Helping Hands Ministry Collects Items for Israel

Pictured is Tony Haywood of Helping Hands Ministry, headquartered in Moore County, N.C.

  

“Many Jewish people are migrating to Israel,” says Tony Haywood of West End. “Israel makes housing available to newcomers, but no material provisions are in those houses or apartments. Some immigrants arrive with little or nothing.”

Haywood and his wife, Donna, who founded Helping Hands Ministry in 1996, are collecting blankets, quilts, comforters, adult diapers and warm clothing to send to Israel. Only items listed may be shipped; the deadline for contributing items is September 15.

“Helping Hands Ministry is a nondenominational Christian ministry that delivers goods at no charge to the poor all over the world,” Haywood says. “We’ve shipped humanitarian items to over 20 countries.”

Haywood met Barry Feinman, founder of Jezreel International, at a TECH (Technical Exchange Christian Healthcare) conference in Boone, last year. TECH is a membership organization representing over 140 nonprofit Christian medical relief organizations. Haywood plans to ship collected-for-Israel items through Jezreel International to Nitzanei Oz, an Israeli settlement whose name in Hebrew literally means “Buds of Strength.”  

“The shipment is for The Joseph Project in Nitzanei Oz,” Haywood says. “Once it arrives, it will be distributed to 30 different humanitarian-aid projects in Israel. If you can help, it will be a huge blessing.”

 
Phone Tony Haywood at 910-690-5527 or e-mail him at tony.haywood1@gmail.com. 

Reference: www.helpinghandsnc.org.

'Surrounded and Surrendered'

From a message by Pastor David Schmaltz (pictured above with his wife and four children) 

Jesus “offended the religious and inspired the hungry,” said David Schmaltz, senior pastor of Valley Community Church in Weldon, N.C., as he spoke on July 1, 2012, at Grace Church in Southern Pines, N.C.

Valley Community Church is located in North Carolina’s Halifax County and is part of the Roanoke Rapids, N.C. “Micropolitan Statistical Area.” According to Wikipedia, a “Micropolitan Statistical Area” is an urban area in the U.S. that is based around an urban cluster (urban area) with a population of 10,000 to 49,000.

Schmaltz’s wife, Andrea Schmaltz, a keyboardist and vocalist who serves as Valley Community Church’s music and fine arts director, led the Grace Church worship before her husband preached on July 1. Their two daughters sang in the service, and their two sons helped with Grace’s children’s church.

Randy Thornton, Grace Church’s senior pastor, said he and Schmaltz had known each other since they worked together at Manna Church in Fayetteville. Schmaltz said he remembered when Thornton “came to Southern Pines” to plant Grace Church. 

In his sermon, Schmaltz discussed concepts found in “Not a Fan,” a book by Pastor Kyle Idleman. The book proposes that being a fan of Jesus is not the same as being a follower. 

Here is a statement from the book’s promotional material: “You may indeed be a passionate, fully devoted follower of Jesus. Or, you may be just a fan who admires Jesus but isn’t ready to let him cramp your style. Then again, maybe you’re not into Jesus, period. In any case, don’t take the question – Are you a follower of Jesus? – lightly. … ‘Not a Fan’ calls you to consider the demands and rewards of being a true disciple.”

Grace Church’s small groups have been studying “Not a Fan” during the summer of 2012.

Schmaltz titled his sermon “Surrounded and Surrendered.” He told about the story of the rich young ruler, which is recorded in Matthew 19:16-28:

Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

“Which ones?” he inquired.

Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

 Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

“Jesus went after something that was very deep – the heart,” Schmaltz said. “He went for the jugular.”

There was an area in the rich young ruler’s life that was not fully sacrificed to God, Schmaltz noted. 

“You can’t follow Jesus without denying yourself,” he said. “For Americans, that doesn’t fit so well. … Becoming a follower is a true test of the heart. We all think the Devil is our problem. … The greatest deception is self-deception. It’s one step after another of dealing with internal motives of our hearts.”

