Ball Camp Baptist Church

Looking forward to being with our BCBC Youth tomorrow night for Bible study and community! Bring a friend and come on!

Thank you Ball Camp Baptist Church & their support for serving families experiencing homelessness in our community last week. 💜

"I am offended."

Pick your offense, people.

We live in a world today where everyone is offended by something or someone. It's absolutely bonkers.

Don't agree with great literature written by renowned authors? - ban the books. (I thought book banning was a thing of the past? Guess not.)
Don't like the truth told in realtime context? - Call it fake or make up our own truth.
Flying on an airplane and someone's child is crying? - post the situation on social media and call attention to yourself that you're offended by a struggling mom or dad doing the best they can.
Don't like tattoos, pink hair, or piercings. - rant about how it offends you. Even though it's not you, or your child, or anyone you know. But, hey, it's a First Amendment right...

In all of this, I wonder, when was the last time Jesus offended us?

Which of Jesus’s teachings has caused us to think or say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” When have we wanted to turn back from following his way because it was more than we could take in or do or be?

In my conversations with folks, I don’t usually hear them talking about stumbling over Jesus’ teachings, complaining that they are difficult, or being offended by what he says and does. Why not? Why aren’t we more offended by Jesus? Why aren’t we wrestling and struggling to live out the gospel more than we are?

Because the people in John Chapter 6 surely are. Jesus’ disciples were grumbling and complaining to each other that his teaching was difficult and more than they could accept. John writes, “Many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” They could no longer stomach his gospel and what it asked of them.

See, I don’t think we want to be offended. We’re comfortable with our Sunday morning gospel. We're okay with a Jesus who we only encounter on Sunday morning. A Jesus we're comfortable talking about, but only follow at a distance. If we take the gospel out into our everyday lives it might reveal things we don’t want to see or hear. I think most of us work very hard not to be offended by Jesus and his gospel.

But what if we should be offended?

The people in today’s gospel are grumbling, complaining, and taking offense. They know Jesus isn’t simply talking about bread and wine. He’s talking about a life that is messy, hard, hurtful, demanding and difficult. If the gospel in which we believe doesn’t encompass all of these things and more, then it probably won’t offend us or cause us to stumble and fall. Because it asks nothing of us. It’s comfort food, but it’s not the bread of life. It’s some nice ideas about how to live, and some feel good verses to memorize, but there is no life in it.

When the gospel meets us where we live and work and make our decisions, that’s when we get offended.

Love your neighbor sounds good... until your neighbor is black or brown, Muslim or Hindu, liberal or conservative, left or right.
Forgiveness sounds wonderful...until it's that person. We all have that person. Jesus, you mean I have to forgive that person?
Welcoming the stranger among us sounds like a party...until the stranger is the migrant at our border, in our city, in our neighborhood.

If loving, forgiving, welcoming, and a thousand other things Jesus taught and did, does not offend and challenge us, cause us to look at how were are living, make us reconsider our beliefs and actions, then maybe the gospel just isn’t deeply real for us.

I hope the gospel never loses its power to offend. And I hope you and I never lose our capacity to be offended.

Here’s why I say that. Every time the gospel offends us, it’s showing us something about ourselves. It’s revealing the limits of our love, our forgiveness, our welcoming; the limits of our justice, our peacemaking, our compassion; the limits of our life and humanity. And it’s pointing the way to new life and more life.

“Do you also wish to go away?” That’s the question Jesus asked the offended disciples. It’s the question we face every time the situation is difficult, messy, unclear, and asks more of us than we want to give.

Every day the gospel within us will want to push us beyond our limitations, our prejudices, our strongholds, our sin, and we will again and again have the opportunity to consider our life within the context of the gospel. And our decision will be to change or to turn away.

Join me this Sunday as we take a closer look at Jesus, the gospel and our response to it.

Sunday school for all ages @ 9:40 AM
Worship for everyone @ 11:00 AM

Peace,
Pastor Lee

Congratulations to the 🎉 Judges Choice Winner Westminster Presbyterian Church with their Million Dollar Spaghetti 🎉

Thank you Lee and Kay Zevenbergen and Dewayne Beeler for keeping our church grounds looking so inviting and beautiful!

🎉HUGE shoutout to the congregations that provided delicious pasta this past Saturday for the 2024 Pasta and Bluegrass Festival! Thank you for ALL that you do to support FPK mission to serve families experiencing homelessness & housing insecurity! 💜💜💜
Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church ,
First Baptist Knoxville, Ball Camp Baptist Church, The Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan, Westminster Presbyterian Church , West Hills Baptist Church, Knoxville TN,
Powell Presbyterian Church, Church of the Good Shepherd, Episcopal Church of the Ascension

Time.

We live like we have more than enough. The fact is, we do have enough, we're just not good at making good use of it. And then, it's gone.

We waste time. We lose time. We find ourselves at a place in life where we wish we had more time. With a loved one. With our spouse. With a cherished friend. With a well intentioned task.

