Join us every Sunday morning for VBS during our morning worship @ 10 AM. Our theme is SonWorld the Adventure Park.  There are crafts, games, great stories and snacks!!!

Join us weekly on Sunday evenings from 6:00-7:20 PM!  AWANA is a great way for our children to learn important life lessons about responsibility, helping others, Bible truths and teamwork.  We have clubber groups from Pre-school through 5th grade. We hope to see you there!

Our AWANA Grand Prix is scheduled for Saturday, February 6, 2010, starting at 3:00 PM in the fellowship hall. Please, join us to watch the children race their cars. It will be loads of excitement. See you there!

I think that one of the most misunderstood of the commands of Jesus is this one: Do not judge (Matt. 7:1). You tell me: Is it judgmental to stand outside Joel Osteen’s church and preach against him? Check it out on YouTube. Is it judgmental to speak out against the legalization of gay marriage? To tell a friend that her sexual promiscuity is sinful and destructive? To confront a friend regarding his drinking? The command is clear: do not judge. To judge is God’s responsibility, not mine. If I do judge others, I will be judged. But what does it mean to judge?

I’m not much into fasting. I get grouchy when I don’t eat (just ask my wife). I guess, with my high metabolism, my body doesn’t like being starved. But I have, a couple times in my life, fasted for a brief period of time. But neither of them really count for much. One of the times was when I was in elementary school – the children’s ministry at church had an all-boys over-night event at church and if we made it the entire night without eating we won a prize. It wasn't very hard because there wasn't any food there anyway. And the other time was a sort of assignment as part of a spiritual formation class in seminary. It was a good time of prayer and meditation, but I’m not sure I would have fasted if I weren’t required to. Obviously my experience with fasting is not authoritative or exemplary. But I wonder, is there any spiritual value to fasting? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to His followers, “When you fast…” (Matt. 6:15). Jesus assumed that His followers were fasting. Is that a safe assumption? Do we fast? Should we fast?

I’ll admit it… I have a problem… a problem with prayerlessness. I don’t pray as regularly and passionately as I ought. I recently told my wife that I’d much more enjoy reading the Scriptures than spending time in prayer. I don’t know why and I guess it doesn’t matter why. Maybe some of you have a healthy prayer life, but if you’re like me… I have to confess that my prayer life is not the way it should be. Most of the responsibility falls on me. Most of the problem is me. However, I think sometimes part of the problem is a misunderstanding of prayer and improper expectations we ourselves or others put on us. For instance, sometimes we might feel, hearing stories of great prayer warriors, that we’re expected to spend an hour on our knees every day. Or sometimes we misunderstand what prayer is and how it happens – we think that prayer is that thing you do while kneeling beside the bed with your eyes closed. (Again, this is does not excuse my prayerlessness - most of the problem is me.)

In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6:5-15, Jesus assumes that His followers are praying: “When you pray…” I wonder if He would be satisfied with my prayer life?

Now before you go and get all judgmental let me explain!! Tonight at the college bible study group we talked about a book we are reading as a group called Heaven Is a Place On Earth.. In this book the author talks about not wanting to go to the "heaven" us humans depict.. We place ourselves in the clouds with halos and white robes, or playing harps and floating around.. But this is not biblically true, heaven is going to be on our recreated earth.. So we had a great bible study surrounding this topic...

This past Sunday we had an all SALT fellowship after church. For those of you who don't know "SALT" stands for Serving And Learning Together. Out under the drive up we had tables and chairs sitting out and food in the atrium. People gathered, ate and became merry! That is what we call a picnic at B.H.B.C. I hope that everyone attended! If you didn't you missed out on a lot of fun!

Saturday, Sept. 12th
9 AM - 3 PM
Woodside Bible Church in Troy is hosting Jeff Smith for the Kids Ministry Unleashed. There are over twenty workshops to choose from. Each leader can attend two workshop sessions. Contact Micha'l McCoy as soon as possible for registration.

Cowboys and Indians. The Autobots and the Decepticons. The Red Sox and the Yankees. Enemies. Living in our reasonable civilized society, not many of us have personal enemies. There certainly are enemies of Christianity: secularists and atheists. There are enemies of Western society: Islamic terrorists. And enemies of our worldview: the liberal media. Most of us, however, do not have personal enemies. But we do have people we don’t like and who don’t like us. In our families there are people who we really don’t look forward to seeing at Thanksgiving. At work there are people who we don’t get along with and try to avoid. Even at church there are people who irritate us and we would prefer not to be around them. It’s natural to gravitate toward certain people, but is it right? Is it right to keep our enemies at bay? I don’t remember who said it, but he recommended keeping your enemies close; keep them close so that you can keep your eye on them. I think Jesus would also tell us to keep our enemies close, but for a different reason…

Last weekend we celebrated the 233rd birthday of the United States of America. On Wednesday my wife and daughters and I watched the Rochester Hills fireworks in the rain. Even though we were about a mile away, far from the startling booms, after the first little thud Riley buried her head in my shoulder and wouldn’t look up until it was over. But Madelyn loved the show. Heather took her to another show on Saturday and they sat just a few hundred yards away, right below the action. I stayed home with Riley. I guess fireworks are one way of celebrating our nation.

As kids we’re taught to salute the flag, say the pledge, and stand for the national anthem. We’re taught how great this nation is. I was taught the same thing. I said the pledge everyday at school when I was a kid. (Do they still do that today?) But as a young adult I began to question the greatness of our nation, mostly in reaction to the over-idealization of our nation by many Christians. I heard “American was founded as a Christian nation” asserted and demanded as if it were a cardinal truth, a non-negotiable of orthodox Christianity. But Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was a deist for goodness sake! I reacted to the seeming worship of America, usually America of the past. But I’ve had a change of mind. I still don’t believe that America is a Christian nation. (People are Christians, not nations. We may be founded on Christian principles, but we, as a whole, are not Christian.) And I do not believe that the kingdom of God depends on the existence of the United States of American. But, that being said, I have rediscovered my love for our nation.

The following words will send chills of fear and guilt down the spine of every adult male. “Anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28). Gulp. Jesus’ followers are not just to avoid open sexual sin (“the big ones”), but also the sins of an impure heart and mind. Lust is adultery of the heart, sexual desire for that which is not yours. And ladies, you’re not off the hook: it cuts both ways. Lust is sexual (or emotional) desire directed towards people to whom it ought not be directed. We need to hear this, because something is wrong with us and our sexual natures. As C. S. Lewis wrote: "Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theater by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?" What’s the solution to our sexual corruption?