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

• 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?

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:

On November 8, 2009 churches across America will be called to remember the plight of 145 million children created in the image of God who are suffering without the love of a family.  At AABC, one of the primary ways our commitment to the fatherless is fleshed out is through adoption. Not everyone can or should adopt, but everyone in our congregation is called to be apart of the process by supporting families who are adopting.

On Orphan Sunday we will gather at 6:00 p.m. to hear a practical conversation about adoption between Pastor David and Pastor Jeremy. Topics will include: the adoption process, financial issues, transracial adoption, AABC’s ABBAA Fund, the personal reward and struggle of adopting.

Even if you never plan to adopt, join us to hear how you can personally walk with those who do adopt and how you can invest in the lives of the children who are being rescued by our church family.

If you have specific questions you would like us to answer, please email us or drop them off in crossroads Orphan Sunday Q&A box.

Wednesday September 23rd

• @ 6pm Peruvian Style Meal
• @ 7pm Hear the stories of the people from Cordova Peru then a Q&A panel discussion with Compassion Cordova Leadership led by Pastor David

Thursday September 24th

• @7pm Missionary Biography – Bill Wallace: One Piece of a Man Scattered to the Uttermost Parts of the Earth Why Only the Humble will Reach the Unreached (1908-1951) – Pastor David Prince

Friday September 25th

• @7pm From Unreached People to Unreached Peoples: Why you must have a 10-40 Window Pane in your living room. - Pastor Jeremy Haskins

Saturday September 26th

• 1030am Women’s Ministry Brunch – Ioana Cosoreanu - hear how a young lady from Romanian is being used by God to help AABC reach the Quechua people of Cordova Peru.
• @7pm Michael Card “Ends of the Earth Concert“

Sunday September 27th

• @915am Missionaries webcasted into our Bible Fellowship Groups
• @1030am Dr. David Sills (former missionary to Quichua People in Ecuador and Mission Professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
• @1030am Finish Sunday Offering

Mission Unreached  ”a global experience for kids” will run alongside our conference, beginning each evening at 7pm and Sunday at 915am. The kids will travel to six unreached people groups around the world, experiencing the living conditions as well as the culture of each of these groups.  Mission Unreached begins Wednesday 23rd at 7pm with missionary training.