on the door, and goes in to talk to Julio’s mom. (my mom isn’t a very shy person, I guess you might say). She ends up talking with Julio for several minutes. At first she said that she was going to ask him for an autograph, but that Julio’s writing hand was the one that just had surgery (according to my mom), and his other hand had an IV in it. So my mom said, I was going to ask you for an autograph for my 10 year old son, but I see that you can’t write.” Julio told her that he’d try anyway, and sure enough, he gave her an autograph for my little brother. Julio mentioned that he was headed back to Tuscaloosa because class started back today. My mom asked him if he’d be okay going to class so soon, and he said, “Oh yes ma’am, I don’t hurt at all - I haven’t even had any pain medicine.” Tough guy!

Mom asked him about playing with a broken wrist all year, wondering whether it bothered him, and he said that it hurt every time he got hit. (It sure didn’t show). My mom walked away very impressed with Julio, calling him soft-spoken, humble, and very nice. He seems like a really good guy. She said that Julio also mentioned four other players that had surgery that week, but she didn’t remember the names, except for a T.J., or A.J. (”B.J., I asked?” “Yes, that was it” she said).

Disclaimer: My mom is not a journalist, so some facts may be not be airtight, but she’s usually pretty reliable.

I’ll try to get a scan of his autograph later on and post it.

Chase