First Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
P.O.
Box 170, Eagle Butte, SD 57625
(605)
964-3617 (Office) / (605) 891-1704 (Pastor’s Cell)
April
16, 2013
Dear
Friends,
Many
times, I have dreamed of a white Christmas, but never a white Easter! Yet here it was, Easter Sunday, and the snow
was blowing in like a presidential debate!
But the winter weather didn’t stop there. By the next week, a full-fledged blizzard had
hit the county, closing schools and making long-distance travel
impossible. As they say in South Dakota,
“If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and you’ll get something
completely different!”
Every
march, local children participate in a school play that is put on at the local
auditorium. This year’s play, called
“Blackbeard the Pirate”, featured several of the kids from Off-the-Wall, as
well as some of my wife’s students. She
and I went to see it, and enjoyed it very much.
As expected, Roger Ebert gave it two thumbs up.
Revival!
This
month was a much-anticipated event-the First Baptist Church revival! Michael Martin, an associate pastor from
Oklahoma, arrived at our church on March 9th and preached five times
over the course of four days. During the
daylight hours, he and I canvassed the community, knocking on over two hundred
doors to invite people to the revival in the evenings. When evening came, things really picked
up! We began every service with a large
meal in the fellowship hall, and then gathered in the sanctuary for
worship.
The
worship services at the revival were marked by inspired preaching of the Gospel
message, nightly testimonials by members of the church who had been saved, and
a full musical ensemble that included a pianist, a flute player, a guitarist, a
violinist, and two singers. The services
were beautiful, and the Holy Spirit was there.
Three people made professions of faith during the revival, one of whom
has since given up her addiction to methamphetamines. It was an incredible week, and even though it
was exhausting, it was worth every bit of effort. Not only did the community respond well to
the revival, but the church united in a cooperative effort greater than
anything I have ever seen them accomplish before! I felt that God was using this church that
week, and it felt good to be in the center of His will.
War!
Sometimes, members of this congregation come to me with the feeling that they are under spiritual attack. It might come in any one of a great number of forms, but it often leaves them feeling discouraged and confused. When that happens, I always try to encourage them by saying that the devil would not be harassing them if he did not see them as a threat. “The devil has limited power and limited resources”, I tell them. “If you are doing just what he wants, why should he spend his energy harassing you? But if he is attacking you, it may mean that God is using you and that the devil has a lot to gain by making you discouraged”. Then we pray that God will remove the spiritual attack, or give them the strength to endure it. Finally, I encourage them to pay special attention to their lives, follow God closely, and work hard for His Kingdom.
I say all this because I feel that, ever since the revival, our church has been under a spiritual attack on a large scale. Repeatedly, ever since the end of that week, a large number of unusual things have been going wrong. Here is a sample:
*On the Sunday after the revival, we arrived at church to discover that the heater was broken, making the sanctuary frigid and unusable.
*On the same day, Windswept Academy, the local Christian school, also noticed that their heater had broken, leaving the school extremely cold.
*Two
days later, I arrived at church to find that it had been broken into. Someone had smashed the window in our
hallway, climbed inside, and left through the back door.
*Later that same week, for the first time
since I moved here, my car slipped on the ice and wound up nose-down in a deep ditch.
*The
following week, Clint and Amy Holley, who operate Windswept Academy and serve
actively in our church, had their car completely totaled by a deer.
*Other
things have gone wrong as well, whose details I am not at liberty to
discuss. Everything from frightening
dreams to unexpected bouts of depression.
This month has had a little bit of everything.
But
do you know what all of these mishaps had in common? All of them stopped just short of being a
disaster! When our heater was broken, we
simply moved church into the fellowship hall.
Both the heater at the church and the heater at windswept were fixed,
quickly and inexpensively. The criminal
who broke into the church left without stealing or destroying anything! When my car wound up in the ditch, a good
Samaritan pulled it out within fifteen minutes.
Clint and Amy Holley were unhurt by their encounter with the deer, and
their usual positive outlooks were totally unaffected. And every other incident and piece
of bad luck we have had this month has either quickly resolved itself or been used
to accomplish an even greater good.
In
short, my friends, I feel as though this church is standing in front of a
firing squad, and all the bullets are harmlessly bouncing off. God is
protecting us, and it is an amazing thing to see.
But
please pray for us, Brothers and Sisters.
The evil powers that live in this world are fighting against us, and we
need prayer warriors to stand at our side.
