Pastor Jay //

September 6 marked my last Sunday as pastor of FBC Cameron, MO after almost ten years of ministry there and twenty-one years since I accepted God’s call to ministry.  Thank you for your support here at my blog over the last several years. This blog was begun on August 19th, 2005 while I was attending a meeting in Richmond about connecting churches to missions. It chronicles a tremendous journey in my life and the life of our family over the last several years. Thank you for your encouragement along the way!

I have included part my letter of resignation below.

I want to thank you for allowing me to serve you as your pastor these years. We have witnessed God’s Mighty Hand and I praise Him for what He has done in our lives. I pray that the labors invested here will reap a mighty harvest for His Kingdom in years to come. I am confident that you are well established in His Word and His Will as you move forward in new endeavors. I pray as Paul did in Ephesians 4:1-6

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

In His Service,

Pastor Jay Raines

NOTE: there is not a link on this site to our new ministry site. Please note the site address in the picture.

Mark Brown challenges me to consider how we will reach this generation. He claims that the proportion of online activity in the world is exploding exponentially while the church lags behind. He further claims that we must find new ways to interact with culture in a greater way than just putting up a website here and there. I encourage you to read his article and interact with this Anglican Priest (congrats Mark! on your recent ordination). He is also church planting in the virtual world through Second Life - a virtual world that effects real-life people.

This will stretch your thinking:

Reaching out to an online generation? at Brownblog

image from Mark’s blog

Here are some pictures from The Gathering last night. (Photo Credit: Jamie Conley)Spoons

I urge you to consider being a part of the solution to some urgent needs:

Iowa - Southern Baptists have activated units to Iowa for disaster relief. Currently there are feeding and shower units that have been activated. In the cleanup effort, I am sure there will need to be chainsaw crews and other crews needed. For the latest bulletins click here.

Cameron - It is my understanding that the city council will be considering a proposal this Monday evening on whether or not to allow alcohol sales at the Fourth of July celebration this year. Pat Ramsey and I appeared two years ago to oppose the proposed “beer garden.” It was still approved with the promise that it would be separate from the other festivities. I went to McCorkle park and ate there only to discover that I was eating in the “beer garden” that was not clearly marked. The city was using the volunteer fire department to help by being on stand-bye. I urge you to kindly urge the city to not allow the family-unfriendly sale of alcohol in the city park.

We had a wonderful time at the annual Memorial of Lights this evening. Thank you to everyone who helped make this a wonderful community event.

Many of you know Brian and Amy in our church. I had an opportunity to visit Amy today at the hospital and see the twins - Aiden and Maddisson. Here are some pictures.

This is Maddisson. She now weighs 3 lbs. 5 oz. We are praying that she can start maintaining her temperature.

This is Aiden. He now weighs 3 lbs. 7 oz. and is in a crib now because he can maintain his temp. We are praying for his breathing to improve.

From Baccalaureate 08

Last night was our annual Baccalaureate sponsored by the Cameron Ministerial Alliance. Click on the picture to follow a link to several other pictures. Ward Foley was our guest speaker. He really did an amazing job of keeping our attention and sharing his story. He was hilarious. Everyone seemed to have a great time. We fed about 240 parent, seniors, and workers. We handed out 74 bibles out of 128 graduating seniors. Thank you to all of our churches that helped make this possible. Thank you to David Newkirk that coordinated the event.

I just thought you might like to see a picture of our family after business meeting Sunday night. We are such a hodge podge of people, but we have so much in common through Christ and we have such a desire to see God do mighty things in our midst.

“Father, make us one as you and Christ are One.”

Conventional wisdom says that contemporary building styles are prefered. However, a recent survey may show otherwise:

Unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral over contemporary church buildings, a new study showed. (more…)

I went to my favorite local mexican restaraunt today and ate zuchinni bread with my amigos who are learning english as a second language. Ruth and Mike are doing a great job and the students are learning quickly! I was very proud of them after seeing their progress. I noticed that each of them had gotten their own notebooks and they were writing down everything that Ruth put on the whiteboard.

I was asked to come and help them practice introductions. We worked phrases like “Hello, my name is _____. Nice to meet you. How are you doing?…” We had a lot of laughs.

One of the things that they worked on today was the “th” sound. I never really thought about how hard it is to make that sound. There is not a sound for “th” in Spanish. Needless to say, they had to practice hard so they could say “Ruth” instead of “roof” and “booth” instead of “boof”. But they got it! Keep praying for these guys. We all prayed together at the end of the session.