August 2007 CSBA
Newsletter
From the Servant’s Desk:
Colossians 2:4-10 (NKJV)
Now this I say lest
anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent
in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and
the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted
and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught,
abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through
philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to
the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in
Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him,
who is the head of all principality and power.
I scan the CSBA message board on a regular basis to be aware of news concerning the membership. Sometimes I’m able to glean a few “info-nuggets” to prepare a monthly message.
Recently, I read about a member who struck up a conversation with another sport biker at an event and was quick to ask the person to consider the CSBA. The stranger wasn’t too interested and the member felt a little put off and reluctant to pursue the matter further.
I don’t use the “CSBA” line anymore when I’m talking to strangers. I’m usually wearing some sort of CSBA gear (you all have plenty of CSBA gear don’t you?) and I let the conversation go where it will until the person makes a remark about the CSBA logo and THEN I make my move.
I used to think that my purpose was to “grow the CSBA”. In that respect I was not much different from many pastors. I’ve long since discovered that “I” can’t grow anything. God will grow the CSBA, or not, in His time and the way He wants, no matter what Brian or anybody else does.
In Colossians, Paul was warning the people about mixing different philosophies with the truth of Jesus Christ’s teaching. The Colossians were adding local traditions and man-made laws to make Christianity more acceptable and easier to follow.
Being a Christian today isn’t easy. Social customs and the media would like us to believe that everybody and everything is OK as long as it doesn’t harm yourself or others. The Bible teaches otherwise. There are things acceptable today that, according to the Bible are offensive to God.
Our responsibility as Christians is to use God’s Word as the benchmark in how we live our lives…not what some flash-in-the-pan author has cooked up to sell books.
I’m
convinced God orchestrated every witness opportunity I’ve had since Jesus
Christ saved me. I didn’t catch them all! I missed quite a few,
only later realizing the missed potential to witness for Jesus Christ.
But I’m getting better!
Discernment, I believe, comes with time in The Word. If you can preface
an answer to a question about Christ or your Christian walk
with the words: “It is written”; it takes you out of the answer and places the
response on God’s Word. That person can go and look it up himself.
We’re merely seed planters. God softens hearts; we’re just the tools. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling you can change anyone.
We may feel we need to be exemplary orators or Bible scholars to witness to others. I don’t think so. If God places a witness opportunity in front of you, He’ll also provide you with the words to touch that person. Maybe not that day but God will provide the seed planting materials that may cause that person to grow in Christ years later.
Consider a little boldness for the remainder of this riding season (and any other time of the year). If the opportunity presents itself, witness for Christ. Tell some stranger what Jesus Christ has done for your life and what He can do for them.
It is written in the Book of Matthew:” Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Ch 10:32-33
Become bold for Christ.
God bless
CSBA Servant
CSBA NEWS
Christian Sport Bike Association
Run for the Word
Saturday & Sunday August 11th and 12th
100 mile Charity Run to benefit the CSBA Free Bible Fund
National Event to Benefit the CSBA Free Bible Fund
Contact Scott Journigan
Can’t have a Free Bible Fund ride on 8/11 or 8/12? Don’t worry. If you feel moved to put something together to help the Bible Fund, the dates aren’t all that important.
Take Bob Owens and
the Colorado CSBA chapter, for instance:
“ Just wanted to send out a quick thank you, for everyone that
participated in our Run for the Word ride this past Saturday (
If you want to get a group together, don’t feel you missed the opportunity. There’s still plenty of good riding weather no matter where you live. Contact Scott Journigan for the Run for The Word forms.
Remember, each individual donation of $35.00 or more rates a 2007 CSBA Run For The Word T-shirt.
PA FALL RALLY! (The Big Kahuna of PA Rallies)
*
* Meets in
* Spends Friday-Sunday morning in
* Coach Stop Inn (800-829-4130)
* "Fun weekend of riding with Christians"
Contact Bob Brown (bob@EmpireGP.com)
And/or Jon Treese (jtreese@shentel.net)
Seneca Rocks Prayer Retreat Weekend" Seneca Rocks, WV CANCELLED
Bill Allen emailed that due to circumstances beyond his control, the WV Prayer weekend would be cancelled.
If any of you had been
planning on traveling to
Details http://www.csbatriadnc.com/csbavalleyrally.html
Rider Down
CSBA Board member Tim Moore (CSBA #6 aka holyknees) went down last
week riding in
Please keep Tim in your prayers for a speedy recovery. If you feel led (and I hope so), please consider sending Tim a get-well card to:
Tim
Moore
319
Thanks
Prayer Needed
Received
this from Phil Fielder in CA (CSBA #466) a few days ago. Please keep Phil in your prayers.