Committed followers are willing to choose Jesus over personal comfort.

“When you seek personal comfort and make it a goal in your life, you begin to avoid difficulty,” Schmaltz said. “We have to learn to choose Jesus over personal comfort.”

Money is one of the biggest tests of the heart.

Schmaltz said he gave his life to Christ at age 17 and began tithing.

He said he asks some college students what they plan to do with their lives and they tell him many things. When he asks them “Have you asked God about that?” they appear stunned.

“They look at me like I’m an alien,” he said. “Like, ‘I’ve asked the guidance counselor.’” 

Maybe we really don’t deny ourselves the way Christ has called us to, Schmaltz said.

“In the area of indulging the flesh, we still haven’t learned that lesson,” he said. “To be a committed follower of Christ, we can’t choose the comfortable lifestyle – learning in many cases to give what you could have to somebody else.” 

He told of a lady who poured Pepsi for her husband and herself. A small bit of Pepsi remained in a large bottle. That portion was “flat” and had no fizz. She poured that into one glass and poured fresh Pepsi from a newly opened large bottle into another glass. Her husband watched as she kept the old Pepsi for herself and gave him the glass of fresh Pepsi. The husband said to a friend, “I never felt more loved.”

“A lot of little things add up to big things,” Schmaltz said.

Our “workaround” – we compartmentalize.

“We are not quite ready to have Christ shine his light on some area,” Schmaltz said.

He told of a nice couple that began attending Community Valley Church. They were “believers, confessing Christ, worshippers,” he said. They became involved in the life of the church, but he soon realized they were living together and not married. He “gave them time” and then talked with them about marrying. 

“They left; kind of broke our hearts – they compartmentalized,” Schmaltz said. “We start creating ‘truth’ that fits our lifestyles. They call that ‘Existentialism.’”

He talked about vegetarians who “eat meat they like.” They are sometimes called “flexitarians.”

“Christians do that to avoid personal pain and discomfort,” Schmaltz said. “Shall we go back and rewrite the words of Jesus? If we want to be committed followers, we have to examine our motives … stop compartmentalizing.”


 We’ve been given the highest calling of all. 

In the Old Testament, slavery began involuntarily, Schmaltz said. But at times, slaves could become free, and some chose to stay with the families they had served. 

“In the Bible, they call it a ‘bondservant,’” he said. “And that’s what Peter and Paul were saying about serving Jesus.”

[From “goodnewsarticles.com”: “There is a word the Bible uses to describe the true character of one who serves God in the proper attitude of surrender. That Greek word is “doulos.” Romans 1:1: ‘Paul, a servant (doulos) of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God … .’ The word translated ‘servant’ in this verse is more properly rendered ‘bondslave.’ This Greek word, ‘doulos,’ is the most servile term in the New Testament. It speaks of one whose will is swallowed up in the will of another … a slave who is bound to his master unto death. He is one who has only the will of his master in mind. A bondslave does not belong to himself. He has no rights.”]

“Becoming a ‘bondslave’ is the path to true freedom,” Schmaltz said, adding that Bob Dylan, who reportedly became a Christian convert, wrote and sang “You gotta serve somebody.”

Schmaltz said “Lord” means “you’re my Master.”

“But when you understand who Jesus is, it all makes sense,” he said. “Jesus has our past and future covered. If we’re going to become enslaved to anyone, it’s him. To try to live our lives without God seems ‘right.’ But living a life without Christ is painful. You may have been walking with God many years, but are you a bondslave?”

Schmaltz said Millard Fuller was a successful and very wealthy man, but his wife left him. He found her at a motel, weeping, saying she couldn’t handle it [the wealth and lifestyle] anymore.
“They gave their lives to Christ and served God,” Schmaltz said. “They later formed ‘Habitat for Humanity.’ That took a choice on their part.”

He said that freedom without God will bring “a leanness to your soul.” Serving Christ will cost you something – yes, it’ll cost you everything, he noted.

