2010 AABC World Impact Conference from First String Media on Vimeo.

As part of our 2010 World Impact Conference, The World Mission and The Orphan,  Andrew Peterson will be in concert at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 25th.

THE CONCERT IS FREE! Donations will be taken during the concert, all of which go toward Ashland Avenue’s Ends of the Earth mission efforts.

Let us know you are coming to the concert here.  (Just click yes to the Andrew Peterson Concert. You do not have to attend the rest of the conference to attend the concert.)

The summer missionaries will continue to build upon the presence we now have in Cordova for the sake of the gospel.  They will continue to meet with Cordovians who have expressed interest in following Jesus.  They will host a formal Bible Study each evening in someone’s home.  Their days will be spent working in the fields, schools, and homes of the people of Cordova as they seek to teach them the truths of Scripture.  Pray that the gospel goes forth this summer and our efforts in planting a church in this village continue to be fruitful!

May 24th – August 1st

Jay Moore and Casi Graves

First Baptist Church Wolfforth Texas

May 29th – June 28th

Ioana Cosoreanu

Ashland Avenue Baptist Church

July 1st – August 1st

Katie Anthony

Ashland Avenue Baptist Church

July 1st – August 1st

Aaron King

Crosspoint Baptist Church Richmond, Ky

• Ashland Avenue Baptist Church
• August 20, 2010
• 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
• Free Chickfila Lunch

AABC is committed to serving the 145 million children around the world who right now are languishing in abandonment.  This is why we want to connect our church family with others in our community who are passionate about caring for orphans.

On August 20, 2010, we are hosting an Adoption Awareness Luncheon.  If you are family who has adopted or who is looking into adoption, we want you to join us.  If you want to know how your church can be more effective in ministering to orphans, we want to meet you. Or maybe you are involved with an organization who helps to assist families and churches in adoption and orphan care. If so, we would love for you to join us as well.

Our prayer is that this lunch will help to increase the network of people in our community who are concerned about serving the fatherless around the world.

The lunch will include a special testimony about God’s grace in adoption along with a discussion, “Creating An Adoption Culture In Your Church.” The discussion will be led by Pastor Jeremy Haskins and Pastor David Prince.

For more information call 8592664341 or email Pastor Jeremy Haskins here

RSVP to let us know you are attending

Since 1916 Ashland Avenue Baptist Church has been used by God as a people who both give and go so that all peoples might hear the good news of Jesus Christ.  On April 25th 2010 we launched the newest chapter of Giving and Going at AABC.  We set out on a plan to pay off our Great Commission Center in 12 years or less with a commitment to only increase our mission efforts in Lexington and around the world. What will you give?  Where will we go?

 

It is likely that you receive this news with a yawn, but not me. I enjoy football. I used to coach high school football, and there is certainly something special about Friday night lights. The pomp and circumstance of a college football Saturday is a sight to behold: marching bands, fight songs, cheers, grilling out and watching a game with 70,000 friends who all decided to wear the same color is its own unique pleasure. But while I enjoy football, I love baseball. My delight for the game is close to that of George Will when he asserted that “Baseball is Heaven’s gift to mortals.”

Famed Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver when he was being interviewed by a reporter concerned he might need to leave the dugout so Weaver could give his pre-game pep talk replied, “This ain’t football. We do this every day.” There is a rhythm and pace to baseball that synchs up to the rhythm and pace of real life. Baseball rewards persistence in the face of managed failure. The rosters of the Major League All-Star game are filled with hitters who fail seventy percent of the time. There are no perfect seasons in baseball and that ought to be one of the treasures embraced by every fan that drives, walks, or rides a bike away from the park.

Baseball is not played in something as impersonal as a stadium with a playing surface possessing the exact, cookie cutter, dimensions of every other teams playing surface. Rather, baseball is played in a park, on a field which shares the beauty of its diamond with every other baseball field, but which possesses its own unique character as well. The pre-game ground rules are a declaration of the glorious individuality of every ball park whether it has a green monster, a short porch, or a hole in the chain link fence.

Even in the wake of baseball’s steroid era a glance at the players who compete at the highest level serves as a constant reminder that the key to success is not monstrous height or superhuman body mass. It was only a handful of years ago that the world watched as the World Series M.V.P. trophy was hoisted by 5′7″ David Eckstein who is listed as weighing 175 pounds, which, if true, must mean he was weighed wearing full uniform and spikes. At that moment I saw a gleam of hope in my sons eyes that they do not possess when a seven footer dunks or a 350 pound lineman sacks a quarterback while running faster than they could riding their bikes. Fat, chubby, tall, short, muscle-bound, skinny, fast, and painfully slow are all represented among our baseball heroes and even among the elite enshrined in Cooperstown. Just like its parks, baseball’s heroes possess an odd sort of everyday beauty.

