The Periodically

    Here are some ways that you can be praying for Mark and Charity during the COVID pandemic. Pray that believers will have opportunities to speak the truth and show a peace that can only be found in Christ. We praise the Lord for an opportunity to spend time together with our older children. Pray for fruitful time with our older children during our time in the US. Pray for fruitful dialogue with several publishers regarding more difficult book licenses.  Praise the Lord for signed contracts in April with Baker Publishing House for the rights of “Towards an Exegetical Theology” and permission from a Taiwan publisher to purchase and use their translation. Please pray for continued safety for our staff and that we will bring encouragement to them in weekly meetings and praying together. Pray that the material and correspondence that goes out from IRC would bless users with the knowledge of God’s Word and bring dependence on their Creator.  We praise the Lord for techn...

"The Psalms of lament don’t just give us permission to be human and to admit our emotions, but they also show us what to do with these emotions, which is to pray them out loud in the presence of God.” Pastor Brad Bigney The following thoughts are based on the following authors: John Henderson, “Abused: Finding Hope in Christ”, P&R Publishing William S. Plummer’s commentary, “Psalms” W. Graham Scroggie’s commentary, “The Psalms” J. Vernon McGee’s commentary, “Psalms, Vol. 1” PSALM 22 - The Psalm of the Cross (McGee) Since this Psalm is written to give us a first-hand audience to the mind of Christ during his final moments on the Cross, we can conclude that Psalm 22 describes, "Holy thoughts on how to suffer well when, humanly speaking, our circumstances don’t make sense and our experience seems beyond hope and help." It can be divided cleanly into two parts, the first part (the Sob) turns inwardly and describes the pain, the second part (the Song) turns heavenward in...

Here are some ways that you can be praying for Dave and Carol Beakley during this uncertain time:   1.  Pray for us as we try to minister to our son Jason, who is married and has one child and one on the way. He lost his job due to COVID-19 a week ago. They are clinging to the Lord and sending out lots of resumes.   2. Pray for stamina for us as we record 30-minute devotions every day and continue to record music/preaching every Sunday.   3. Pray for the Seminary to finish its classes on Zoom this semester. Many students don't have the data that is needed for zoom classes, but up to so far, the Lord has provided. We can record our classes and put them on the cloud for future downloads and viewing.

A couple of weeks ago, several of the counselors at BCC watched a webinar on “Anxiety and Loneliness” from the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. Here is a summary of Heather Leman’s notes from the talk. Contact Heather at heather@bethanycommunitychurch.org if you would like a link to the webinar. If what you most value can be taken away or destroyed then you set yourself up for anxiety.  Proverbs 9:10, 1:7 Write down this verse “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” Then put a blank where “the Lord” would go. The fear of ______________ is the beginning of wisdom. Whatever it is that we fear is the beginning of our wisdom.  Psalm 115 - whatever we fear is what our life is rotating around. vs 8 - we become conformed into. As they feel those things slipping away that they don’t have control of they begin to fear those things rather than fear the Lord. Fear is intended to be healthy and directed at one particular place - the Lord. The larg...