Does anyone read our blog?

As I was typing the last entry, I began wondering "Does anyone read our blog?" If you do, we at Grace would like to know. To let us know, you can simply reply to this post. God bless amd have an awesome day.

Christmas services

It's been a while since I gave a report but the church is doing well. We've seen attendances reach the 70's on a few occasions these past few weeks. God has been good to us. For anyone who may be wondering, we will be having all our services Christmas day. Sunday school is at 10am followed by a message at 11am titled "What did you get for Christmas?" The evening service starts at 6pm with Bro Bryan Ogle preaching. He is an associate pastor and principal of a Christian school in Lansing, MI. If you are in Cleveland that day, we'd love to have you for services.

Winter is Approaching

We are just now getting into the month of November and it feels as if winter will soon be upon us. No more of these 100 degree days which personally doesn't bother me at all. :-) This past week we had our Thanksgiving dinner after our morning services and it was good to see God bless us with 73 people in attendance that morning. We are continuing to see steady growth in the church and we would love to have everyone in our area to be a part of it.

The month of November is a quiet month for us outside the birthdays. We have many people celebrating their birthdays this month.

The van routes continue to grow as we see more and more kids coming to church. We now easily pick up 30 kids for Patch Club on Wednesday nights. Our Wednesday night attendances some times rival what we are seeing on Sunday mornings.

Well, all I can say is God is continuing to bless us as we see more people in the church and more people drawing closer to the Lord in there daily walk.

God is blessing!

What a blessing it is to be able to serve our Lord. God has continue to blessed us at our church. We just finished up our missions month at Grace last week. All during the month of September we had different missionaries with us preaching and presenting their ministry. It was a joy hear them proclaim the Word of God to us. The members of the church have committed to give over $1,000 a month to missions. That may not seem like a lot, but a church of 50-60 people, that is a great commitment.

It's amazing to think that I've been the pastor at Grace Baptist for nearly 1 1/2 years. We've seen a 15% increase in our attendance over that time. God is good! We've had people join the church and begin to grow in the Lord. Here recently we've had 3 individuals baptized and join the church with more to come.

Everything that has been done and is going on in the church, I have to give the glory to God. He does wonderful things if we serve Him.

We'd like to invite you to join us for a service. If you want to be a part of a church that is focused on God's Word and the well being of others, then Grace Baptist would be the church for you. We preach God's Word without apology but we also have a great time in His house around other Christians.

Lord Bless!!!

Pastor Richard Perkins

Grace Baptist Church
300 E Cherokee
Cleveland, OK 74020
918-358-2405

Located 2 blocks behind T.H. Rogers

School has started

Well, it's that time of year again for our young people... school started today. Sure enough, it had to be about 105 degrees on the first day of school. I'm excited to go and see all the sports our youth are involved in. Next week is the first home volleyball game and I'm anxious to see the girls win a game!!!

Well, what to say about the church but that God is still slowly but surely adding to the work. As I look at our church it is easy to see we are not the largest but there is one thing I love about this church and that is the sweet spirit we have here. The people in this church are wonderful, caring people.

We have just 2 more Sundays until we get into our missions emphasis month. It will be an exciting time where we will have a different missionary speak to us every Sunday morning and evening. We'd love to have you with us.

Again, we welcome everyone of every age in our church. We don't have all the fancy praise bands and latest contraptions, but we have something much more valuable... We have God's Word. So if you're looking for a church that preaches God's Word as compared to entertaining, we might be the home for you.

Lord bless and have a wonderful day!!!

Pastor Richard Perkins

Good Bye July, Hello August

What a blessed time we are having at Grace Baptist Church. We are seeing God bless and do wonderful things in the lives of people in the church. It's amazing to watch God work in the lives of people. June 27th-July 1st I had the priviledge to go to church camp with some of our youth in the church. It was great to see them build upon the walk with God and draw closer to them.

