Update Spring-Summer 2013

      God continues to work in the people of Kewaunee County, and we are so privileged to be a part of His work.  We rejoice to see souls saved, and six more new Christians have been baptized!  Pastor Ray finished up three in-home discipleship courses this spring, and has begun another this month.  We are sorry to have lost a few families to job moves, and wish we could have spent more time with these new friends. We are comforted to remember that God has begun a good work in them, and will continue to perform it.  Pastor Ray and Tiffany also had the privilege of spending a number of weeks this summer leading pre-marital counseling with two couples, and look forward to working with another engaged couple this fall. 

     Our Lakeshore ladies have enjoyed spending  more time getting to know and encourage each other.  A small group attended the WFBC ladies retreat this past spring, and they have since begun a monthly Ladies Day Out involving all of the ladies at church. 

     Truth Trackers came to a close in May, and most of our regular attenders finished their memory books.  They were excited and proud to receive their hard-earned awards.  This summer we built a Truth Trackers parade float for the Trout Fest weekend in Kewaunee.  Our club kids wore their uniforms, and adults passed out candy and invitations to Truth Trackers in the fall.  Please pray for our teachers, and for attendance as we begin next week.

     Pray also for Tiffany and our kids, as they start a new adventure of homeschooling this fall.  God has led us in this direction for the time being, and we are excited to be spending more time with the family and less time on the road.  We continue to trust God in all things, as He directs and uses us to do His good work.

Winter Update

       At January's Vision Sunday service, Pastor Ray announced our year's theme: "Firmly Rooted and Growing."  In these first month's God has used discipleship and Bible study to establish the "roots" of many in our congregation, and we've seen exciting individual growth.   Although our attendance average has lagged slightly, we did set a new record of 68 this quarter. The closing of Kewaunee's nuclear power plant is beginning to affect the community, and we have already seen some families move away. We trust that God's timing will position our church to be able to reach many through this difficult time in a strongly catholic community.

       God has given a multitude of opportunities and continues to bless the ministry of His Word.  We were able to see 5 people saved over the winter through in-home Bible studies, visitation,and truth trackers. Those converts have committed to baptism and are in the process of being discipled. Please pray for their continued growth.

      

       We also held our first wedding and first funeral in the church building. A relative of Pastor Ray's passed away and the extended family asked to hold the service in Kewaunee. Ray was able to comfort the family and preach the gospel to around 50 people, opening some new doors of ministry.

       Truth Trackers has proven to be a great ministry.  After only 6 months our group averages just under 10 and has been slowly bringing new faces into the building. We
count it a privilege to be able to disciple these children and help them establish patterns of Scripture memory and daily devotions.

       God has placed a burden on the heart of one of our families to take a mission trip to Zambia to help provide bikes for national Baptist pastors who are already preaching the gospel in Zambia and DR Congo. God has been blessing their step of faith to commit to this mission endeavor and raise funds to provide bikes, manufactured
in Zambia, to put pedals under the "feet of the those who preach the gospel of peace."

If you or someone you know would like to participate in the missions endeavor, contact the church @ (920)606-6901 and ask about Faith in Motion: Bikes for God.

 

       Our little ones continue to get bigger. Now at ages 2, 4, 6, and 8, our children are active with us in ministry at the level they are able to be used. We have taken some
time during the winter months to build a pastor's study in our home to provide a regular, quiet place for Ray to study and work. Our college extension team came down to help hang drywall for this room.Thank you for your continued prayers for the church and our own family, as we continue to grow together in Christ.

January Update

       We are loving our new location and making much use of the extra space.   Ladies' Crafter's night started again for the winter, and the added space helped as we've doubled in participation.  Some of our summer attenders are "snow birds" and have migrated south until later this spring, but we've welcomed a few new families and have seen steady attendance numbers.  We were happy to have to order more chairs for the auditorium.  Our children's ministries are growing as well, with the start of Truth Trackers during Thursday night Bible Study.  With the larger auditorium, we are able to hold a full program including game time, a lesson, and snacks.  The kids are working hard to learn their verses and finish their personal devotion books, earning awards and inviting their friends.  We've had a few special nights including Bible Character Night, slipper night, and a Christmas party.  Truth Trackers has proven an excellent program for our group, as children can easily join mid-year and participate in a thorough discipleship program. 

