Next Meeting: Grace Bible Baptist - Fruitland Park

Pastor George, Mrs. Mulford and the "Grace Bible Baptist Church Family" extend a friendly invitation for you to attend the first FBBF meeting of 2013 on January 14 at Grace Bible Baptist Church. You will be blessed by the preaching of Pastor David Anderson, Faith Baptist Church, Sarasota (the church where Kathy and I were saved, and which also licensed and ordained me); Pastor Dan Jeffers, Park Street Baptist Church, St. Petersburg (our new State Representative/National Director); and Pastor Russell Johnson, International Bible Baptist Church, Miami (our new State Chairman). We will do our best as a church to make sure your time with us is a blessing and worth the time and effort to come. I hope to see you on Monday, January 14.

The schedule will be as follows: 10: 00 AM - Officers' Meeting / 11:00 AM - Dan Jeffers / 11:45 AM - Business Meeting / 12:15 PM - Lunch / 1:15 - David Anderson/ 2:00 PM - Russell Johnson.

Directions can be obtained by going to our website: www.gbbconline.com. Physical address: Grace Bible Baptist Church, 1703 Lewis Road, Leesburg, FL 34748. Phone:  (352) 326-5738.  

Different This Year

Christmas was different this year.  It all began with an earlier than usual Thanksgiving, in fact, it was so early than when we scheduled our Christmas Banquets to welcome in the season, they were actually still in November.  That was different, but it didn't seem to affect our crowd and we had several first time guests!

Next were our Christmas Concerts, a full 3 days of performances on the second weekend of December.  Decent crowds, again, many guests AND the “heavy lifting” of the December calendar was over before the Fellowship Meeting.  That was different!

The two weekends before Christmas were busy, but not complicated.  They allowed for some extra family time – we were even able to attend the Fort Lauderdale Boat Parade with the grand-kids and visit to a local carnival.  That was different!

Christmas Day had our built in traditions – breakfast at our house, the reading of the Christmas story and the new little elves that could now hand out the presents before opening them – but it was different also.  Through the miracles of Facetime and iChat we were able to share the moment with my parents in Peru and my brother in LA.  All of my sister’s family was in town for Christmas, a definite difference from the past few years, and one of my nephews had this crazy idea of having a “photo booth” for crazy family pictures.  That was different!

My take away from this Christmas is simple – different can be refreshingly different!  Maybe we can use that as a guidepost for our Florida Fellowship for 2013.  Sure, the calendar for the meetings will be different, the off months will give us some different opportunities for wider fellowship at the national level and among our men, and yes, we may even discover a few other different things along the way.  But DIFFERENT might prove to be refreshingly DIFFERENT!

I hope to see you in January!

Russell Johnson

2014 Meeting Schedule

Fellowship Meeting Schedule for 2014

January - Cornerstone Baptist - Davenport

February - No Meeting

March - First Baptist Church of Coconut Creek

April - Port Richie Baptist

May - Bible College Graduations Springfield & Boston

June 9 - Cornerstone Baptist - Davenport, FL

July - No Meeting

August 11 - First Coast Baptist Church - Jacksonville, FL

September 8 – Park Street Baptist - St. Petersburg, FL

October 13 - Cornerstone Baptist - Venice FL

November 10 - Liberty Baptist - Orlando, FL

December - No Meeting 

Next Meeting: November 12 - Park Street St. Petersburg

We are looking forward to hosting the meeting on November 12 here at Park Street.  We have a very good line up of speakers:  Robert Hodges has done an outstanding job planting  South Creek Baptist Church.  God has blessed in a tremendous way.  Gary Grey was long time Pastor of Park Crest  Baptist Church in Springfield  and is a former President of the Baptist Bible Fellowship.  Brian Brown is the pastor of Baypointe Church which he started six years ago.  Since they have started their church has also been a part of four other church plants.  These men will encourage you.  
10:00 Officers Meeting
11:00  Brian Brown
11:45 – Lunch
1:00 Business Meeting
1:20  Robert Hodges
2:00 Gary Grey

Nominations

If you have a nomination or if someone desires to be considered for an office please email me at pastor@parkstreetbaptist.net.  Offices  are:  chairman, vice chairman, regional reps, secretary, State Rep.  We will be voting on the new slate of officers in the December meeting in Jacksonville.   Everyone should take a turn being an officer for a year.  

Meetings for Next Year

We have a new schedule for our upcoming meetings in 2013.  There will be 6 state meetings.  3 national meetings.  The Men’s Conference and 2 months where there is no meeting.   At the December meeting we will have a schedule printed up with all of the meetings and locations.  The February National BBF meeting is in driving distance in Georgia.  If you have never been to a national meeting, this would be a great opportunity to go.  

No FBBF Meeting in October

Due to a miscommunication in scheduling there will be no Fellowship meeting on October 8th.  The next Scheduled meeting will be on November 12th at Park St. Baptist in St. Petersburg.  My apologies for any inconvenience. - Joel Johns