April 5, 2020 @ 9:30am & 11am

It has been tradition for our church to take the Lord’s Supper on Palm Sunday for many years.  This year will be no different…except it will be different.  On Sunday, April 5^th we will be hosting a Family Lord’s Supper Service via our online broadcasts at 9:30am and 11am.  What that means is families will be taking the Lord’s Supper together in their own homes, while being led by Pastor Tim during our online broadcasts.  This is a chance for our Church Family to join together, no matter where you are located and worship together in this special way.

There are a couple of ways you can do this as a family:

• Bake your own Communion Bread at home.  This is a great opportunity for a fun family project where kids and parents can join together in baking their own Communion Bread.  Below is Pam Maynard’s unleavened bread recipe. Bake your own bread, then all you need is some juice and you are all set.

1 cup unbleached flour

1/3 cup cup water, room temperature

1/4 tsp salt

Combine the flour and salt. Add enough water to make a dough that will clean the sides of the bowl and can be gathered into a ball. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead 10 minutes. Shape into a ball and cut in half. Roll each piece out until very thin. Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in a preheated 500 degree oven for 5 minutes or until lightly colored, blistered, and crisp. 

• Use Crackers as a bread substitute.  If you don’t have the time or means to bake your own bread then substitute the bread with crackers.  Many missionaries in the field use whatever they have at their disposal to partake in the Lord’s Supper together.

The main point is for us all to worship together in taking the Lord’s Supper.  It isn’t about whether or not you have bread, crackers, grape juice or Kool-aide.  What is important is the meaning behind those items and that is Jesus Christ!

We love you and cannot wait to worship with you in person, but in the meantime let’s continue to be the church activated and mobilized in our homes and neighborhoods!

-Your Fruit Cove Baptist Church Staff Team

1. We want to honor the wishes and requests of our local, state and federal governments.
2. We are loving our neighbors by protecting our neighbors.
3. We are not being fearful, we are being responsible.
4. This is what love requires of us in this season.

We’ve had several questions about plans for this coming Sunday, March 15. At this time all regular Sunday programming is on, Sunday School/Small Groups at 9:30am and 11am, Worship services at 9:30am and 11am.

We have decided to make the following postponements:

• Caregivers Conference scheduled for March 14
• Car Show and Spring Fest scheduled for April 4
• Spring Break Mission Trips to London, Puerto Rico and Jersey City

3/12/20

In conversations with the International Mission Board and our church planting partners on the ground in London we have decided to postpone the HS Senior mission trip to London. This was a hard decision to make but we feel it is the right decision. You can read the full IMB statement here https://www.imb.org/2020/03/09/imb-recommends-volunteers-postpone-travel/.

We have also decided to postpone the 10^th and 11^th Grade Mission Trip to Jersey City as well as the MSM Family Mission Trip to Puerto Rico. We will be working with airlines, hotels and car rental companies in the next few days to determine what costs can be recouped or transferred to a future mission trip, so if you were one of the team members impacted by this decision please bear with us as we seek to gather that information. Once we have enough information to share we will do that with the Mission Team Leaders and participants.

At this time the Miami Family Mission Trip is still on. We feel good about this in that families are responsible for getting themselves to South Florida via personal vehicles and our participants will not be crossing state lines. We continue to monitor the situation and will make any updates as needed.

These decisions have been hard but at the end of the day necessary. In closing I wanted to share one of the messages we’ve received from field partners as we’ve relayed our postponement news to them:

Thanks for being willing to send these guys. Even though they’re not coming, it’s not been a waste. They stimulated us into thinking how we can keep on reaching our neighbourhood. We’ve accelerated some plans for questionnaires. We’d be delighted to host them again at some point in the future. – Richard Perkins, London

All is not lost. Fruit Cove will continue to mobilize people to the ends of the earth for the sake of the gospel. But for now, our mission efforts in Jersey City, Puerto Rico and London will be concentrated on praying for those churches and their leaders. Would you join me this week in praying for:

• Harvest City Bible Church in Jersey City, Pastor Ed Ramos
• Iglesia Bautista La Gracia in Yauco Puerto Rico, Pastor Junior Martinez
• Bridge Church Peckham London, Pastor Richard Perkins
• Chiswick Baptist Church London, Pastor Steve Messersmith

Jonathan Wilson
Pastor to Families and Missions
Fruit Cove Baptist Church