We should not look at the things we don’t have, he said.  

“Thank God for the things he’s spared you from,” Schmaltz said. “I thank God for the simplicity of my life. … Do this everyday, say, ‘I’m giving it all back.’ Let’s think about what Jesus has done for each of us.”

Schmaltz closed in prayer, saying, “Lord, you’ve called us to deny ourselves, and we know that’s not easy. … Lord, you will provide everything we need. … Lord, that high calling … to be bondservants to you. … Lord, I give up. I’m surrounded by your truth. I give up. Lord, teach us, lead us, in Jesus’ name.”

### www.valleychurch.us and www.gracechurchsp.org.

'Follow Me'

From a sermon by Pastor Ryan Peterson, pictured above with his wife, Rebekah

During the time Jesus walked the earth in physical form, Jewish boys who were five years of age wanted to be rabbis, said Ryan Peterson. (A rabbi is a teacher of the “Torah,” which is made up of the “first five books of the Jewish Bible.)

Peterson preached recently on “Follow Me” at Grace Church in Southern Pines, N.C. As Grace Church's spiritual development pastor and leader of the church's 20/30 Young Adults Ministry, he serves under Grace's Senior Pastor Randy Thornton. 

Peterson said many Jewish boys [during the period of Jesus’ earthly ministry] had already memorized the Torah by the time they were ten years old. (The word “Torah” in Hebrew is derived from a root word meaning “to guide” or “teach,” according to Wikipedia.)

At 15 to 18 years of age, the better students of Judaism [in those days] attached themselves to rabbis.

“They left home to follow the rabbis,” Peterson said. “In a few cases, rabbis chose their own students. The students wanted to become everything the rabbis were. At ages 20 to 30, they would be doing what they dreamed about at age five.”

Peter and Andrew were fishermen.

“Maybe they lived with their parents,” Peterson said. “Peter and Andrew maybe failed to be rabbis. What in your life is like Peter and Andrew?”

Peter and Andrew were doing a common job by the seaside.

“They weren’t really qualified [to be rabbis],” Peterson said,” but Jesus offered them two words: ‘Follow me.’”

Jesus issued a “life calling” for the two men.

“Immediately they left their nets,” Peterson said. “They dropped everything they had and signed up. [They essentially said] ‘I’m all in.’”

Peterson said the two words – “Follow me” – are “words of hope.”

“Even Satan believes in God, but few are willing to follow God,” he said. “God’s not as interested in calling the qualified as in qualifying those he calls.”

A follower does whatever it takes, Peterson said, adding, “Jesus says [to Peter and Andrew], ‘You have the opportunity to hang out with me, a rabbi.’”

Peterson told his audience that God promises grace which is “sufficient” and that God offers an invitation of two words: “Follow me.”

After the audience sang the old song “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” Peterson closed the service with these words: “I want to give you the same invitation Jesus gave Peter and Andrew: ‘Follow me.’”

www.gracechurchsp.org

The Caddells Working with Grace Church to Plant 'Reach Community Church' in Leland, North Carolina

 

Jodi and Heath Caddell and their children (pictured above; click to enlarge the photo) 

 “This is the last thing I would ever have thought I’d be doing,” says Heath Caddell about planting a church. “I thought I’d be always a church youth guy.”

Caddell, age 36, a Moore County, N.C., native, recently served as a fulltime youth pastor at Grace Church in Southern Pines, N.C. He holds a B.S. degree in elementary education and is studying with Grace College of Divinity for a bachelor of divinity degree. He and his wife, Jodi, now work at planting a church in Leland, N.C., part of the Wilmington metropolitan area. Grace Church plans to provide some financial support to the Caddells until January 2015.

“Grace Church is our ‘sending church,’ supporting us monthly by raising funds in its congregation,” he says.  

The Caddells sold their Moore County home and moved to Leland, but they meet periodically at Grace Church with “core” families who plan to relocate to Leland and help establish a church. The Caddells have three children: Lydia, 9; Noah, 8; and Allie, 3.

