Historical Events (September, 2013 – August, 2014) Spencer Baptist Church, Spindale

We began our new missions year, a new Sunday School year, and a new music year in September. All of our preschool and children’s choirs, GA’s, RA’s, Mission Friends, and Youth on Mission groups resumed and our Wednesday night activities indeed make Spencer “The Place To Be.” Our Pave the Way Committee/Ministry continues to operate fully within the Spindale area, providing transportation to church for many children and adults. We are now using both our bus and our van to bring people each week.

In August, the WMU sponsored “Christmas in August.” This year’s efforts were aimed at helped children in our community who need school supplies. As part of this night, our RAs sponsored a Donut Hole Eating Contest. They took pledges from people by how many donuts the boy could consume in 60 seconds. All monies raised went to support the 2013-2014 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering/Offering for Global Missions. After the contest, the pledges were counted, and the boys ended up raising around $300 by eating donuts!!

September was a busy time in the life of our church. Our Youth “SideKicks” program began – offering each youth an adult who could mentor and encourage him/her. Training took place during the month of September, and the program was fully launched in October. Also in September, we welcomed Ken Turner and the Valor III Quartet in concert. It was a great night of music and worship.

Our Adult Men’s Sunday School class sponsored an auction on Sat., Oct. 12. All proceeds from this successful event went to help with church ministries and missions.

In October, the children of our church were once again “treated” to a special “Trunk or Treat” and Fall Family Festival. We had hot dogs, games, a hayride, crafts, and more. This was a wonderful alternative to trick or treating and our members enjoyed a special time of passing out treats from the trunks of their cars! Also throughout the month of October, we collected gum for the Red Box ministry of NC WMU.

Our RA groups held a Christmas wrapping paper and Christmas Card sale during the months of October and November. The items were sold and the profit was used to feed hungry families at Christmas. All of the items were new and unopened, and everything was sold from the tables – it was a great way to raise a little money without ordering and having catalog sales.

Our GA groups hosted a World Craft Party on Nov. 3. World Crafts is not a fundraiser – it’s a missions opportunity. All of the money raised is directly returned to the impoverished artisans so they can continue to make more products and earn a better way of life. It’s a hand up – not a hand out.

Our annual Thanksgiving Lovefeast was on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. This banquet is an annual event in which we fellowship, eat and worship together as we give thanks to God for the many blessings of the year. Earlier that day, our youth assembled and then delivered fruit baskets to our Homebound Members.

Spencer sponsored our own Project Angel Tree, with names of children in our area who needed assistance with toys and clothing. Each applicant was given an angel ornament and church members and Sunday School classes selected ornaments off the tree and then bought gifts for that “angel.” We were able to help 54 children with Christmas this year! It was a huge blessing to all involved.

Throughout the year, our RA’s have continued to sponsor a recycling campaign and have been encouraging our members to bring all of their aluminum cans to the church. When they turned them in for money, they had enough to purchase Christmas dinners for 17 families. The boys met and packed the food for each family who otherwise would not have enjoyed a holiday meal.

The rest of the Advent season was full of activity around our church. There were many special presentations throughout the Advent season. Our preschool and children’s choirs presented “A King is Coming” and The Adult Choir presented ”O Holy Night.” Our church family also gathered to go caroling to our Homebound Members during this month. We participated with the other churches in the Central Rutherford Ministerial Association at the annual Candlelight walk and worship experience at the Spindale House. The season was concluded as we gathered for a Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at 9 PM on Dec. 24th.

We received the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering/Global Mission Offering through the month of December. We met and then exceeded our goal of $10,000 by raising $12, 255.00. Several special events helped us work up to this goal. During this time for adults, the WMU hosted an International Missions Study to educate us on the needs of others. The youth once again sponsored the Missions Post Office allowing members to send Christmas Cards to other members (with all money being raised for missions)

A ladies Bible Study was offered beginning in January based on the book “Do You Think I’m Beautiful” by Angela Thomas. An average of 16 women participated in this study.

We welcomed a new staff member to our church in January – Dr. Leslie Downs. Les is our new pianist and contributes to our worship experiences in wonderful ways. He also works at Mars Hill University and East Tennessee State Univ.

