2019

EVENTS & NEWS

From the desk of Pastor Rev. William "Bill" Dandridge

October 2019 Newsletter

The Pastoral Sermons for this Year have come from the Gospel According to Mark

Where are we?

The messages for the next few months will be dealing with the Sacrifice of the Servant and then finally the Success of the Servant beginning in Chapter 11 and concluding in Chapter 16.

Why is Mark so important?

Mark’s gospel portrays Jesus as constantly on the move. The forward motion in Mark’s writing keeps the knowledgeable reader’s mind continually looking ahead to the cross and the resurrection. Thirty-nine times Mark used the word immediately, giving a sense that Jesus’s time on earth was short and that there was much to accomplish in His few years of ministry.

What's the main idea?

While Matthew’s gospel portrays Jesus as the King, Mark reveals Him as God’s Servant. Jesus’s work was always for a larger purpose, a point clearly summarized in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark filled his gospel with the miracles of Jesus, illustrating again and again both the power and the compassion of the Son of God. In these passages, Mark revealed more than Jesus as the good teacher who offered people spiritual renewal; the book also portrays Jesus as the true God and the true man, reaching into the lives of people and effecting physical and circumstantial change.

But Jesus’s life as the agent of change wasn’t without an ultimate purpose. Amid His hands-on ministry, Jesus constantly pointed to the definitive way in which He would serve humanity: His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. It is only through faith in these works of Jesus Christ that human beings find eternal redemption for their whole selves. Moreover, Jesus becomes our model for how to live our lives—serving others as He did.

How do I apply this?

Three times in three consecutive chapters—8, 9, and 10—Mark pictured Jesus informing His disciples of His great sacrifice and ultimate victory. His disciples either rejected the teaching altogether (Mark 8:31–32) or they showed themselves concerned with other matters (9:31–34; 10:32–37). As Jesus prepared to perform the greatest service in the history of the human race, His disciples could only think about themselves—their position or safety.

Do you find it a struggle to get yourself oriented toward sacrificial service, as Jesus’s disciples did? The temptations we all wrestle with when faced with an opportunity to serve another person are to pull back within ourselves, to seek our comfort, or to protect our own interests.

The challenge that Jesus presents to us in the book of Mark involves breaking out of those patterns of self-absorption and giving ourselves in service and love to others.

Let us continue to pray for all other members who are sick and shut in or bereaved.

HLMBC EVENTS

Sunday, October 6, 2019 (2:00 pm)

Pastor & Wife 4th Appreciation Banquet

Place: the Carson Community Center - 801 E. Carson St. Carson, CA 90745 (MAP)

Friday, October 11, 2019 (7:00 pm)

Pastor & Wife 4th Appreciation Services

Churches represented are New Vision Christian Fellowship – Pastor Joe Haywood (messenger), Greater New Morning Star MBC- Pastor Demetrius Griffin and Greater Hopewell Full Gospel Church-Pastor Kenneth Pitchford

Sunday, October 13, 2019 (3:00pm)

Pastor & Wife 4th Appreciation Service

Churches represented are First Evergreen MBC – Pastor Earl Estell Sr. (messenger) & Citizens of Zion MBC – Pastor Bobby L. Newman Jr.

Sunday, October 27, 2019 (10:00am Service)

Holy Light MBC Annual Men's Day

Speaker: Bishop William LaRue Dillard- Under Shepherd Emeritus of the Second Baptist Church of Monrovia. Bishop Dillard retired this year after 45 years of service at the church. All men are asked for an offering of $100.00 for Men’s Day

Sunday, November 10, 2019 (After 10:00am Service)

Church Fellowship at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church in Riverside for the Appreciation Services of Pastor Willie Chambers

A bus will leave from the church following 10am service.

Tuesday - Thursday, November 12-14, 2019 (7:00pm Nightly)

Providence District Session (Pastor C.R. Jones)

Place: St. Reed MBC – 656 E. 79th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90001 (MAP)

September 2019 Newsletter

This year I have been concentrating my sermons from the Gospel according to Mark. The month of August the sermons have been preached from Mark Chapter 9.

Sunday August 4: A MOUNTAINTOP EXPERIENCE Mark 9:1-10

Sunday August 11: STAYING CONNECTED TO THE RIGHT SOURCE: MARK 9:16-29

Sunday August 18: THE WAY TO GREATNESS: MARK 9: 33-41

Jesus took Peter, James, and John up to a mountain to pray and was transfigured momentarily into the glory He will have after He is risen from the dead and ascended up to heaven.

Then, we saw that when Jesus and the disciples had come down from the mountain that they came upon a commotion because the disciples who remained behind were not able to cast a demon out of a man’s son. We looked at why they might not have been able to cast out this demon. We looked at what we can learn about accomplishing things for God through prayer.

Looking at the Christian Way to Greatness we see the following.

We see that as Jesus is going around Galilee with His disciples that the disciples are discussing among themselves who among them will be the greatest of all. We will see that Jesus will teach His disciples what constitutes greatness in His service.

VS 9:33-35 - “They came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. Sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.”

– Jesus asks His disciples what they had been talking about on the way, but they kept quiet because they had been discussing who would be the greatest, then He sat them all down and told them that if anyone wanted to be first he should be last and the servant of all, and then bringing in a child to them He told them that whoever received even such a child in His name received Him and whoever received Him received the One who sent Him

The disciples here were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, so to speak, when Jesus asks them what they were discussing on the way. Their silence speaks volumes. Jesus understood what they had been discussing without their having to tell him. The disciples had no understanding or appreciation for what constituted true greatness at this point in time. Their hearts were full of selfish ambition and they were merely thinking of promoting themselves at the cost of everyone else, and evidently every one of the disciples thought they themselves deserved to be the most honored of Jesus’ men in His coming kingdom, and thus they were arguing for their own prominence.

Jesus gives His disciples two requirements for being the greatest in His kingdom:

#1 YOU MUST BE A SERVANT
#2 YOU MUST HUMBLE YOURSELF

Each of the disciples were arguing with each other that they deserved to be first and greatest in Christ’s kingdom, but in doing so they were promoting and exalting themselves, the very thing that would make them last in Christ’s kingdom. The person who puts themselves at the head of the line, first before others, as the disciples were doing at this time, is not the one who will receive the greatest reward in Christ’s kingdom. Rather, it is the one who is humble and thinks of others and their needs and desires first, and himself and his needs and desires last, who will be first in Christ’s kingdom.

In this world, great leaders lead by intimidation, determination, and sheer energy and might. However, the opposite is true in Christ’s kingdom. Christ calls His leaders to be “servant leaders,” and thus those who will be considered great in His kingdom will serve, just as He has served all of us. Jesus says that the greatest in His kingdom will be the ‘servant of all’, and truly it is Jesus Himself who by His example of servant leadership who will be the greatest in His kingdom.

What we as Christians have to offer the world to meet their needs is Christ Himself, and Jesus says here that the one who receives even a little child in His name receives Him, and the one who receives Jesus receives the Father (the one who sent Jesus).

Jesus’ exhortation to the disciples at this point is for them to be charitable and not think that they have a franchise on God just because they are His followers and even the leaders of His church. God is always working in many ways outside of any one particular church, denomination, or group.

Jesus’ disciples had been humbled after realizing that they totally misunderstood what true greatness consisted of, and then also that they had told a man to stop who was serving God casting out demons in the name of Jesus. Jesus now encourages them that God will reward their smallest of labors for Him, that of simply giving someone a cup of water to drink.