In August we look to have a quiet month. We will be gearing up and getting ready to begin our missions emphasis month in September. Every Sunday we will have a different missionary in both our morning and evening services. We would love to have you there. The youth will be going out on August 12th and having a fun time hanging out at Incredible Pizza in Tulsa. I'm looking forward to it my self. :)

It's been great to see God blessing the van routes as well. We currently run vans picking up children on Sunday morning and Wednesday nights. We would love to pick up your child as well.

Church Camp

We just returned from an awesome church camp on Friday. It was a wonderful time for our young people to draw closer to God. As a pastor, it is great to go and spend time with our young people and see God work in their lives. Now is when the real challenge begins for our youth though. They are coming back from a week of being surrounded by the things of God and now they are going to have to work to keep up their commitments. Living a life for God as a teenager today is not easy to do, that is why we try our hardest to help them grow in the Lord. Our teenagers are great!!!

Now, as you can tell, June was busy at our church. We had our VBS and saw 50 kids there during the week. Our summer intern arrived and we began working on summer projects.

The month of July is going to seem much quieter now that all our June activities are done. We will go play laser tag on July 12th and are having a late night teen night on July 29th.

We invite you to come join us for a Sunday service. Lord bless you and have a great day.

Pastor Richard Perkins

Van Update

Just a quick update for those who may not know but we run a van route on Sunday morning and Wednesday night picking up kids for church. We have seperate services on both days geared towards children 6th grade through Kindergarten. We'd love to pick up your kids!

Currently, God has been blessing our van route as He has added to it tremendously in the month of May. We have gone from picking up 2 kids to having 12-14 kids. God is so good!

We again would like to extend an invitation to you to come visit our church. If it doesn't work for you to come, but you would like to send your child on the van, just call us at the church and if no one is around the phone, leave a message saying you would like your child picked up and we would be happy to get them.

Lord bless you and have a wonderful day!

Pastor Richard Perkins
Grace Baptist Church

The Summer Months Will Soon Be Here

Praise God for beautiful weather these last few months. You can never tell how things will be in Oklahoma. One day it is in the 70's and the following day you may be faced with 90's.

The summer looks to be very busy like most summers. We have already kicked off a year long Sunday School campaign called C.S.I. (Constant Scripture Investigation) in which we are encouraging individuals to memorizing Scripture and read their Bibles. Each month we declare a winner. The theme for the month of June is "Respecting One Another" so therefore on May 29th, our message will be centered around the thought of respect to kick off the month of June. It has been a fun competition thus far.

June will be extremely busy in that on the 12th, our summer intern, Stephen Kerr, will arrive and be with us through the month of August. It will be a blessing to have him with us.

June 13th kicks off our week of VBS that will run through the 17th from 6:30-8:30pm. All children who will be in K-6th grade next year are invited to attend.

Then not too long after that on June 27th, we will leave out for church camp. It will be a great time of spiritual growth for both our junior age and high school kids.

Our current sermon series are as follows
Sunday Morning-I John
Sunday Night-Titus
Wednesday Night-Ephesians

I would just like to add that God has been blessing Grace Baptist Church and we look forward to what else He is going to do. He has been faithful in blessing the church in attendance and giving. If you live in or around Cleveland, or if you are passing through, we would love to have you in one of our services.

In His Service,
Pastor Richard Perkins

Grace Baptist Church
"Where God is God, Sin is Sin, and Jesus Christ Still Saves."

Mother's Day Evening Service

Just letting anyone know who may want to know... We are having our 6pm evening service today (Mother's Day). All are welcome!!!

A Great Easter!!!

What a great day we had in Easter services yesterday. We were praying for God to bless our services and He did with 84 people in attendance. That is over twice what the church was averaging back in June of last year when I arrived. The spirit was great in the church even though it was a rainy, stormy day. It began raining in Cleveland around 2am (I was told this. I wasn't up at 2. Haha) and it rained all day with only a few breaks. Even during our morning service you could hear the rolling and rumbling of the thunder, but it didn't change the spirit. You could see the excitement of those who were there. We had a wonderful time in God's House. We had our Easter egg hunt following church in the building. We had a skit during our morning service explaining the importance of knowing the truth of God's Word.