“Ten families plan to move with us,” Caddell says. “Most are moving this summer. Our launch date to be in a school, storefront or some kind of building is September 9, 2012. We plan to conduct four ‘practice services’ during August 2012. I will be the lead pastor. Our church’s name is Reach Community Church.”

Thinking about Church Planting

 

Caddell says he approached the Rev. Randy Thornton, Grace Church’s senior pastor, in 2009 and said, “Jodi and I have been talking. We feel we might plant a church, sometime.”

Thornton advised them to wait and see what developed. Caddell put the thought “on the shelf.”

Grace Churches International (now called “mPact Churches”; www.mpactchurches.org) held a 3-day March 2010 conference in Wilmington, N.C. Caddell and his wife attended. Caddell says Clem Farris, a GCI-affiliated minister from Chapel Hill, N.C., stood at a meeting on the first day of that conference and said, “I feel God’s calling someone to start a church in Wilmington.”

Caddell says he grew up vacationing at South Carolina beaches and that he and Jodi are preferably “mountain people.” (They met at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.)

“Wilmington wasn’t foremost in my thoughts as a place to live,” he says.

On the second day of the conference, a speaker said he felt God had spoken to some young men in the room “about future things, but you have gotten comfortable where you are.”   

“Jodie and I walked out feeling he was talking about us,” Caddell says.

The next morning, Caddell was one of about 20 people attending a meeting concerning church planting. He signed up for an “assessment interview,” which later took six hours at one sitting. That discussion involved 13 subjects, including personal evangelism and conflict resolution.

Caddell says that interview involved this philosophy: “What you did in the past predicts what you do in the future.”

He adds, “You don’t plant a church where you think you should. You plant it where you’re called. I spent four or five months asking, ‘Where?’ Wilmington kept coming to mind. I’d see UNC-Wilmington bumper stickers.”

Trip to the Beach

On July 1, 2010, Jodi, his then-8-year-old daughter Lydia and he drove to Wilmington to pray and stay one night in a motel.

“I had the idea the clouds were going to part [and provide an answer to his calling],” Caddell says. “It rained all night. We could not ‘prayer walk.’ I felt spiritual oppression.”

They drove to Wrightsville Beach the next morning, after the rain had stopped.  

“We were all three walking independently and praying,” he says. “I was really kind of frustrated and whining. God seemed to say to me, ‘I brought you here.’ He was getting me to calm down, so I could listen. I said to God, ‘If I need to come here, I need to know.’ Then I heard a strong inward voice – the strongest I’ve heard in the 17 years since I’ve been saved – say to me, ‘This is what I created you for.’”

As the three family members returned to their car, Caddell asked his wife, “What’d you feel?”

“Nothing,” Jodi said.

She mentioned, however, that a song kept returning to her mind while she prayed.

“But she sloughed it off,” Caddell says. “That song was a Kenny Loggins song called ‘This Is It.’ I felt that was a bit of a confirmation.”

Almost a month later, during an “arts night” of worship and prayer at Grace Church, Jodi watched Amy Smith of Aberdeen begin to paint on a large blank canvas.

“Have her paint a beach scene,” Jodi prayed.

Smith painted a bird flying above an ocean wave and lettered this slogan below the wave depicted on the canvas: “The Spirit of the Lord dwells here.”

Noting that church planting is not easy and does not always work as it seems it should, Caddell refers to Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Leland, North Carolina

Caddell talks about Leland, N.C.

“Leland is a town in Brunswick County, N.C., and is part of the “Wilmington Metropolitan Area,” he says.

A port city, Wilmington was settled on the Cape Fear River and is the county seat of New Hanover County, N.C.

“We looked for a location in Wilmington,” Caddell says, “but growth is to the north and west of that area – west is where Leland is. We’re only four miles from downtown Wilmington.”

