Tommy Mitchell / The Rurban Church Blog

Great Day!

We had a great "first Sunday" of the year at ABC today! While I really enjoyed this morning's service - tonight's was absolutely awesome!  We took up a more informal, almost "coffee house" format.  We had planned on about 120 showing up for this first "Agricola After Dark!" But we ended up setting up more chairs in the worship theater and having right at 150 in the room. The sharing - the prayer time - the fellowship - the intimacy was incredible! What a great dynamic tonight. 

I am looking forward to a really great time again next Sunday night!  AAD rocks!

A Truly Great Morning!

This morning was unbelievably wonderful! We had seven professions of faith.  We also had two who transferred their membership to ABC!  The joy of seeing all those folks and their families standing together was cause for great joy! Praise God! He is the author of salvation - the giver of every good and perfect gift. We saw His glory on display this morning.

We also saw a wonderful decision by the church! We voted to go ahead and finish the upstairs area in our new building for our youth! The upstairs will have 8 classrooms and a worship room.  The downstairs is moving right along and finishing the upstairs too is going to give us a fantastic completed product.  The vote was 97% in favor! Fabulous!

We are hoping to be in the building around the first of September to occupy the downstairs. The upstairs should be completed about 30 days later!

We had a great day at ABC!

Great Day! - 1/25/09

Today was truly a wonderful day of worship at ABC!  We had excellent worship and the choir was on musical steroids!  Robby Myrick did a great job with the music and we had one person join our fellowship.

We also had a very good number of guests.  We are looking at "Four of the Greatest Statements You Can Share With Your Spouse."  Last Sunday was "I am Satisfied."  Today, we had a great time looking at "I'm Sorry!"    We discussed the brokenness that leads to repentance and the mandate to offer forgiveness. 

Telling your spouse you are satisfied - and telling them you are sorry are great ways to say "I love you!"

Tonight we had a great KidStuf and evening worship.  Our students did a great drama moment at the beginning of the service. 

It was just a great day.  This morning we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 316 in Bible Study and about 400 in worship.

Box Scores for 10/12/2008

Today we had 322 in Bible Study. It was Fall Break weekend for our students, so we felt pretty good about that attendance number. I do not know what the DT number was for the evening.

I have been preaching on The Spirit-Filled life in the mornings - and was scheduled to preach on "Patience, Goodness, and Kindness."  Well, with all the turmoil in the economy, the politics of the presidential race, world events, and personal stuff, I felt led to preach from John 14 on God's Directives for Troubled Times! It seems that it was the right thing to do - and I received confirmation from many that they needed the encouragement.

In the evening service, we were just wildly blessed. John Morris, a church planter and pastor of The Stable church in Gulfport, came and shared what all God has been doing in their church.  This was a church we helped start in 2006.  It was just an awesome time and we were so blessed to hear how God has provided for them and how He used ABC in the process.

The church also blessed our staff by remembering us for Clergy Appreciation Month. They are so thoughtful. We love our church and are thankful that they express their love for us.

Box Scores for 10/5/08

On Sunday morning we had 312 in Bible Study!  I'm not quite sure why the attendance was down a bit - sometimes it just is!   I pulled double duty in both services - leading worship and preaching.  Though I detect some difference while preaching, leading music really brings home how different the dynamic is between the two services.

We examined the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the morning services - looking at Love, Joy, and Peace.

We had a good group for Sunday evening worship - but I never heard a count for DT.  We continued our study of Hebrews, particularly chapter 11 in the evening worship.  You would think that living by faith would be easy for us since we have such a great object of faith - Jesus Christ!

Box Scores for 9/28/08

We had 335 in Bible Study today! It was good to be back preaching and to preach on The Free Flow of the Spirit!  Our choir did a fantastic job this morning.

In the DT hour we had 192 for KidStuf!  The KidStuf was one of the best I have seen so far.  The topic was Determination! 

In the evening service we talked about faith!

Also, we were able to reveal that our church staff and four others in the church have been tapped by our state Missions Mobilization Dept. to go to the PAC RIM to conduct a retreat for IMB workers in late October! We are excited!

Box Scores for 9/21/08

Yesterday we had 333 in Bible Study!  Bro. Neil preached - I, (Bro. Tommy) led the music in the morning services.  It was probably a bit confusing for some!!!

The topic was Stewardship: Far More Than We Make it Out to Be!  Neil did an excellent job of distinguishing the difference between "spending" your life and "investing" your life for the Kingdom.  He did an excellent job in both services.

Sunday evening Neil preached again.  I'm not sure what  the DT number was - I will update this when I find out.  We had an excellent evening worship attendance.

Box Scores for 9/14

I have been a little behind in posting this week, but we had 352 in Bible Study today.  It is really wild how you can have 400 one Sunday and 352 the next.  We had a great day and are continuing with our study of the Holy Spirit.

May God always be glorified in the house of worship.

Box Scores for 9/7/08

Wow! Everyone showed up the same Sunday.  So far as I know unofficially, we had 401 in Bible Study yesterday. That was great! 

We began a series of messages yesterday on Accelerating the Spirit-Filled Life.

I did not get the numbers for DT on Sunday night.  It was a busy afternoon and evening.  We had an ordaining council at 4:00 pm - and an ordination service at 6:00 pm.  It was very moving and meaningful.

Yesterday was such a blessing.  Praise the Lord!

Box Scores for 8/24/08

We had 314 in Bible Study today!  We had wonderful services with people praying and making decisions about following Christ obediently.  At the same time, our crowd was noticeably down today - after all - it was drizzling a bit!