We continue to see God bless our church as we move forward. Our philosophy is not just that God can bless the church, but God will bless the church and we will see it grow and be a light for Jesus Christ in Cleveland, OK. I look forward to another great month serving as pastor of this church!

Easter!

What a great day we had in God's House yesterday. We had 52 with a young family visiting. It is always a blessing to be able to meet in the House of the Lord. I look forward to every chance we get to meet with our Lord. This coming Sunday is a day that is important to many individuals. It is the day we take to remember the Jesus Christ died, was buried and rose from the grave for the sins of mankind. We are looking forward to a wonderful day of worshipping our Lord and Saviour. We want to invite you to come if you do not have a church to attend this Sunday.

I continue to see God blessing our church in many ways. I love to come to church and see fellow Christians who desire to worship God. God's House is a wonderful place to be on Sundays.

We will continue to follow God until He returns.

Grace Baptist Church
"Where God is God, Sin is Sin, and Jesus Christ Still Saves."

Standing On God's Word

I would be lying if I said it was not a challege to build a church without compromising standards. Churches can lower their standards and begin to see numerical growth, but the problem is, that numerical growth lacks spiritual growth. That's why (even if the work is harder) we are not going to go the way of the world. It's sad to see some of the men I went to college with turning away from their standards and seeking the world's ways to bring people in.

I'm glad to say that we are a church that is not going to change our stand on the Bible, music, modesty, etc. We believe that the King James Bible is the inspired Word of God. We believe music should be God honoring and not resemble the world. We believe that when God's people come to church that they should wear modest, God honoring clothes. We are not going to be a church that teaches what I call a "Come as you are. Leave as you were" kind of philosophy. We want to see lives changed. That's why we stand by the fact that God is God, sin is sin and Jesus Christ still saves. In order to believe that, we have to preach all of God's Word. The only feel good message that is right is the one that makes God feel good.

We would like to invite you to come visit a church that believes in preaching the Word of God and not the philosophies of man. If you yearn to build a relationship with God, the creator of this world, then I want to extend an invitation to you to come and see us at one of our many services.

God bless you and have a wonderful day.

Pastor Richard Perkins

Spring Is Here

It has been a beautiful start to spring here in Oklahoma. We saw temperatures jump up into the 80's yesterday but now it's looking like a high of 60 today. God is good.

Some things have occured since I last posted in February. We have purchased a new church van (new to us) that is older than the one we have but has way less miles. I'm looking forward to working on the van route to get it back up and going.

We are also bringing in a summer intern. It will be exciting to see how God will work through that. We continue to see visitors at the church and are continuing to do the Lord's work.

Another subject I want to bring up is this thought that salvation includes baptism. There are churches that teach the need for baptism in salvation. We've even seen two Church of Christ churches here in town hitting it real hard in the local paper. Its sad to see a false doctrine like that built all around one verse (Acts 2:38). But when you look at all of God's Word you can plainly see that salvation only comes by putting your faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible says salvation is "Not of works" (Eph 3:9). That word "works" means a toil or action. Baptism is an action someone performs. Also Paul said Christ sent him "not to baptize but to preach the gospel." (I Cor 1:17) Now why wouldn't Christ send him to baptism if it was part of salvation. The fact that he was sent "not to baptize" shows that there is no need for baptism when it comes to salvation.

Praise God that He sent His Son to die on the cross so all that I have to do is repent of my sins and ask Him to save me! We at Grace Baptist will continue to serve Him and pray that He builds His church.

God Bless,
Pastor Richard Perkins

Church Anniversary Tomorrow

Tomorrow is our big day at Grace Baptist. We are celebrating the church's 38th anniversary tomorrow. We will have preaching by Bro. Elfrink (Pastor of Rock Solid Baptist Church in Cuba, MO) and special music by HBBC's men's quartet GloryBound. We are praying that the Lord will send visitors and that He will be glorified.

We will post pictures of the service in the coming week.

Quick Update

It's been a little while since I gave an update, but we have been able to get back up and going here in the church. We are still working with the insurance to get everything done, but all is going as planned. We are looking forward to our upcoming anniversary Sunday on Feb 27th. It will be a time of great fellowship as we hear Bro. Bob Elfrink preach to us and listen to special music by GloryBound.