But it is not my unapologetic belief in the inherent beauty and superiority of baseball as a game that was the primary reason for that uneasy pang in the pit on my stomach that day in the car. It was what I believe to be the primary reason for the present preference of football over baseball in American culture. I do not believe that football’s surge over baseball in national popularity can simply be explained by ESPN’s promotion of college football or the NFL’s amazing marketing. No, I fear it is a symptom of a seismic shift in American culture, particularly in the relationships between fathers and sons. 

Now, there can be little doubt that football fits the mood of contemporary America in a way that baseball does not. But there can and should be a great deal of discussion about whether or not the change in national mood is for the better. Football games are huge events, they are parties. After all, a football team will only have five or six home games a year. I think it is safe to say that many people love the atmosphere of football more than the game of football. I was amazed to learn that it is not uncommon for football tailgaters to stay in the parking lot and watch the game on television even if they have tickets. I cannot imagine a baseball fan making such a choice. Baseball fans love the park, the sound, and the smells and most of all the game itself.

The game of baseball is not an easy one to understand. The learning curve for being able to enjoy football is much quicker than it is for baseball. I know that contemporary schemes like the spread option offense and the Tampa 2 defense are complex and an NFL playbook resembles a NASA training manual. Nevertheless, at its base, simplistic level one can become a football fan quickly. In fact, many people become passionate football fans in their adult years after having paid very little attention to the game in their youth.

Almost no-one ever develops a love for baseball as an adult. That is not the way the game works. Baseball is a game full of mystery, nuances, and mechanics that have to be passed on from generation to generation for the game to survive. The one who does not understand baseball will not appreciate the game. And that is just the point at which contemporary American culture is working against the nation’s pastime. Baseball is only really understood in the context of countless hours of catch, shagging fly balls, taking batting practice, and never ending hours of watching the game with attendant conversations about all of its delightfully complex nuances and quirks. In a game with infield fly rules, balks, and squeezes; where shortstops are not necessarily short and the players run counter clockwise, even grizzled veterans take pleasure in knowing that they have not mastered the game.

“Baseball is boring” is a cry that is often heard today. Perhaps, in the same way a classic novel is boring or long conversations into the night with your spouse are boring. But that is just it; we do not have time for those things either. A love for baseball cannot be passed on without fathers spending a lot of time with their sons. I fear many modern fathers want football style fathering, a few big events a year where it is easy to get up to speed quickly. A father that refuses to take the time to teach his son a game like baseball probably will not take the time for other complex, mysterious things either, more important things.

As a Christian father this is where that uneasy pang in the pit of my stomach intensifies. The good news of Jesus Christ is a simple, yet infinitely profound message. The Bible takes us through the most important story in the history of the cosmos. The story has all kinds of twists and turns, nuances, and mystery (Eph. 3:3-10; 5:32; Col. 1:26-27). It is the story that defines every one of our personal stories. Passing on “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) to the next generation takes time, patience, and never ending conversations (Deut. 6:4-9; Psalm 78:1-8) about “the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19).

I wonder if the changing mood of American culture has far greater implications than the fact football has vaulted over baseball as America’s favorite sport. We do not have time to read the long complex story of the Bible and have countless conversations with our sons about the good news so we simply drop them off and hope the professionals at the church can take care of the heavy stuff. We prefer the gospel tract approach to teaching the faith, just the facts, hopefully get them saved, and then move on to other things. But in a faith whose Savior commands His followers to eat His flesh and drink His blood (John 6:54-57) there is more to be said than can be put on a tri-fold and tucked in a jacket pocket.

In a baseball family, morning breakfast includes checking the box score of last night’s game and a discussion of the pitching match ups for the game that day. Those conversations are carried to school and continued with the other boys who participated in the same ritual in their homes that morning. The day is always better when time is carved out to play catch before dark or school is missed because first pitch is at noon. Every trip home from the store is received like Christmas morning when dad comes home with a fresh pack of baseball cards, complete with a sliver of cardboard gum. Little boys who grow up in this environment drift off to sleep thinking about their baseball heroes and invariably dreaming about becoming one. This is the way a passion for baseball, a love for the game, is passed on to the next generation.

Doesn’t this sound like Moses command to God’s people about their responsibility to pass on the faith and cultivate a love for God? “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut. 6:6-7). Christian fathers have the responsibility to create an atmosphere in the home where talk of God and His Word is the norm and the gospel message overshadows all of everyday life because it is “on your heart” (Deut 6:6).