        Much more exciting than growth in numbers, is the spiritual growth we've seen these last months.  Ray has been able to hold in-home Bible studies with four different households, and seen a number of salvation decisions!   A few people have expressed interest in baptism as well.   We are so privileged to be used of God here, and to be invited into the homes and lives of the people at Lakeshore Baptist Church.

One Year Old!

         God has blessed His church in Kewaunee in so many ways this past year. We've seen souls saved! Three young men were led to Christ at Troutfest, from which one family is currently involved in weekly discipleship; and two young children within our church family accepted salvation. God has brought four people to obedience in believer's baptism, resulting in two joyful meetings at the shore of Lake Michigan. What a testimony to the community through those services.

        Our past posts have hi-lighted the events of the year, and we are amazed and humbled to watch God use us to bring together His church in this area. One of the more notable events of the year was our move to a bigger building this September. We had been squeezing into the nursery and classrooms, as well as stepping on toes to walk around our auditorium for a number of weeks, before the membership voted to rent a larger building and move up the street. We are overwhelmed with the steady rise in attendance this summer, and now average fourty-five on a Sunday morning. Our new building meets our needs perfectly, with larger classrooms, a larger auditorium, ample parking, and expanded restroom facilities. We were also able to build storage closets and a much needed mother's room. We did not expect to grow out of our first building so soon, and the renovations seemed a bit like deja vu. However, Ray noted an exciting difference, in that last year the work was done by the people in our mother church at Bay City Baptist, this new building was prepared completely by the people of Lakeshore Baptist Church. Please come visit us sometime at 925 Marquette Dr., Kewaunee, WI, and meet our new church :)

        (Visit our church facebook page for weekly updates and photos)

Summer Excitement

       Before beginning this update, I want to note that Lakeshore Baptist Church has a facebook page which is updated weekly and includes full albums of pictures from these and other events.  Please take a look :)

       Each summer, the city of  Kewaunee hosts a large weekend event we call Troutfest.  The community and tourists enjoy music, food, a parade, fireworks etc.  This year our church was  privileged to add a "free" kids penny carnival to the excitement.  We handed out penny bags with coins, gospel literature, and an invitation to our upcoming VBS program.  What a great time we had as a church body preparing for and working the carnival, knowing we were also doing something that would help the entire community!  We've posted a complete album of pictures from this and all of our events on our church facebook page for those interested. 

       In addition to the Kiddie Carnival, the church worked together to host a Vacation Bible School in July.  We were happy to see all of our church children each of the four days, plus two other families from area churches.  A neighboring business allowed us to use their empty lot to hold our game times, and we had just enough room for Bible lessons, crafts, snacks, and assembly in our Ellis St. building.  We are pleased and encouraged to note that between these two events, we had 100% participation in workers from our church family!

       Later in the summer, and even more exciting, our church held our first baptism service.  A gentleman who had been recently saved before finding our church, and two children - including our own daughter Megan- stepped into the water of Lake Michigan and followed Christ in beliver's baptism.  God has truly blessed our family, our church, and our new city with His working this year.

July

       Summer is up and running here in Kewaunee!  We decided to get Joe and Megan involved in sports here, as a way to get to know people and become part of the community (and the kids love it :)  Megan is playing in the county soccer league with five and six year olds from the city of Kewaunee -- go Vipers!  We've been able to interact on a social level with other parents and her coaches, who are teachers in both the public and parochial schools here.  Megan was very excited to see one of her teammates at church recently, and we learned that the girl's family are born-again believers just up the road!  They attend a church in Green Bay, but have gotten involved in some of our ministries at Lakeshore, and we look forward to another family of Christian friends.  Joseph is back in baseball this season, playing for the Algoma Wolves little league.  This is a special opportunity, as Algoma is a neighboring city in which about half our church attenders are living. God has opened the door for Ray to get to know the coaches and kids by helping with practices and as base coach at the games.  Practices and games keep us busy, but our family can have fun together, and we can meet people and minister all at once.