Over 100,000 people reside in Brunswick County, and over 180,000 live in New Hanover County. Caddell says there are 18,000 people within a 5-mile radius from the location where he plans to plant a church.

“In the last 20 years, that area has grown 106 percent,” he says. “That’s in only the 5-mile demographic. In the Leland-Belville area, there are lots of families – very suburb-ish.”

Preparing for Ministry

Caddell talks about his preparation for ministry.

“I was ‘saved’ at age 18 at a Young Life camp in Saranac, N.Y.,” he says.  

He had attended regularly at Culdee Presbyterian Church in West End, N.C., but says, “I had the facts in my brain but no relationship with Jesus.”

After graduation from Pinecrest High School in 1994, Caddell studied for two years at Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst, N.C.

David Page of Young Life mentored him in his Christian Faith. Page and his wife, Wendy, now live in Greensboro, N.C.

Caddell enrolled at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., and met his then-wife-to-be, Jodi Hamilton, on his third day at school. She was studying business. They became engaged nine months later and married six months after that engagement. They attended Banner Elk Christian Fellowship in Boone.

After he earned a B.S. in elementary education, the couple lived for six months in Ashville, N.C., where Caddell worked as a salesman at Auto advantage. Jodi worked at a “The Gap” store.

They moved to Moore County, N.C., and tried various churches for four Sundays.

“One day I opened the phone book, looking for a church,” Caddell says. “I saw the name ‘Grace Church.’ We visited and never left. I volunteered to help with the youth group about a year after we came to Grace. Jimmy Currence was the youth pastor.”

Before working as a fulltime Grace Church youth pastor, Caddell served as a part-time youth director for the church from 2002 to January 2008.

“For the first six years as youth pastor, I worked 50 hours per week for four and a half years at McDonald Brothers (a distributor of building supplies) and three and a half at Cisco Industrial Supply” he says. His wife worked as a homemaker.

Seeing God’s Hand

Caddell says he learned a lot from youth ministry.

“It’s the individual who matters more than the group,” he says. “You constantly have hurting teenagers, and it brings you back to the fact that ministry is really about a relationship with each person.”

“Around years four to six during that bi-vocational time, I almost quit the ministry,” he says. “I’ve learned that it’s my work to do what God’s called me to do, and it’s God’s job to do what he’s going to do. For a season, I felt I needed to be God for people. It’s the Holy Spirit who does the work. We only have a part in their lives.”

For about the first year after he became a Christian at age 18, Caddell wanted to become a minister, he says.

“I can see God’s hand from the beginning, building me for where I’m going to be,” Caddell says. “I’m most excited about the faith that planting a church is going to require of me. I have the opportunity to see the greatest moves of God in my new adventure.”

Jodi and Heath Caddell (pictured above in 2012)

'Holding Up the Home Front' and 'Battle Ready': Two Military-Family Support Groups at Grace Church

Pictured (from left) are Angela Pihlgren, Jennifer Bailey and Chris Wortham. 

Grace Church of Southern Pines sponsors two groups for military-involved families.

Holding Up the Home Front ia a group for spouses of those serving in the U.S. military. Jennifer Bailey, whose husband serves in the Air Force, leads the group. The Baileys have two children.

“Holding up the Home Front is a network of spouses who support one another through the mountains and valleys of loving a member of the Armed Forces,” Bailey says. “We develop friendships that enable us to give/receive advice and provide prayer/support for each others’ needs.”

  

Group members also gather for Bible studies, she says.

“It’s our relationships with other believers and Christ that help us get through the deployments, single parenting, day-to-day trials, and having faith that the Lord will protect our spouses while they’re out serving their country,” Bailey says. 

   

Bailey’s co-leader is Angela Pihlgren. Her husband is a 12-year Special Forces veteran. The Pihlgrens have two children.

“Young wives may not have experience in military life,” Pihlgren says. “We are here to lift them up in their times of need. When babies arrive, for example, we make meals for the families, so they can spend those precious times together.”