A dad who is passionate about baseball almost always extends his desire to teach and pass on a love for the game beyond his own sons. On a bright, sunny day in the middle of summer, a game of catch draws other neighborhood boys to the sound of leather popping with a magnetic attraction. My dad, and countless others before and after him, had a whole group of boys with absentee or disinterested fathers who attached to him as soon as the winter began to give way to the warmth of spring and a new baseball season was dawning. The last out of the season had to be especially difficult for these boys since more was at stake than a loss in the district tournament. Nevertheless, the investment my father made in these boys because of his desire to spread a passion for something he loved forged a bond that often transcended little league.

Likewise, every Christian father has, not only, the responsibility to teach his own sons to know and trust the Lord Jesus Christ but also the opportunity share his ultimate passion and love with “children who have not known it” that they “may hear and learn to fear the LORD” (Deut. 31:13). I remember those looks and whispers aimed at my father when he brought the fatherless kid with long, long hair and earrings to baseball sign-ups and later when he encouraged a couple of African-American kids from my school to play. He was no social crusader, by any means, but he thought every child ought to have an opportunity to learn and play a game that he loved and was passing on to his son. The glares and gossip did not bother him a bit. Far too many Christian fathers exhibit less passion and love for the gospel than my dad did for baseball. I wonder how many Christian dads are willing to scandalize others because every boy deserves an opportunity to hear and live the good news of Jesus Christ.

You may never develop my passion for baseball. You may always prefer other games like football, basketball, or even soccer, and I will accept that. I will not like it but I will accept it. If you give me the opportunity I will gladly discuss how baseball provides the best metaphors for life and the pursuit of godliness of any sport. If you keep the conversation going I am sure I will explain why the designated hitter in the American League strikes against the very character of the game. You may not even like sports. Your interest may be farming, construction, or perhaps even carpentry, like the father of a young Jewish boy named Jesus. But I will be content if baseball, whether you enjoy the game or not, helps every dad remember that teaching our sons to trust in Jesus and to serve His Kingdom takes time, effort,  instruction, modeling, and countless conversations. If so, the cry “Play Ball!” could be some of the most important words you ever hear. Even if you, in defiance of all sound reason, are glad football is considered America’s new national pastime.

While you and your family are always welcomed at AABC, we want to extend a special invitation to join us on Easter (April 4th).  Whether you have attended church your whole life or have never been to church at all, AABC stands ready to serve you.  We would absolutely love for you to join us as we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Our Bible Fellowship Groups meet at 9:15 a.m.  We then gather for worship at 10:30 a.m.  If you have any questions about our services contact us.

David Prince, Pastor of Preaching and Vision as AABC, is known for his love for baseball. In a recent article for Baptist Press, he explains how baseball provides the perfect context for fathers to teach their sons the mystery of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pitchers and Catchers Report — Will Dads?

Snow recently covered a good portion of the country but I have not felt as warm and vibrant in some time. Pitchers and catchers reported to Major League Baseball Spring Training in mid-February and for some inexplicable reason that does something good for my soul.

Like George Will, “baseball has been the background music of my life” and I have never tired of the tune. A new season of the national pastime is full of hope and glorious possibilities for every club and its fans.

Since 1846, when Alexander Cartwright took the Knickerbockers to play the New York Nine in the first game of organized baseball on the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, N.J., the game has possessed an irresistible and rhythmic hold on our nation. Generations of Americans are linked because of what happened on that green field in New Jersey and has been happening on subsequent diamond-stamped green fields ever since. Those fields have not simply preserved an enduring form of recreation but have helped promote vital traits which are fundamental to our health as a people.

“Without fathers, there is no baseball, only football and basketball” (Diana Schaub, “America at Bat,” National Affairs).

It was one of those lines that paralyzes you when you read it. As a former high school coach I began reflecting on just how true that sentence was in my experience. In football it was common for a young man with superior brawn or athletic ability to begin playing the game successfully at an older age with no background or former tutelage in the sport. Height alone can equate to some measure of basketball success at younger ages and skills can be honed in isolation with nothing more than a ball and a hoop. None of this is true with baseball. In most cases, the way a love of baseball is transmitted is through dads.

No boy will love and pass down the game of baseball simply because someone bought him a glove, ball and bat. He cannot play catch with himself, hit himself ground balls, or throw himself batting practice. Much less will he ever figure out on his own what in the world a squeeze, sacrifice, infield fly rule, frozen rope, Texas leaguer or balk means. The mechanics, mystery, nuance and jargon of baseball demand that one has to be discipled in its craft and patiently taught its excellencies. Very little in baseball is seeker-friendly or self-evident and few people pick up the game on their own.