It seems we only wish we had more time when we're faced with a crisis, a death, a diagnosis, a life change. It is then we wished we had put down our phones, turned off our devices, slowed down to listen, payed more attention...but it's too late.

It's not too late today. The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Ephesus and reminds them to "make the most of the time they are given." In other words, don't waste time on things that take away from what's important. To set life on things that have eternal meaning. Slow down and make time for God, family, friends, worship, prayer, and fellowship. Be led by the Holy Spirit in ways that strengthens your life, not in ways that weakens it by pulling is in the wrong directions.

Make worship and Bible study a priority.
Make prayer a priority.
Make listening for and to the Holy Spirit a priority.
Be responsible to each other.
Be compassionate, kind and empathetic.
Be the gospel to everyone.

We're all too busy, so slow down. Pay attention to the small things in life. Be intentional. Be present. Be like Jesus.

To quote, Chaucer, "Time and tide wait for no one"

Join me this Sunday as we look at Ephesians 5:15-20 and making the most of time.

9:40 AM Sunday school for all ages
11:00 AM worship - nursery and Children's church provided.

I hope to see you there!

Pastor Lee

To know Ernie Jennings is to know that he loved Jesus, Geraldine, his family, his church and fishing.

Tonight we gathered in the church fellowship hall to enjoy a delicious meal of fried crappie, all the sides and every dessert imaginable. All to remember and honor a man who touched our lives in good and Christ-like ways.

Thank you, Jennings family, for sharing the night with us, supplying and frying the crappie, and for one more night, giving thanks to God to have known and loved, Ernie.

Thank you to the congregations participating in this year's Pasta & Bluegrass Festival! Join us this Saturday at Sacred Heart School in Cathedral Hall at 6pm!
Remember to vote for your favorite!!
To purchase tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pasta-bluegrass-festival-tickets-932641966227

,Powell Presbyterian Church ,Church of the Good Shepherd,
,First Baptist Knoxville, ,Episcopal Church of the Ascension, West Hills Baptist Church, Knoxville TN, Ball Camp Baptist Church

🎉We are 1️⃣ week away from this year's Pasta & Bluegrass Festival!🎉
Tickets can be purchased on-line: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pasta-bluegrass-festival-tickets-932641966227

Due to internet troubles, we are not able to livestream our worship service this morning.

Ham biscuits, sausage biscuits and doughnuts await those entering for SS & worship tomorrow morning!

Our first Refuge worship service last night was incredible!

Folks of all ages, sharing a meal, table fellowship, laughter, telling stories and then closing our time by worshiping together.

Watch your social media and inboxes for our announced NEXT Refuge worship time. You do not want to miss being together!

Have a blessed weekend!

Let’s start the school year off the best way we know how! 💛 Join us this Sunday as we spend time in prayer for the school year!

Meager: lacking in quantity or quality.

Many times when we sense a call to do something new, something fresh, something out of the ordinary, we stop. We "drag our feet." We make excuses or wait for someone else to fill the need. We do this because we have been led to believe that what we offer seems meager compared to what others might offer. Instead of believing the possible, we start calculating the cost. We do the math. We overthink, over calculate and over worry. We look at what we don't have instead of using what we do have.

Jesus feeding the five thousand is recorded in all four gospels. It's one of our favorite stories to tell. It's a miracle for sure. A sign that points people to the divinity of Jesus. What looks like an impossible situation becomes an opportunity for Jesus to allow his disciples to partake in an "on earth as it is in heaven" moment.

Five loaves of bread and two fish. A meager lunch for a small family, let alone five thousand (possibly up to fifteen thousand counting women and children). This is all we have, the disciples return to tell Jesus. We canvased the crowd and we talked this little boy out of his packed lunch. Jesus, taking what they considered meager, gives thanks for it, telling his disciples to distribute it among all the people sitting around them. And they do. And people eat. Every single one of them. And not just eat, but eat until they are full. And then Jesus tells his disciples to pick up the pieces so that nothing is left or goes to waste.

It's not up to us to know how this miracle happened. Just know that on that day, the people gathered around Jesus, didn't go hungry. He met their immediate need and they were satisfied.

I think on any given day, that's me and you as well. On any given day it's not the big, ginormous miracle that we need. Instead it's those immediate, pressing, struggles we want Jesus to help us through.

Lord, I need rest.
Lord, I need my car repair bill to be manageable.
Lord, help me in my grief.
Lord, we need enough food to stretch until payday Friday.
Lord, help my child as he/she starts school in a few weeks.
Lord, give me patience.
Lord, give me peace.
Lord, give us all hope.

I could list a lot more, but you get the idea.

Jesus, in his miraculous love, does help us in unimaginable ways, each and every day. He helps us to pick up the pieces and move forward. Sometimes with a limp, sometimes with a lot of questions and more times than not, with a look of amazement on our faces.

Join me on Sunday morning at Ball Camp Baptist Church as we take a deeper look at this miracle of miracles.

Sunday school for all ages @ 9:40 AM
Worship in our sanctuary @ 11:00 AM

Everyone is welcome.

I hope to see you there!
Pastor Lee