Big Day Coming…

(Read this in your best Monster Truck announcer voice.)

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday Come one, come all! It’s the biggest little church in Wise County’s 10th anniversary and you are invited to celebrate with us! There will be fun for all ages! Worship! Stories, testimonies and food! All free, no reservation required!

(Okay, you can read the rest in whatever voice you want.)

This Sunday, the 11th, is when we are celebrating our anniversary and Christmas with a very special time of testimonies about our time here at Christ Fellowship and what God has done in these past 10 years. We will have a fairly typical service in the morning at 10 and when that is over, we will have a catered meal provided for you at no charge. When that is over, we will have another time of worship and testimonies and fun and I just can’t wait.

Our own Trina Perry is going to cook pot roast with all the fixins and even cherry cobbler for dessert. So, you don’t have to bring anything. You don’t have to sign up. All you have to do is be there. Our Heavenly Father has been so good to this church and we want to celebrate that and have fun while making Him look good! So, I really hope that if you see this message and you have ever had anything to do with our church, that you will help us celebrate the day. 

Bam and I will see you there! Love, Todd

Happy Anniversary and more

Ten years ago today, a remnant from First Baptist Church of Runaway Bay crossed over the Jordan River (Hwy 380) and settled in the land of milk and honey there in Lake Bridgeport. We changed our name, our attitude and our church and became Christ Fellowship. We consecrated ourselves and God has done amazing things amongst us. All these years later, when few thought our church would continue to exist, we have re-settled once again in beautiful Chico, still Christ Fellowship, still consecrating ourselves and still seeing God do amazing things amongst us.

We will officially celebrate our anniversary on the 11th with lots of stories, testimonies, worship and, of course, a meal. If you are seeing this notification, you are invited to join us for this big day. You are a part of our church family in some way, even if you aren’t a church member and we would love to have you celebrate God’s goodness with us. It will be a day to focus like a laser on God and His goodness and generosity to our church so, please come. The meal will be catered and no charge to anybody. The worship will be good and the stories will be funny! So, plan now to be at Christ Fellowship on December 11th at 10 am.

This coming Sunday, the 4th, we will see why we celebrate Christmas and why it is still so relevant to us today. Our Christmas tree has been set up but, as of last night, only has one ornament so bring an ornament to hang that represents your family on our church family Christmas tree. I can’t wait to see you! I love you all! — Todd

Thanksgiving and Love

This Thanksgiving season we all have so much to thank God for! I’m grateful for my family and my church family. I’m thankful for a place to stay. I’m thankful for Bam. I don’t know about you but I’m thankful especially today for my pants with the elastic waistband. Know what I mean? Thanksgiving is for eating, right? And I’m thankful for God’s provision!

This coming Sunday at Christ Fellowship we will continue talking about what makes us grateful but our sermon series going through 1 Corinthians has led us to the 13th chapter. Most of you know it’s the “Love Chapter” of the Bible. This passage was probably read at your wedding. I believe it is actually state law that it has to be now (maybe not).

We all think we are loving people but as I studied this, I have to say this may be the hardest thing to do if you do it how Paul says to do it in this passage. This isn’t easy. It’s not a natural thing. And it’s not something you can fall into and out of. But it is vital if we want to be holy and Christ-like as we are commanded to be.

This would be a great Sunday to bring a friend to church with you! I can’t wait to see you and worship with you. I love you. — Todd

Let’s use “fowl” language!

Let’s talk about Thanksgiving and the holidays once again. As you know, Christ Fellowship will celebrate Thanksgiving this Sunday with a potluck meal right after morning worship. This is gonna be so good! We have some really good cooks in our church and there is always a feast. So, bring a friend and bring whatever you want to share to eat or drink. If you aren’t a good cook, then bring some ice or rolls or something. That’s what my family usually tells me. “Oh Todd, you bring really good ice.” Hmm, ok. We will have no evening service this Sunday. And you don’t have to bring anything to stay and eat with us. There is always plenty!

Then, December 11 we will have our big 10-year anniversary and Christmas celebration. That’ll be a party! You don’t want to miss that.

Also, December 17th, we will go caroling (weather permitting) through the Chico neighborhoods. We have done this before and it’s always a great time. This year we want to let Chico know who we are so we will make it a big deal.

I can’t wait to see you there Sunday at 10! I love all of you! — Todd

Friday post (rare Wednesday edition)

This is just a reminder that this Sunday is our Christ Fellowship Thanksgiving celebration. We will be having a potluck lunch so I thought you might want to get to the grocery store. I’m hungry already and I can’t wait! But, as always, if you can’t or don’t want to cook something, there is always plenty and you don’t have to. Just come on! Love, — Todd

Praise the Lord, part 2

I continue to praise the Lord this evening. I praise Him for His protection and provision. I praise Him for His grace and mercy, His love for me, His presence in difficult times and I praise Him for Chico and Bridgeport fire departments! As I said this morning, I closed on my little crack house on Walnut Street at 10 then proceeded to start moving stuff in. The electricity was off so I called a provider to turn it on. But evidently, I had put a box of food on the stove and after I left, the power came on and the stove was on. Pretty much everything inside is ruined and will need to be replaced or repaired. The walls, floors, roof, ceiling, windows, everything had either fire, water, heat or smoke damage. But praise God nobody was hurt. I still have a place I can stay. What was lost was just stuff and most can easily be replaced (with insurance, which I should have. I’ll call them tomorrow.) But all is well.  God is in control and He loves us. Thank you to all who have asked to help but I don’t need anything right now. I’ll let you know when I do. And I praise the Lord for my loving church family! — Todd

Praise the Lord!