Baseball is a sport of fathers and sons. When Willie Mays speaks of his dad teaching him how to walk when he was six months old by enticing him with a rolling baseball, he is telling the story of baseball. It is not uncommon for friends to ask me how I can continue to love the game in light of exorbitant salaries and the shame of the steroids era. My passion and love for the game did not begin in multi-million dollar parks with 40,000 seats and it cannot be taken away by what happens there. It began with my dad rolling a baseball to me at six months of age and grew with countless times of catch, ground balls, and batting practice with my father.

The soil of little Joe Marshall Field in Montgomery, Ala., will always be more sacred to me than Fenway or any other big league park. As we picked up balls after another round of hitting, those conversations between father and son helped usher me from boyhood to manhood. My dad taught me important lessons like the vileness of the DH (designated hitter) in baseball and many things far more important. I cannot separate those lessons from the game that provided a glorious context to learn them, nor would I want to. There is nothing free agency, steroids, or Major League scandals can do to take that away from me. Similar stories could be told by almost every true baseball fan. There is a reason grown men often cry when “Field of Dreams” ends with Ray playing catch with his dad.

I am excited about the start of another Major League Baseball season as our family follows the fortunes of our beloved Atlanta Braves each day. But the start of the Major League season signals something far greater for me; Little League baseball games that will take play in every nook and cranny across the nation where someone can stick a baseball diamond. Those games will represent countless games of catch in the backyard between fathers and sons. It takes time, effort, diligence and never-ending conversations to pass the game of baseball from one generation to the next.

I fear that the diminishing popularity of baseball in recent years has less to do with the sport and more to do with the diminishing popularity of intentional fatherhood in our culture.

As a Christian father I try to remember to pray every time I drive past a little league baseball park. I thank God for fathers who are intentionally investing time in their sons and I pray that the game of baseball would remind Christian fathers that calling the next generation to hope in God (Psalm 78:5-7) works in a similar way. It takes time, effort, diligence and never-ending conversations about God and His grace (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

My three sons have already developed a love for the game of baseball and can tell you why the DH is a perversion of the great game. But I pray one day my sons will say they learned far more important lessons about the mystery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ while we picked up balls, played catch, and watched every baseball game we could find. In fact, I hope they will say, “I cannot separate those eternally important lessons from the game that provided a glorious context to learn them, nor would I want to.”

Perhaps it is not so inexplicable why knowing pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training does something good for my soul.

This Sunday evening (February 21st) marks the beginning of a New Sunday Night Sermon Series called Change: Answering the “Yeah, But How?” Questions.

Pastor Jeremy and I will both preach sermons in this practical series designed to help you get from conviction to life transformation. Over the course of 15 years of ministry I have witnessed people who seem to always be striving and never arriving spiritually. Many develop a habit of feeling bad in response to biblical truth but not doing anything about it. We are going to try to equip you to get out of this unspiritual discipline.

“Yeah, but how?” is a question I have heard countless times. The question has come from people of different ages, diverse backgrounds, and I have heard it from a plethora of accents. It seems people from every tribe, tongue and nation grapple with that question when being convinced they have cherished behaviors that need to be change.

The first sermon in this new series with a foundational message for biblical change Are You a Missing Person? A Biblical All Points Bulletin (Romans 7:24 and Selected Scriptures).

Are you completely satisfied with you right now? If not come to this important series as we get down to the nitty-gritty of how Christ-centered, biblical change happens in the life of a Christian.

- Pastor David

Each year at AABC, we have a theme that we hang as a banner over our ministry.  This year our theme is Know Nothing.  Before we attempt to know something, we want to be determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2)

Jesus’ finished work on the cross is the central reality in all the universe.  Therefore, if we are going to make sense out of our lives in the world, we must make the cross central. Our prayer is that by knowing nothing, Christ will be made known in and through AABC like never before!

In this sermon Pastor David Prince unpacks our 2010 know nothing emphasis:

This Sunday at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church we began to pray and respond to the current crisis in Haiti.  Here is some updated information concerning our immediate prayer initiatives.

Pray for Relief Efforts: Roadways and electricity must be restored throughout to help with relief efforts.  General chaos and confusion from those desperate for help has led to violence such as riots and looting.  Last week, the word was, “If you are not medical personnel and if you do not know the language, wait!”  Now relief teams from all over the U.S. are leaving and planing to travel to Haiti at this very moment.  Pray the relief will help bring order to the chaos to Haiti.  Pray also for safe passage for those bringing the relief to Haiti.

