By Didi Bacon
God is at Work Through Mount Carmel Christian Church!
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 2:42-47 (NIV)
How do you know that the church is healthy?
This is a question that I have wrestled with for a long time. The answer, of course, can only be found in God’s Word. The church is God’s idea. The church belongs to and is to operate by the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:42-47 is a description of the first church. If ever we can say, this is what God intended the church to look like, Acts 2:42-47 is it.
There are three basic markers of a church working as God designed:
- They baptized people. Through the work of the church, people shared the good news message of Jesus with their friends, those friends believed and were baptized.
- They met together in groups to learn and live scripture. Fellowship means sharing life. Fellowship in the church is sharing the life of faith in Jesus. The place where that happened was in the gathering of small groups where they could love God and love one another.
- They lived generously. The members of the church gave of their time, money, talents, and spiritual gifts to honor God and bless others. Being children of God, they gave themselves to the family business of God.
Baptisms.
Participating in groups that learn and live scripture together.
Generous living.
These are the three things that we measure to evaluate the health of Mount Carmel.
In talking about prayer, my mother used to say, “If you are going to pray for a bicycle, you might as well pray for a red one”. Red-bike-prayers is a phrase that I hear time to time from Mount Carmel members. It means boldly praying in the specifics by faith. Jesus taught us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread”, which means pray about the details of your daily needs. Pray specifically trusting that God will provide.
For 2023 we felt led to have a red-bike-prayer for the church, elevating one of our three measures before the Lord.
We chose baptism. We called it our BIG W.I.G. (Wildly Important Goal) using a concept found in the book The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Hurling.
Our 2023 BIG W.I.G. was this: To go from 39 baptisms to 80 baptisms by December 31, 2023.
God has given us more than we asked. As of my writing this blog post we are at 87! And I have just been told that we have one more scheduled for this coming Sunday!!!
That is fifty-three ladies and thirty-four men. Twenty-eight between the ages of 6 and 10. Twenty-one between the ages of 11 and 18. Nine young adults (19-30 yrs), and twenty-seven over 31 years old.
We baptized in our baptistry at the church building at all times of the day and week. We baptized in the East Fork Lake, the pond at Woodland Lakes Christian Camp and THE Jordan River! Moms and dads baptized their children. Friends baptized friends. Ministers baptized those in the ministry.
Not too long ago a visitor to our church stopped at the TV in the foyer to watch the baptism videos. She was stunned to see all the different people doing the baptisms. I would say that she was witnessing the church of Mount Carmel being the church as Jesus intended.
Praise the name of Jesus!
During this Sunday’s services (December 10) we will be giving thanks to the Lord of the harvest. We asked and He responded; in more than what we asked for!
Our God is so good. Pray Red-Bike-Prayers!
Please plan to join us in our celebration on Sunday.
“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11 (NIV)
