Message from the Pastor & Devotionals

Dear Bladen Charge,

I want to devote this portion of the newsletter to request your prayers for our three missionaries who are traveling to Rwanda this month. February is the month that we celebrate Valentine’s Day which emphasizes love. I have seen the love of Jesus shine brightly as God has made a way for Janice Humphreys, Howard Faircloth, and Delana Faircloth to go to Rwanda as a part of the ZOE Ministry to orphans in Africa. They will be there for the first two weeks of this month. We want to pray for their safety and for God to protect them in every way. We want to pray for God’s Spirit to move through them as they minister to the orphans and people there in such a way that God’s love is shown abundantly. We want to pray that God will inspire them with a passion that they return as advocates for the ZOE Ministry in Rwanda that they will ignite that passion in the lives of others who would be willing to support or even go and be a part of the mission there. Finally, we pray that the light of Christ will shine through them into to the lives of many who have or are facing dark days. Let Howard, Delana, and Janice know that the Bladen Charge churches are holding them up in prayer and that we have their back. We will be here rooting them on. I want to personally write this part to each of them. I am very proud to be your pastor and may God truly bless all three of you and your work as you go on this wonderful journey of mission and ministry. For the rest of us, may we search for places of mission and ministry that God opens the doors for in our lives. It does not have to overseas or even in another state. It may be in your own back yard, on your work place, or in the Wal-Mart or grocery store. God desires to use all of us to make a difference in someone’s life. May we show the real love of Christ to someone this Valentine’s season. May God bless you all in your endeavors to make Christ known.

In Christ,

Dr. Tim Reaves, Lead Pastor

Be Heart Smart

Every month of the year has something for us to remember or celebrate. February certainly provides its share of things to think about with Valentine’s Day and Heart Health Month. Both deal with the heart and with love so this month’s topic is being heart smart both physically and spiritually.

There is much reason to be concerned about heart health. In 2012 alone, 770,000 people are expected to have a first heart attack while another 430,000 will have a recurrent attack.

With so many at risk for heart problems, this is a good time and forum for reviewing the symptoms of such an attack. They are: an uncomfortable pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the center of the chest lasting two minutes or more; pain in the center of the chest spreading to the shoulders, back, arms, neck, jaw or even the stomach; and dizziness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath. If you experience any of these warning signs, seek help right away!

Thankfully, there are some things that we can do to help prevent an attack like not smoking, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, eating fresh foods, and having regular heart checkups. Usually when we think about having heart checkups we think about the welfare of our physical hearts but shouldn’t we think about our spiritual hearts as well?

Jesus knew the key to living an abundant spiritual life. One of the Beatitudes states “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” It’s a simple sentence yet it has the potential to impact all our lives because if the heart is sick our whole life will reflect it and that sickness will be projected onto the world.

Christianity is about the gift of God’s love and of God’s expectation of us to love Him and others in return. The key word used in our Christian faith, in fact, is love. It is founded on the interconnectedness of God’s love and how we share that love with others. Our Christian use of the word agape comes directly from the teachings of Jesus. When asked what was the greatest commandment, he answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Matthew 22: 37-40.) Christ knew that the key to living an abundant life is the heart and love.

But, think about how little love there is in the world. Statistics show us that 75% of the population of the United States is unchurched, that there are 46 million living in poverty and approximately 4 million adults and juveniles are in U.S. prisons. Since it is love that binds us together or the lack of it that tears us apart, these and numerous other statistics that we can name show us that collectively, we have an unhealthy spiritual heart (1 John 4:8,12,20.)

One test of our love for Christ is our love for others, not just by our words but by our attitudes and actions as well (John 13: 31-35.) How do we know if our spiritual heart is healthy? One way is to take the Heart Smart Test developed by Leonard Sweet of Christian Globe Networks. It consists of five questions that lend themselves to the degree of our spiritual wellness. They are:

1) Does your heart break at the sight of a homeless man or woman sleeping in a box?

2) Does your heart ache over an angry teenager who makes bad choices, who chooses hate over love?

3) Does our church heart enlarge to welcome those who look and act and seem different than the rest of us?

4) Does our church heart thrive on arrhythmia, skipping the beats of the world …, choosing instead to have its rhythms be regulated by the Spirit?

5) Does your heart, when it sees disease and sickness and need, beat in your chest so loudly that others can feel it?

If we as individuals or as a church answer no to any of these questions, we can consider it a warning signeart Smart.Heart of an unhealthy spiritual heart.

But how can we improve the condition of our hearts, how do we learn to love like this? The answer is that only a heart filled with the Holy Spirit can love like that. We have to reach out and take the hand of God and in doing so also take the hand of our neighbor.

“Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love…” Dr. Nancy S. Edwards