Also, we had a young man get baptized last Sunday after services. Praise the Lord!

An Interesting Week

This week was far from normal for us at Grace Baptist Church. We had a foot of snow fall back on Tuesday and was unable to get things cleaned out by Wednesday. So because of the snow and wind chil values near twenty below, we called off church that evening. Now for those who live in the Minnesota, Wisconsin part of the United States would say, "Man that's nothing compared to what we get!" I would agree with that thought but that much snow and that cold of temperatures is not normal for us.

But things really got interesting Saturday. That morning following the men's breakfast at a local restaurant, I was headed into the auditorium to turn on heat to get things warmed up so I could clean. Right before I walked into the auditorium, I realized I smelled chlorine. Upon further investigation I found a water pipe had broke down in what I call our dungeon. It is were our furnances are. To make a long story short, there was nearly five feet of water in the "dungeon" and nearly a foot of water in our basement/fellowship hall. We had the electric turned off to the building because the breakers to those units were under water. We were able to pump all the water out of the church (Took about 6 hours worth of work total.)

I was so thankful though that we were able to get a hold of the city and got access to the community center and we were still able to meet and have our 11 o'clock service there. We are waiting to see what the insurance company tells us we need to do. We will not be able to get back into the building until the furnaces get looked at. All in all though, God is in control. We still had 41 show up at the community center for church. We were missing 15 to 20 people so it was still a good attendance.

As I told the church, God is in control. He knows why this has occurred and there is no need to worry about anything. It's always an encouragment to those who know Christ as Saviour to remember that no matter what we have going on in our lives, God is still God and we still have Christ as our Saviour.

On another note, I found it sad that out of the 12 to 14 churches in town that only 1 was holding an actual service tonight. I didn't feel right sitting home, but I couldn't find a church to attend tonight b/c of the Super Bowl. It's sad how many Christians today find sports more important than God. Oh well, we will just keep serving God and looking for His return.

In His Service,

Pastor Richard Perkins

A Great Sunday

Yesterday at church we had 61 in attendance. That is a few more than usual. We had some first time visitors in our service. The reason for some of those visitors was because we baptized 2 following the service. God has blessed us with a great church family at Grace Baptist. We encourage you to visit if you ever have the opportunity to do so.

A New Blog

Greetings from Grace Baptist Church

We are excited to see what God is going to do in the town of Cleveland, OK this year. My goal with this blog is to keep you up to date on what is going on around our church. The upcoming month of February looks to be a busy month as usual. We are starting off the month with our monthly Men's Breakfast at the Hickory House on the 5th at 8am. On Sunday the 6th at 5pm we will be having our church's Valentine Banquet at 5pm. It will be a time of food, fun and fellowship. Then on Monday the 7th we will be holding our monthy Ladies Meeting at 7pm in the church basement.

The most exciting part about this upcoming month is what will occur on Sunday, Feb 27. On that day the church will be celebrating it's 38th anniversary. We have a full day planned of preaching, singing and eating. We will have a morning service followed by a fellowship meal and then an afternoon service right after that. The exciting part about it all is that we will be having Bro. Bob Elfrink, a former pastor of Grace Baptist Church, preaching to us in both the morning and afternoon services. Also, there will be special music that day. Glory Bound, a men's quartet from Heartland Baptist Bible College will be singing multiple songs in both the morning and afternoon service. We are looking forward to a great day in the Lord's House.

We would like to extend an invitation to all those in the community to come and be a part of our services. You will find the church is one that is loving and friendly. You will find that we are a church that preaches from the Word of God. My desire is to preach the whole Word of God and not just pick out those things that make people feel good. But on the other hand, we strive to make the church a place where you can come and feel blessed spiritual when you walk out the doors.

May the Lord bless you and have a wonderful day.

Pastor Richard Perkins
Grace Baptist Church
300 E Cherokee
Cleveland, OK 74020
918-358-2405
http://www.gracebaptistofcleveland.org/
gracebaptistofcleveland@hotmail.com