Pihlgren says her group likes to “lift up” their husbands with this saying: “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take a stand against the devil's schemes . . . “ (Ephesians 6:10-20).

“We are a group of women who support each other like a FRG (Family Readiness Group) would in a unit in the military, but with Christ involved,” Pihlgren says.

A Family Readiness Group (FRG) is “a command-sponsored organization of family members, volunteers, soldiers and civilian employees associated with a particular unit,” according to Wikipedia.

Chris Wortham and her husband, a special forces career-soldier stationed at Fort Bragg, lead “Battle Ready,” a Grace Church-sponsored group for military families, including husbands, wives and children. The Worthams have three children.

   

“We’re investing in families, so that when spouses deploy, families will survive the pressures,” Wortham says. “We’ve seen too many of our friends get divorced.”

The Battle Ready group encourages family bonding before the active-duty parent in a military family deploys, she says.

“Children crave ‘alone-time’ with the active-duty parent, just as the spouse does,” Wortham says. “ ‘Battle Ready’ is about ‘families.’”

Wortham refers to the following statement found in “Healing on the homefront,” an article written by Jon R. Anderson and posted at www.armytimes.com on Feb. 28, 2012:

“While civilian divorce rates have been falling, military divorces are up 42 percent since 2001,” Anderson says. “If troops got a Purple Heart for every broken heart, those who have gone through a divorce during the past decade of war would eclipse those with physical wounds by 5-to-1. It would take more than 255,000 white grave markers to account for every military couple divorced since 9/11.”

“That’s why we are doing this group,” Wortham says. “Those statistics are not just numbers to us but represent friends who have become family. My husband and I have made a choice to seek God for what his plans are for our family, to begin to ask the hard questions of one another and to fight to keep our family together and strong. ‘Battle Ready’ came about because we were looking for folks who were willing to walk this out with us.”

She says members of Battle Ready recently talked about the “cord of three strands” referred to in Ecclesiastes 4:12.

“We defined the three strands as husband, wife and God,” Wortham says. “If these three are tightly woven, then they will not be easily separated when the stress of deployments, finances, child-rearing, etc. come along.”

To tighten the “cord,” the group sponsors date-nights.

“Couples are given one date-night a month where the cost for a baby-sitter is covered,” Wortham says. “We alternate those evenings with nights of fellowship and the study of God’s Word, as it relates to love, marriage, children and whatever else applies.”

The group encourages couples to invest time in their children.

“All children crave the attention of their parents; however, we believe this is even more evident in homes where a parent has to come and go, as in a military family,” Wortham says. “My husband recently said that the total number of years he has spent deployed to war zones – not counting training, schools and other short trips – equals one-third of our oldest child’s life, one-half of our middle child’s life and all of our youngest child’s life. When I heard that, I realized I want to make every moment count. I want to be ‘Battle Ready.’”

Grace Church at Seven Lakes Holds Services

Brandon DiBianca leads.

A band playing worship choruses kicked off the 10:00 a.m., April 1, 2012, service at the new “Grace Church at Seven Lakes,” located in Seven Lakes, N.C.

Brandon DiBianca, a guitarist and singer, led choruses. Victoria Kentner sang with him. Jared Guden played lead guitar; Jacob Guden manned the drums, and Brit Kentner played bass guitar.

Victoria Kentner

 

“Hosanna, Hosanna … Hosanna in the highest,” Victoria Kentner sang. “I see a generation, rising up to take their place … with selfless faith, with selfless faith.”

Band members appeared to be young. Audience members of all ages stood or sat as they read projected-onto-screen lyrics and joined in spirited singing. Some people lifted their hands in worship. Total attendance numbered 97. The church has 150 chairs and room for more. Parking is no problem outside the church on Sunday mornings. 

DiBiana next led “Be Lifted High,” a slow, meditation-friendly chorus written for singing to God. Minor and major chords provided a reverent backdrop for the song’s message. 

