7 Nita Ayers

12 Scherry Earl

13 Samantha Wall

17 Wendell Jones

19 Sarah Joe Strong

19 Christopher Strnad

______________________________________

Kitchen Clean-up for February

Barbara Lewis and June Wooten

Fellowship Lunch Hosts and

Hostesses February 13, 2011

*Lisa Bach

*JoAnne Klotz

James Alderman

**Christi Alderman

Scott Holland

*Kim Holland

* Please bring one bag of ice. ** Please bring sliced lemons for tea. Each hostess should bring a portion of bread to share. If we have a special function in place of fellowship lunch, the team will be asked to serve in some capacity. Thank you for your help. God Bless. Please call me if you cannot be there. Kim

Financial Update
		YTD
December, 2010
Giving Income	21.795	265.315
Expenses	24,535	265,763

__________________________________

NET (2,739) (449)

FROM THE MUSIC DIRECTOR

All choirs are off to a good start for 2011. We all came back after the Christmas break,

refreshed and ready to begin the new year. Voices of Worship is working hard to prepare music for the Sunday morning worship service, and we all appreciate their commitment and faithfulness. Joyful Sounds and More is working on the musical, “I’m Gonna Sing” by Pam Andrews.

“I’m Gonna Sing” is a praise and worship musical. The goals of this musical are: to teach the children how to find and experience a life with Jesus; and to know God’s plan for us is eternal life through Jesus. These concepts are expressed through song, scripture, and dialogue.

The musical will be presented on May 4 (tentatively) at 5:45. If you check your calendar, you will see that is a Wednesday. Following the musical, there will be a picnic for all who attend. We are going to try something new and different this year. (Change is a little unnerving, sometimes, isn’t it?) Hopefully, by having the presentation on Wednesday afternoon, more parents of the Busy Bee Day Care children will attend, and during the picnic, maybe we can visit with them and get to know them.

Please join us in prayer as we prepare the musical. May many come to know Jesus in a personal way.

In His Service,

Sarah Joe

Young At Heart will meet on Tuesday, February 22. Watch the bulletin for more details.

From The Youth Ministry

Church Family,

Beginning in February we will be selling discount cards for such places like Outback Steakhouse in Longview, Subway Restaurants in Marshall, Lunar Mini Golf in Longview, Long John Silver’s in Marshall, and over ten more restaurants and other businesses in the Marshall-Longview area. The cards, which resemble plastic credit cards, are only $10 each and we have 300 to sell for 50% of the profit. For you non-math people (like me), that means we could potentially raise $1,500 towards our summer camps and retreats (D3 for Senior High and Great Escape for Middle-School)!

These cards make great gifts and can even function as an outreach tool. The front of the cards has “Evangelical Presbyterian Church Youth Ministries” along with our church’s address and phone number. Purchase a few and give them away along with a copy of the New Testament or a different evangelistic tool. Business owners may want to purchase some cards to give them away to customers at their stores. The cards, which are not coupon cards, are good till March of 2012 and therefore can be used again and again for over a year.

If you would like more information, feel free to call or email.

Christ’s and yours, Ben

Women in Ministry

Ladies,

We had a wonderful evening at the WIM Winter Meeting on the 25th. What could be better than an evening of fellowship, being encouraged through His Word, and serving Him by serving others. We began the evening by sharing a meal and our day’s story with one another. Then Renee’ Duncan, as she liked to say, “encouraged” us with a few words. Thanks to her “Baptist Preacher’s 3 Point Format” we were reminded that in order to serve Him with our hands and feet, we must first know the Head. Otherwise our “service” is just an act of humanity to serve the world. Knowing the Head leads to 1) our becoming a new creature who 2) is called to be an Ambassador to 3) serve the Lord with the gifts He has given to us. Thanks to Renee for a wonderful word of encouragement! We closed the night by producing three hand- made baby blankets to donate to Living Alternatives. Thank you to everyone who donated, whether it was money or service.