Wanna know what I just realized? The Book of Psalms says, “Praise the Lord” A LOT! Almost every psalm says it and some of them say it over and over and over. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord with singing. Praise the Lord with the harp. Lift up your voice and praise the Lord. In fact, it is all through the scriptures, from Old Testament to New. I guess it’s pretty important and I have an idea it’s not just for Sundays. Do the people around you ever hear you praise the Lord? At work? At home? With friends? It’s a command. Praise the Lord!

Let me give you my praise to the Lord this morning along with a friendly invitation. At 10 am today, I am closing on my little crack house here in Chico. The address is 210 Walnut just off 1810, three blocks from the blinking light at 1810 and 101. Thank you, Lord! It is only by God’s grace and mercy and provision that I found this place and am able to buy it. Thank you also to Christ Fellowship for taking care of me like you have all these years. So, I say with David and Asaph and the sons of Korah and Moses and all the others in Psalms, “Praise the Lord”!

That leads to the invitation to help me move. It’s supposed to rain some today plus I don’t know how long it will take to close the deal but I will be moving some things today. But most of it will be moved tomorrow, Saturday and some next week. If you want to help, it would be greatly appreciated. I’ll need trucks and trailers and muscles and opinions and every other kind of help. So, if you can, give me a call or text and we will see if we can make this work. I appreciate it very much! 

I love you all and I can’t wait to see you at Christ Fellowship Sunday so we can do more praising the Lord! — Todd

Holiday Schedule

Ah, Fall! Today was a beautiful, chilly, wonderfully rainy, cool and crisp fall day. You know what that means. It’s time to break out your pumpkin spice Bibles for church Sunday. Right? That’ll be great! Enjoy this nice weather for the two days Texas has fall. It’ll probably snow next week. But this Sunday is supposed to be very pretty and nice and I sure hope you make it to Christ Fellowship for worship.

Again, this year we are trying to be mindful of how busy the holiday season is for everybody. We want to celebrate the holidays together as a church family but we know you have other family and work parties and all that other stuff so make sure you write these down somewhere so you don’t miss out.

November 20th will be our Thanksgiving celebration and we will have a potluck at the church.

December 8th is our Thursday night Bible study party.

And the big one is our church’s 10th Anniversary / Christmas party on December 11. Our actual anniversary is December 2nd but we will celebrate big time on the 11th with a catered meal after the morning service and then after lunch, we will have some more celebration with some singing and some testimonies. It’s going to be a lot of fun!

So, make a note of all that and I will see you at 10 am this Sunday morning and then again at 6 pm. I can’t wait to see you! I love you all! — Todd

What to look forward to

My routine on most mornings includes checking my email, then the online news real quick (not too much) and then a quick glance at Facebook to make sure nothing big is happening and then get on with the day. It was all so depressing this morning. The news especially just made me feel down. Corruption, despair, prices, violence, etc, etc. So, I quickly put that down and went to scripture. The Psalms always make me feel good. I’ll go there. I turned to Psalm 88 and read, “My soul is full of trouble and my life goes down to the grave…I cry to you for help, Oh Lord. Why do you reject me?” And it ends with, “My companions are dead. Darkness is my closest friend.” *sigh* That wasn’t helpful.

Ah! But I know where the good stuff is found! The back of the book! Read this and try not to smile. “Now the dwelling of God is with men. They will be His people and God Himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things will pass away.” And Christ Fellowship said, “Yeet!” Yes, for now we live in the old order of things but the good news is that it won’t always be this way.

Soon and very soon we are going to see the King! Are you ready? Are you living like it in the short time we have left on this earth? Thank you, Lord, for your Word. Thank you for this church. Help us to make you look good today. Amen.

I love you all and can’t wait to see you Sunday at 10 and 6. — Todd

Coming up!

Well, this is the weekend for the big Chico Fest and I am pretty excited! I talked with a lady in the community yesterday and asked her if Chico Fest was a big deal. “Well,” she said flatly, “it is Chico.” So, I’m not too sure what to make of that. Evidently, that means it’s gonna be a really big deal! So, I can’t wait.

If nothing else, it’s going to be a party at the Christ Fellowship booth. We will have food and drinks to give away. We will have a registration for several baskets full of goodies to give away. If you would like to help with the baskets, please call Lois. We will also have music and lots of us will be there, so it’ll be fun. It’s from 9-4 tomorrow (Saturday) on the square.

I had a dream last night that we tied a balloon to each of the baskets and people got to pick which prize they wanted by shooting the balloon with a shotgun! That sounds like fun, huh? Should we try that? What could go wrong? You know our motto around here. “Jesus first, safety third.”

Then Sunday we will continue our journey through 1 Corinthians as Paul talks about sex, marriage and divorce through chapter 7. And don’t worry. I will keep it rated PG but also filled with grace, forgiveness and the really Good News of Jesus! I can’t wait to worship with you! Bring a friend to our new location at 405 W. Kentucky in Chico. I love you all! — Todd