Our Youth participated in an annual Winter Retreat February in Boone, NC. Thirty-five youth and adults participated in this weekend time together at the Covington Lodge. The youth also led us in participating in the “Souper Bowl of Caring” project to help feed the hungry/homeless in our area. As attendees left the worship service on Feb 3, our youth held soup pots, collecting dollars for this ministry. Also after morning worship, a soup lunch was held in the Family Life Center to raise additional money. The total we received for hunger for hunger ministries was over $700 in just one day.

Our children participated in “Children’s Ministry Day” in February as well. This year’s theme was Generation Reach. The children did several projects that day – planted a garden, shopped for baby items and assembled 4 baby baskets for new moms, and finally they decorated cupcakes and cookies for our Homebound Members and other senior adults.

We were very excited to have Tana Hartsell, president of WMU of NC lead us in worship on Sunday, Feb. 23. She was invited and able to come as we observed our Focus Week on WMU. One of our GAs was a featured writer in the prayer guide that was published by WMU for use that week. Dallas Kirby won an essay contest, writing about our past WMU president, Lucille Moore. Her essay was used in the prayer guide which was sent to churches throughout NC. Congratulations to Dallas!

Spencer participated once again in the weekly Lenten Services sponsored by the Central Rutherford County Churches. Area churches took turns providing the Lunch Meal. This year the services were held each Tuesday of Lent at the First United Methodist Church in Spindale.

Our church held our Annual Easter Egg Hunt for children the Saturday before Easter. The Adult Choir presented the cantata “Joy Comes in the Morning” during Palm Sunday worship services. On Easter Sunday, sunrise services were held on the front steps of the church, and a special Resurrection worship service was held at our normal time of 10:55 AM. During the month of April, we observed our Week of Prayer of North American Mission and received the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering/Global Mission Offering. We received close to $5,000 for this year’s offering.

In April, Billy Vaughn retired as pastor of our church. We held a special time of worship together with him and his family on Sunday, April 28 during the morning worship and then came back for a special meal and service that evening. We are grateful for Billy’s 19 years with us, and pray that God would lead us to our next pastor.

Our church was host to the Associational GA 100 Year Celebration in May. Girls from churches throughout our association came together to celebrate this milestone. After worship, the girls were invited to play games, make crafts, participate in a photo booth, and more. It was a wonderful day of celebrating 100 years of Girls in Action.

Special services in May included our preschool and children’s choir end of year worship concert and presentation. We also had a worship service with special recognition for high school and college graduates. In late May, we celebrated with our GA and RA groups as they held an end of the year recognition service. The boys and girls received numerous badges representing all the work they had completed throughout the year. They also shared with us the many wonderful things they had learned about missions and ministry as they had participated in GA’s and RA’s.

Over the summer, our church hosted a special community event for our church and community. This event was held at the Spindale House and we had inflatable games, hot dogs, sno-cones, etc. The purpose was to register children and adults for Vacation Bible School. The event was a huge success and helped our community understand that Spencer Baptist Church cares about the people of Spindale and surrounding areas! Vacation Bible School was held in June. We enrolled 264 participants this year, with an average attendance of 214! We also held “Marvelous Mondays” throughout the summer for children in grades 1-5. Participating children went to the movies, Water Park, Gravitopia, and more.

Nineteen of our children and chaperones went to Centri-Kid in June. This was our second year to experience camp with our older children and we had a great week together learning about God’s work in our lives.

Our youth went to M-fuge with in July to do roofing! This wasn’t the original plan, but God calls us at times to change plans, so we did. The youth had a great experience as they joined with other teens from all over the states for these various mission opportunites. Also, over 50 young people and chaperones attended Youth Week at Caswell in July. Our youth/adults continued their participation with the Kentucky Mission Efforts, making numerous trips to KY throughout the rest of the year to deliver clothes, household supplies, and other items collected by Spencer.

There is not enough space to record all of the other events and opportunities brought by our congregation and to our congregation. But all of our people know and understand that it is all done for God, to share the love of Jesus with others near and far. Thanks be to God.