A few of us will be traveling to Laurel, Mississippi on the 4th of February for the REAL WIM Leadership Training on the 5th. Please keep us in your prayers for traveling mercies and that we will absorb everything that the Lord has for us. We pray that we can come back and share it all with the rest of the church. I am so excited to learn all that God has in store for us on our trip and how he will use it to benefit the local church over all!

Your Sister in Christ Jesus,

Jackie Mills

WIM President 2011

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:25-26

Some of you have accepted the invitation to engage in a season of Fasting and Prayer here at EPC. We officially began this three-week event on Sunday, January 23 and will break the fast on Sunday, February 13 at our Fellowship Lunch (or perhaps at breakfast that same day). Some will pick other times and other methods – that’s fine!

The passage above expresses the heart of this spiritual exercise. We hunger for God more than we hunger for food! Let me encourage you to be more often than usual in prayer, and to use every hunger pang to remind you of your desire for God. Who knows what God has in store for us as we fervently seek Him? Certainly there are things we hope for – both personal and for our church. Our heavenly Father knows about these things! Be encouraged by His promises:

Deuteronomy 4:29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

James 4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

For all who are fasting and praying, press on! I hope that you are already enjoying God in fresh and deeply satisfying ways. And for everyone reading this, may rich communion with Him fan

the flame of holy zeal in your hearts – through whatever means of grace you employ to pursue Him!

A Necessary Correction from Last Month’s Newsletter

Okay, it’s time for me to “own up.” After reading last month’s newsletter, some of you expressed concern about the potential name change for our church. Since I wrote the article and the (awful) headline, I want to clear something up that developed due to a poor choice of a word on my part. The Session did not “mandate” a change. That was my error, made while in too much of a hurry to meet a newsletter deadline (which, not surprisingly, has snuck up on me again this month!). I sought to change that word (along with one or two phrases in the article) a few hours after I submitted the article, but I saw that the newsletter had already been published, so it was too late. Have you ever been in a hurry, and said something you wish you had worded differently? I regret my poor choice of wording; it has created unnecessary emotional backlash for some. Does anyone have a cure for the “foot-in-mouth” condition?

This is certainly not a mandate. The Session action was to get us out of the realm of mere discussion and into action: exploring the feasibility and benefits of a name change. But don’t worry; we plan to listen to and engage our EPC members on the issue (among whom opinions are fairly split right now). Part of the process is to discern the hearts of our brothers and sisters here. As I said, some have already expressed concerns, but just as many have expressed concerns that we need to change our name. Most of us feel this isn’t a major issue although still a valid issue. And all of us want to reach the lost with the saving gospel of Jesus Christ and welcome all who believe into this community of His redeemed people for their growth in grace! If a name change helps us even a little to that end, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Whatever the outcome of this exploration, at this church we will always be evangelical; in fact, we’re considering a name change because we are evangelical. And we remain Presbyterian. That isn’t changing. We will continue to make that known, and I will always explain in detail what these things mean to every inquirer and every new member.

Most importantly, changing the name, if we even do it, is only a small part of the overall effort to reach out to our community and beyond. We’re entering a year of greater emphasis on outreach, and we would love to know that you are praying along with us – perhaps even fast and pray (as some are doing even as I write, after an open-invitation from the pulpit on Sunday to join in a 3-week time of fasting and prayer; see above). Whether or not a name change happens, the effort that we make to do outreach is truly a major issue, and we need God’s wisdom, guidance, and power as we advance for His Kingdom!

There seems to be a growing zeal and motivation within our church to shine forth the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ to our neighbors… and I’m delighted and energized by it! How about you?

Thanks for listening.

For the glory of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ,

Pastor Craig

Evangelical Presbyterian Church 4700 Victory Drive

Marshall, Texas 75672 903-935-7898

Craig Vanbiber, Pastor

Sarah Joe Strong, Music Ministries Ben Wall, Youth Ministry

Angie Anders, Children’s Ministry Shirley Ransom, Secretary info@epcmarshall.org

Web: www.epcmarshall.org