Pray for the Abandoned: There were 1.2 million orphans in Haiti prior to the earthquake. Only 200,000 lived in orphanages. Orphan care was already difficult in Haiti due to the extreme poverty.  This tragedy has not only created more orphans that need care and families but the governmental structures needed to process adoptions have been affected.  With this said, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced the provision of “humanitarian parole” for certain Haitian orphans.  You can read about these developments here.  At this time, adoptions that were already in process will be addressed. However, lets continue to pray that more doors will be open for both orphans and refugees from the country of Haiti.   Pray also that orphan care initiatives will increase and many more will see the need to defend the fatherless in Haiti.

Pray for the Lost: Joshua Project lists more than 4 million, ½ of the population of Haiti, as nominally Christian.  11% of the population is listed as unreached, meaning they have little or no access to the gospel. 74% of the Christian population is categorized as Roman Catholic and only 20% Protestant.  Hatians are very ’spiritual’ people and heavily syncretistic. Pray that this tragedy will be used to awaken Haiti to the gospel.  But pray also that there will be a renewed focused on the unreached in Haiti.

Giving to Haiti: If you are member of Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, you can designate your funds to AABC Ends of the Earth: Haiti Relief. This money will go to fund the relief efforts of the International Mission Board’s Haiti Response Fund.

At AABC we believe that adoption is a community project.  Our adoption ministry is not a segmented group of people who have the ‘adoption process’ in common.  All who are trusting in Christ alone have been adopted by God.  Therefore, we all have adoption in common. As a church body we must work together to rescue spiritual orphans, who have never heard and believed in Jesus, with the gospel. We must also work together to rescue the 145 million abandoned and vunerable children around the world through adoption.  This is why at AABC adoption and orphan care are both woven into our commitment to the Great Commission.

One of the ways we will be fleshing out this church centered vision for adoption in 2010 is through our ABBA Forum.   On January 15, 2010 we will have our first ABBA Forum beginning at 6:30p.m. ABBA Forum is for anyone who has questions about adoption. It is for families considering adoption but also for church members who simply want to encourage and support those families who have and will adopt.

ABBA Forum will be hosted on the 1st Friday of each month at David and Jessica Evan’s home.  The Evan’s recently brought their daughter Lilly home from China.  They cannot wait to share their story and help encourage our church family in the mission of adoption.  For more information you can call or email the church office (8594558244).

This week we were able to bust through our 2009 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goal of $30,000.00. This money goes directly to IMB missionaries serving among the unreached around the world. In 2009, we not only met our Lottie Moon goal we also took in an additional $20,000.00 that goes directly toward our Ends of the Earth work. Our Ends of the Earth work includes church planting efforts among the Ayacucho Quechua in the village of Cordova, Peru. In 2010, we are praying for an increase in short-term teams and an extended presence in the village. These additional fund will help us accomplish this goal.

The banquet is ready.  A spread of fine cuisine unlike anything you could ever imagine has been carefully arranged with painstaking attention given to every minute detail.  While everything is prepared, the feast still lacks one thing…people!  The Master must have His house filled, so He commands His servants to, “go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame…go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that My house may be filled”  (Luke 14:21-23).  While we as believers anticipate with great joy and hope a future heavenly feast (Revelation 19:9), we recognize our position as servants of the Master whom He entrusts with the delightful duty of compelling people to join in the feast!  On Sunday, December 13, we will celebrate our first ever, “Compelled Christmas.”  It will be a day our church will labor as servants of the Master, not only to provide a banquet for those “poor, crippled, blind, and lame” but also to compel them toward a greater feast to come, enjoyed only by those who trust in Christ for salvation.  To sign up or for more information on ways you can help serve this banquet, go to the Compelled Christmas table in Crossroads today.

The banquet for the needy will be only the beginning of a wonderful evening of music celebrating the birth of God’s invitation to the feast, Jesus Christ.  While our church is specifically serving the needy in our community during the banquet at 5:00, our outstanding choir, quartet and orchestra will present a free concert for the entire community at 7:00.  Please begin compelling as many people as you can to join us for the concert.  I pray your loving service throughout the banquet and your multiple invitations to attend will ultimately compel many to one day fill the Master’s house for the true feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb!

November 8, 2009 was Orphan Sunday.  Around the world churches came together to remember the plight of 145 million children around the world without families.  At AABC, we featured a practical conversation on adoption between Pastor David Prince and Pastor Jeremy Haskins.  This audio also includes a song that Pastor Nate BeVier wrote, “Rescue Me!”