We are getting along well, but I am more aware than ever that God, who
answers your prayers, is totally responsible for our present peace.
Easter!
Our Easter celebration this year was a wonderful thing. On the Friday before Palm Sunday, we showed
“The Passion of the Christ” to all the young people who attend our Off-the-Wall
activity. Afterwards we held a short
discussion session about what they had seen.
While not all of the youth showed interest in the movie or its content,
some of them did, and gave us an opportunity to talk about it.
Easter Sunday morning began with a “Son-Rise” service at
about 8:30 in the morning. Afterwards,
the entire church ate together in a potluck breakfast in the fellowship
hall. Our van picked up all the usual
children, and they had breakfast alongside us.
Then, after Sunday School, we went into the sanctuary for
regular worship. The morning was marked
by a number of special music numbers.
Among them was a trumpet solo, played by a local music teacher, and two
duets between our own Amanda Benson and each of her visiting parents!
Finally, I preached on the subject of death, and how the
Resurrection of our Lord makes our own resurrection possible. I always feel so unworthy of the subject
matter when I preach on days like this.
Praise God, who uses even people like me!
Giving
Clothes to the Needy
Using the boxes of clothes, toys and other things that some
of you have sent us, we hosted a giveaway this month that was very popular with
the public. People from all over the
community came and gathered hats, coats, scarves, gloves and shoes to keep
themselves and their families warm.
Special thanks to everyone who sent things to us, making this all
possible.
Baptisms and Dedications
As
the perfect way to follow up Easter, we had three baptisms and a baby
dedication last week! There is a great
advantage to doing a baby dedication at the same time as a baptism: It gives you the opportunity to dramatically
demonstrate the difference between the two. I began the service by explaining the
significance of a baby dedication, and that it was simply a public commitment
on the part of the parents to raise the child to become a Christian-NOT a sign
that the child has actually become one!
Then the proud parents, Adam and Rachel Cowan, came to the front and
each made promises before God and the witnesses of the church to be good
faithful parents to their daughter, Jewel Leigh. They made a public commitment to raising her
in a Christian home, and to prayerfully bring her up to be a woman of God. Then the congregation promised to help them
do the same.
Cameron
Holley, Reese Lawrence and Henry Lawrence, three students at Windswept Academy,
have all accepted Christ in the past year.
I had the great privilege of baptizing them in our portable
baptistery. I explained what baptism
means, and how it is a public sign of a person’s having placed their trust in
Jesus. One by one, in answer to my
questions, they professed their belief in Jesus Christ and in His sacrifice in
front of the congregation before they were submerged. I will be following up with discipleship
classes for them after school.
So
perhaps you are wondering how you can become a partner with us in our ministry
here in Eagle Butte? If so, then we are
happy to tell you, since we welcome assistance from the body of Christ. Here is
what we need the most:
Prayer. It may be true that our
church is getting along very well at the moment, and that God is doing great
things here. But it is precisely when a
church is being used by God that Satan does all in his power to destroy
it. So please pray, my brothers and
sisters. Pray that our leadership will
keep their hearts pure and humble, and that we will live at peace with each
other. Pray that we will be protected
from the power of the enemy, and that God’s Holy Spirit will shine through in
our lives. Pray that the Lakotas in the
community will come to know the Lord, and that the commitment they make will not
be a superficial group of words, but a real change in their Spirits that will
alter the course of their lives for eternity.
E-mail addresses. For those of you who have e-mail addresses,
please send them to me. That way, these
monthly newsletters can be forwarded to everyone in your church who wants
one! Just send your name and e-mail
address to me at benfarrar777@hotmail.com,
and I’ll make sure you receive this newsletter as often as it comes out.
Financial Assistance. Our church is fortunate to have members who
are generous in their giving. But some of our most generous members are,
nevertheless, very poor. We have long
been blessed with assistance from outside churches and individuals, and we try
to use those gifts wisely and well. We
have a particular need, due to a city sidewalk project that is coming past the
church, for which they intend to charge us about $4700.
This
month, a financial gift was made to the church in memory of Archie Russell.
This
month, a financial gift was made to the church in memory of Phifer Pearson.
If
any one of you wishes to bless the church with a financial gift, you may send
it to:
First Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
P.O. Box 170
Eagle Butte, SD 57625
May
God bless you all, and draw you closer to Himself each and every day.
Yours
in Christ,
Rev. Ben Farrar
Pastor
First
Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