“Be lifted high; be lifted high; for your glory, be lighted high,” DiBianca sang. “We will be the generation calling down the reign of heaven … Be lifted high; be lifted high; for your glory, be lifted high.” 

Grace Church at Seven Lakes meets at 145 West Plaza Drive Suite A and B, located in Seven Lakes Plaza, a few doors down from the area’s Peking Wok.

 

Jimmy Coxe, who has served as an elder for 21 years at Grace Church in Southern Pines, N.C., is the church’s campus pastor. He and his wife live in Pinehurst, N.C. She serves as children’s director for both locations: Grace Church at Southern Pines (GCSPines) and Grace Church at Seven Lakes (GCSLakes). GCSLakes is part of a multi-site church network sponsored by GCSPines. GCSLakes services feature a live band, a children’s program and a streamed-in message from GCSPines.

Jimmy and Joanna Coxe

Jimmy Coxe, Campus Pastor

After DiBianca led worship, Jimmy Coxe welcomed visitors and readied the audience for a video-streamed sermon delivered live at that same time from the GCSPines worship center.

A “live” image of Pastor Randy Thornton, senior pastor at GCSPines, appeared on a huge screen in the mini-auditorium located in the Seven Lakes Plaza.

Randy Thornton   

Thornton gave a “shout out” to the audience at GCSLakes before beginning his sermon called “A Tale of Two Failures.”

He contrasted the failures of two of Jesus’ disciples: Judas and Peter.

Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver but “repented.” Thornton said Judas felt sorry he betrayed Jesus but didn’t truly repent to God and find release from his sin. Judas “hanged himself.” 

Peter told Jesus he’d never deny being his follower, but Jesus predicted that before a rooster crowed twice that night, Peter would deny him three times.

From Mark 14 NIV:

“'You will all fall away,' Jesus told them [his disciples], 'for it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.'

“Peter declared, ‘Even if all fall away, I will not.’

“‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.’

“But Peter insisted emphatically, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.’”

Judas betrayed Jesus who was arrested and led to the courtyard of the Jewish high priest.

“While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him. ‘You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,’ she said.

“But he denied it. ‘I don’t know or understand what you’re talking about,’ he said, and went out into the entryway.

“When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, ‘This fellow is one of them.’ Again he denied it.

“After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, ‘Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.’

“He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know this man you’re talking about.’ 

“Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: ‘Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.’ And he broke down and wept.”

“Scripture is full of people who once failed,” Pastor Thornton said. “Judas failed; Peter failed. They responded differently. Judas committed suicide. He ‘repented,’ but he didn’t turn to God for forgiveness. Judas could no longer live in the lie of what he was on the inside.”

Thornton said many people commit “spiritual suicide,” caused by situations they allow in their lives.

“When we allow those sins, we cover them up … whenever we don’t deal with our sins, it’s only a matter of time …,” he said. “Judas had sorrow but not repentance. Peter responded differently.”

Thornton noted that an angel, located at the empty tomb where Jesus had been laid after his crucifixion, specifically mentioned Peter to three women visiting that tomb, “very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise.”

“Don’t be alarmed,” he [the angel] said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you’” (Mark 16:6-7).

The mention of Peter by the angel gave Peter encouragement about his reconciliation and forgiveness, Thornton indicated.

“He [Jesus] didn’t rub their [the disciples] failures in their faces,” Thornton said.

After contrasting paths taken by Judas and Peter, Thornton asked, “How do you respond to failure?”

The sermon ended, and Campus Pastor  Jimmy Coxe addressed the Grace Church at Seven Lakes audience.

“Is Jesus knocking on the door of your heart, today?” he asked.

After a song and special prayer for those desiring it, Coxe closed the service by praying, “Lord, our identity is totally wrapped up in you … We pray a blessing on what you are going to do in this community.”

For more information about Grace Church at Seven Lakes in Seven Lakes, N.C., call (910) 692-6711.

Photographs of some attendees at Grace Church at Seven Lakes: