the Logos

I would like to thank everyone for their prayers, well wishes, encouragement, and gifts during the celebration of my fifth pastoral anniversary. We had a great time at the banquet on that Friday and on the following Sunday. It was great to have my mom and the pastor and first lady from my home church to come down and participate in the activities. The family and I enjoyed riding in the limo. I'm the only person I know that rides in a limo with three car seats! But that's how I roll!!! Again, I enjoyed my anniversary and appreciate what everyone has done to support my wife and I in ministry. We look forward to many, many more years of working together to accomplish the purposes God has for us.

For those who have not heard...the Wheelers are going to be relocating to GA. Looks like their last Sunday will be 4/22. Please take some time to wish them well before they leave. I know that God will continue to bless them. "Distractions" is almost here (4/28 at 5pm at Green Hope High School). Invite someone to come to this event. To our graduating seniors, take note of a couple of scholarships: Coca-Cola Two Year College Scholarship Award and Mt Zion’s own scholarship award. Other scholarship and internship info available on our MyChurch classified section . The next Bible Study series, “Preparing for Christ’s Return,” will begin on Wed., Apr. 18th at 7:00pm. Everyone is invited to join us for this series. Harvest Crusade: Next prayer meeting is 4/19 at 7pm at Bay Leaf Baptist Church in Raleigh. I personally encourage all who can to also participate in the Impact classes. Regardless of whether you volunteer to be on the follow-up team for the Harvest events, it will...

Our first Theatrical Dance Production, "Distractions" will be on 4/28 at 5pm at Green Hope High School. Don't forget to invite someone to come to this event. Easter Sunday's love offering is going to support Harvest Crusade. Since Mt Zion is participating in this great event, we also want to support it financially. As Easter is a reminder of God giving His very best for us, let us do our very best for our Lord in our sacrificial giving. Continue to be faithful in your giving towards your vow to God.

Visitation and Homegoing services for Sis. DeLoatch will be held at Mt Zion this week. The Visitation will be Tuesday (4/3) at 7pm and the Homegoing service will be on Wednesday (4/4) at 10am. We had a great Youth Revival last week. On Wednesday, we had about 5 young men come to devote themselves to a closer walk with God. On Thursday, Sis. Payton’s young boy, Braxton gave his life to Christ. Praise the Lord! And on Friday, our youth wrote out their struggles and laid it at the altar. Pastor Wright challenged them to pray and read Proverbs for 21 days. Our first Evangelical Outreach Theatrical Dance Production, "Distractions" is almost here! We want to do our best to make this production one of excellence. Two things are needed: 1) Volunteers to work backstage and 2) Invite people. The invitation to accept Christ will be given so please invite those who may not know the Lord to this great event. Online flyers that you can email to people can be found here . Next Su...

If you haven't seen them yet, check out our photo gallery for great pictures from our Street Dedication and Groundbreaking Ceremony. As we find out about job opportunities, internships for students, scholarship info, and such, we post it on MyChurch in the classified section . Ladies: We will be serving dinner to homeless women at the Helen Wright Center in Raleigh on Thurs., Mar. 29th at 7:00pm. The Deaconess Ministry is in need of donations to purchase the meat to serve the ladies. Your donations can be given to any deaconess. Spring Youth Revival is this week, Wed thru Fri at 7:00pm. We have dynamic guest speakers each night. Then on Saturday is the Teen Summit. Parents, please bring your youth out to these events. Have you put the names of those you plan to invite to Harvest Crusade in the prayer box yet? Don't forget to fill out the names on the Harvest bookmark and drop the bottom portion in the prayer box so the names can be prayed over at our prayer meeting on Tuesdays...

Scripture: 1 Peter 1:6-9 I wish I could tell you that you will not have trials. Some people thought that when they became a Christian they were through with trials. They thought that faith in Christ would keep them from suffering. They thought the Gospel train was the gravy train. Then reality arrived. In this world, we will have trouble. John 16:33 (NLT): “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” Christians are not immune from sickness. Christians can have financial problems. Christian parents can have trouble with their children. Christian workers can have bosses who are hard to please. But we should remember these times are temporary when we consider eternity with our Creator. 2 Corinthians 4:17: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” We must accept trials as part of the refining proce...

Elder Snead sent this to me. It's quite funny. Enjoy. Country Funeral As a young minister, I was asked by a funeral director to hold a grave-side service for a homeless man, with no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a cemetery way back in the country, and this man would be the first to be laid to rest there. As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost; and being a typical man did not stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late. I saw the backhoe and the crew, who was eating lunch, but the hearse was nowhere in sight. I apologized to the workers for my tardiness, and stepped to the side of the open grave, where I saw the vault lid already in place. I assured the workers I would not hold them up for long, but this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I poured out my heart and soul. As I preached the workers began to say "Amen," "Praise the Lord," and "Glory"! I preach...

Harvest Crusade Update: Bumper stickers are now available. If you are like me, I don't like putting bumper stickers on my car, but these are removable. This is a great way to announce to the community the event is coming and generate some "buzz". You never know someone may ask you "what is Harvest Crusade?" or "Who is Greg Laurie?" and then you will have an opportunity to share with them about the crusade and invite to come out. Distractions: We are excited about Distractions, our first drama and dance production of its kind so please invite people to come out on 4/28 at 5pm at Green Hope High School. Please be in prayer for our brothers & sisters in Brazil that are facing persecution with a new legislation that would make saying anything about homosexuality a crime punishable by 3-5 years jail time. See the details here . Relocation Update: Our buyer is now saying that we can remain on our current location until our new church is built. PR...

I found this article interesting. Looks like Discovery Channel is trying to distant itself from the James Cameron-produced documentary on the Lost Tomb of Jesus despite the fact that it had good rating. Looks like they canned the repeat airing of it. I'm not upset about that. Check out the article here: http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11681

Congratulations to Deacon Porter who is now a granddaddy. Jazzmin Moss gave birth to her daughter, Laila J`anee Moss weighing 8lbs 3oz and 21in long. Also, Shanese Greene gave birth to her daughter, Nia Alanah Greene weighing 6 lbs and 7oz. Proud grandparents are Rufus and Peggy Credle. Harvest Crusade is coming in June at the RBC Center. Don’t forget to put the names of people who are not believers that you want to invite on the tear away section of the Harvest bookmark and drop in the prayer box located in the vestibule at the church. Sacrificial Giving: Continue to be faithful in keeping your vows. Things are moving quickly so we must remain focused on our commitments to God. I drove by the site on Saturday and there are now beams up at the site! Due to death in Minister Falana's family, her 2007 Women's Conference will be rescheduled for another time.

Congratulations to Sis. La Donna & Bro. Antonio Bethea on the birth of their son, Mason Gregory, Feb. 28th, 6 lbs., 15 oz., 18 ¾ long! Don't forget that Daylight Savings Time change is next Sunday (3/11) so set your clock 1 hour ahead on Saturday night. Relocation Update: Our buyer had asked for extension and we are currently negotiating on a new contract. Notice that the time between when we need to leave our current location and when the new facility is complete is shortening. If it's God's will, we desire to stay where we are until we move into our new facility. The good thing is that we have a temporary location identified and we are working through logistics (God has already worked it out that we won’t need a special use permit from the Town of Cary). Continue to pray for our transition and our negotiating with the buyer. I encourage everyone to come out to our Bible Study series, “Know why you believe”. This series is especially relevant due to recent challenges t...

Congratulations to our latest newlyweds: Troy and Yolanda Brooks and Minister James and Cecelia Wheeler!! Some of you should have received a new contribution statements in the mail because the amount for your sacrificial giving was incorrect. We apologize for the error and appreciate your patience as we corrected the problem and hope it didn’t cause too much of an inconvenience. Thanks for your generous giving in last Sunday’s love offering, we were able to give $1,000 to the family that lost everything in a fire. We are in the Lent season, which started on Ash Wednesday and goes to Easter. I suggest you fast by giving up something you enjoy and pray so that you can draw closer to God. We had a tremendous time at the Black History Program at the Bond Park Community Center. Everyone did an awesome job from the participants to the production. There was a lot of God-given talent being used and we learned some new things about some of our very own members who were actually making black his...

Today is Ash Wednesday which is the first day of Lent. We marked the foreheads of everyone at Bible Study with ashes. The ashes were prepared by burning palm leaves from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations and mixing them with olive oil. Ashes represent mourning and repentance. So during Lent, we should be repentant and draw closer to God. I would also encourage you to fast during Lent by giving up something dear to you.

For God so LOVED the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 This is how we know what LOVE is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 1 John 3:16

It was truly a historic occasion as we celebrated during our street dedication and groundbreaking ceremony on last Saturday. Some people say that miracles no longer happen. But we are in the midst of a miracle. In 1998, to facilitate a vision that God gave him, Pastor Jackie Allen Lewis led Mt. Zion to purchase 24 acres of land here in Cary with a small congregation. That was a miracle! Over time, we were able to make our payments and keep this land. That was a miracle! Then on the seventh year, we were able to sell a portion of the 24 acres, which allowed us to pay off the remaining portion that we kept. The number seven represents completeness. God brought us to completeness with the land so that we owned it. Then in year eight, we were actively planning and designing with Bobbitt to begin construction. The number eight represents regeneration or new birth. God was preparing us for the beginning of a new era. Now in 2007, the ninth year, we are breaking ground and construction is sta...

Mt Zion is putting on a unique drama and dance production called “Distractions” on April 28th. We need volunteers to use their skills: sewing, carpentry, graphic designing, marketing, etc. If you are interested or would like more info please contact Kim Roberts, Regina Sands, or Betty Liverman. Gov. Mike Easley announced that Healthways Inc., providers of Health and Care SupportSM services, will expand its call center in Wake County, creating 109 jobs and investing approximately $2 million over the next three years. See the community connection section of website for more details.

Deacon Perry Johnson will be chairing the relocation committee. So if you find any properties available for lease, you may contact Deacon Johnson directly or the church office and the information will be forwarded to the relocation committee.

Here is some of the info that we presented at the recent Church Family Meeting. The following people will be coordinators for Mt. Zion for the Harvest Crusade 2007 happening in June 22-24 at RBC Center: Church Coordinator: Lydia Amekuedi Follow-up Coordinator: Jess Ward Youth Coordinator: Rasheeda Oliver & Keith Patterson Prayer Coordinator: Samantha Hanebeck We have closed on our loan with BB&T. We will need proceeds from the sale of the church to cover our Bobbitt contract for construction. Monies from the sacrificial giving will go towards furnishings in the new facility. If our weather continues to be as good as it has been, Bobbitt is proposing that we could move into our new church as early as 4th Quarter of this year. Mark your calendars for our Street Dedication and Groundbreaking ceremony on Feb. 10th at 1pm. The biggest announcement of the meeting was that we have sold our current church property!!!! Most of the proceeds will go to phase 1, with some left over to inve...

Apex Baptist Church will launch a “How to Drug Proof Your Kids” program on 1/21 at 5:15pm. More details on website at community connections. Thank you for your giving to help the people of Darfur. Because of your generosity, we were able to donate $1,500 to Samaritan’s Purse for their Sudan Darfur Disaster Recovery Project. Please mark your calendars...we are moving our Church Family Meeting to 1/15 at 7pm. We have exciting and important information to share so we need all members in attendance.

As believers we should be future-oriented. Forget the past and look to the future. We have all done things for which we are ashamed, and we live in the tension of what we have been and what we want to be. Because our hope is in Christ, however, we can let go of past guilt and look forward to what God will help us become. Don't dwell on your past. If you made a mistake in 2006, learn from it and move forward. Don’t dwell on every misstep, mistake, or stumble. Instead, grow in the knowledge of God by concentrating on your relationship with Him now. Realize that you are forgiven, and then move on to a life of faith and obedience. Look forward to a fuller and more meaningful life because of your hope in Christ. You have to let go of the past so that your hands are free to receive what God has for you in the future. It’s time to let go of 2006 so that 2007 can come in. It’s time for us to move and grow to another level of spiritual maturity. God has greater work for us to do in ...