        In mid-May we began both men's and women's Bible Studies at the church on Sunday nights.  Men and women alternate Sundays, so that we can involve everyone without needing to staff a nursery.  The men are reading the book, The Resolution for Men and have a core of four to six men attending regularly.   The women's study has been very well recieved.  We have twelve to fourteen ladies from the church coming to discuss and study Elizabeth George's book a Woman After God's Own Heart.   Both studies now have attenders from outside the church as well, including our own neighbor.

       Our Sunday morning services continue to grow, filling our pews almost to capacity the past few weeks.  Please pray for wisdom, as we look into short-term answers to our overflowing facility.  We continue to have fellowship potlucks about every six weeks, and were excited to finally have the whole church at our home for the fellowship in June.  It was nice to have a place large enough for the children to run and the adults to visit.  The afternoon brought just about everyone together, and gave us the opportunity to get to know each other in a more casual setting.  Because Ladies Bible Study met that afternoon, our neighbor and her husband joined us for lunch, and realized they have an outside connection with two families in the church.  We hope to be able to spend more time with them before they sell their home and move out of the city.  

       July 14th begins Kewaunee's big annual event Troutfest.   Our church is working together to provide a free children's penny carnival at Troutfest, inlcuding games; inflatables; a dunk tank; snowcones; and popcorn.  Our purposes include serving the community and inviting children to our own Vacation Bible School July 16th -19th.  We are very excited about the level of involvement from our congregation for both of these events.  Please pray that we'll be prepared, and that God will work through us to reach more of the area for Him.     

Spring Update

          It's been a while since we've posted, and so much has happened in the past few months.  Two huge milestones in our life and ministry stand out.  We are excited to report that in March we closed on a house in Kewaunee, and have moved into the community!  God has provided us with a great location in town, and a house that perfectly meets our needs and exceeds our expectations.  The basement came partially finished, speeding up the work for Ray to build his office at home soon.  Our living areas and kitchen have an open layout, allowing us to accomodate many guests at one time for fellowship.  Church families from both Bay City and Lakeshore encouraged and blessed us by coming out to help us get settled.  We are already being well cared for by new friends we've come to care about. 

          On April 1st  Lakeshore Baptist Church celebrated it's charter service, and over the month, fifteen of our attenders were led of God to sign the charter.  Pastor Dave Bender from our sending church Bay City Baptist came out to participate in our charter service, as well as a few church families from Green Bay.  For the month prior to the Chartering Service, Ray taught membership Sunday School classes, detailing the doctrines of the faith to which the church will hold.  We were glad to see Sunday School attendance higher over that month, as people took serious interest in the committment they are making.   We held our first business meeting at the end of April, electing some church officers, and beginning to officially govern ourselves as a united church body.  

          The church has enjoyed various ministries and fellowship this spring in the form of Ladies' Crafters Nights, an Easter Breakfast, a viewing of the movie Courageous, and the renewing of vows for one of our member couples. Our congregation is a sneaky sort, we've discovered, as they turned what we thought was a church potluck into a suprise birthday party for Pastor.  Evidently, we were both kept in the dark for almost a month while they planned.  It was a sweet surprise.   We continue to see new faces, and enjoy getting to know our regulars better every week. 

          The near future sees us holding men's and women's Bible studies on alternating Sunday nights.  Please pray that God works in hearts to attend, share, and grow in this ministry.    The church will also work together to plan and provide a community children's carnival this summer, kicking off our first VBS program.  Pray for the workers and space needed for any expansion in our children's ministries.   We are excited about the place we are as a church, and are setting goals as we move forward.  Though we do not know exactly what the future holds, we know WHO holds our future, and that Lakeshore Baptist Church is HIS church.  He will be faithful.