”This e-mail is not the most pleasant that I have
written. I am sad to say that can no longer assist in support of CSBA, as I am
now reduced to Social Security Disability as my income, and I can no longer
operate a motorcycle or any vehicle as a matter. My health has declined
to this level and is continuing. I have congestive heart disease and cancer.
Please know that the actions of CSBA will be in my prayers.”
You can send a card to:
Phil Fielder
New CSBA Board Member
Not at all related
to the previous news item, Brian
Pilcher of
Welcome Brian!
Changing
Tomorrow Children’s Foundation
August 2007
Please keep praying with us for Mcaffee our builder. Since being diagnosed with
AIDS, his health has been up
and down, and right now he is not doing that well. We
have him on medicine to pick his T-cell count up and we are praying for
him on a daily basis. God is the only hope he has, but in a culture where it is
normal to add traditional beliefs with Christianity it is a hard battle to get
people to not run back to Sangomas (their traditional
healers) when afraid and faced with death.
We started a cell group for woman at the center. Ennie is taking care of that and we had a really good start. Bernard and Taryn is doing a cell with the woman working with us, and on Wednesdays Ennie copies and repeats what was done with them and does that with her ladies group. Please keep her in your prayers that God will bless her with an extra serving of favor with those she ministers to.
We also started with the 3rd house at the center. People, their attitudes and things that seem not to fall into place on our human level will not stop us from fulfilling the vision God put in our hearts. We are still fighting a battle to bring together the people in need, work for them and provision for when they are in our care. I know when we are ready in God's view things will "click", until then, we will go on and ask that you keep us and the project in your prayers.
Breaking
News: Sito is now potty-trained!!! Mamosito (we lovingly call her Sito)
was the worst at
wetting her pants when I first got here 3 months ago. At about 1-½ years
old, now is the time to start that necessary potty training—especially since
people here don’t have diapers! When Laurie Rumbaugh
was here Sito managed to wet her pants a record five
times during one preschool session, and was positively terrified of the
children’s potty that we have in the bathroom. Now, by the grace of God
she is almost completely potty trained—she loves the time she spends on
it! Sito even takes herself to the bathroom
now, and like a big girl insists on doing everything she—no help needed!
Care Centre: Last week we had extreme winds in our area, and anyone that has been to the Center will know that it is always windy up there. The wind damaged the roof on the house and blew out some of the wall on the hall. It also scooped up building material and the building team had to go search for sheets of corrugated iron that was blown away!! We are thankful though because God protected out buildings, many people down in town lost their houses and lives during the storm.
PLEASE Keep Changing Tomorrow Children’s
Foundation in your daily prayers!
Visit the CTCF website to learn more about Wim’s vision for the kids of QwaQwa at http://www.breakthrough-ministries.com/ and/or http://www.changingtomorrow.net
If you
can, talk to your pastor or the director of missions for your home
church. Give them the CTCF web link. Ask them to consider helping
or better yet, plan a mission trip to
$25.00
a month would make
a huge difference in the lives of kids who pretty much have nothing.
If you feel led, you can make a donation at: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
Or,
send your check made out to: "Changing Tomorrow Children’s
Foundation" to:
Brian Phillips
Every dollar received goes to Wim’s kids. There are no salaries or administrative costs.
Thought
You Were Going Through Some Troubling Times?
By Brian Phillips
I
received this photo from Wim van Rensburg
last week of the charred remains of a house belonging to a mutual friend of
ours in
August
in
Please keep Fonnie in your prayers.
From The Email Bag
We get emails of all shapes, sizes and content. This was one, I thought, would be worth sharing with the membership. Brian Phillips
From and via info@christiansportbike.com
wrote:
>
Name: Withheld for obvious reasons
>
Email: Same as above
> CSBA #: Not a CSBA Member
> Subject:
Repenting
> Message: I
read your message about salvation and I have a few questions. First,
I am trusting in
Christ alone to save me because after all, I know I can't save myself. I have
accepted him as lord but does that mean if I don't stop doing these sins that I
am addicted to I will not go to heaven? I thought that by receiving him as lord
and his sacrifice as payment for my sins than I am forgiven and saved.
I still have the
problem of doing the things that I shouldn't and don't know if I can stop them.
What does it mean to repent? Is repenting turning from sin by trusting him,
accepting him as lord, and asking him to forgive you? After all, I know I can't
be saved by any works that I do neither good nor bad. I have asked him to save
me and forgive me so all I can do now is to trust that he will save me.
Salvation is a free gift of god and I have accepted it gladly. And it also says
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord, and believe in your heart
that God raised him from the dead you will be saved. If that
is the case than I am saved.
>
Response from
Ron Anderson in CA:
Subject:
Re: Repenting
Date:
From:
Ron Anderson
To:
Withheld for obvious reasons
As you said,
works don't get you to heaven. It's trusting in Jesus as your Lord and Savior
that ensure your salvation. The reverse is also true -- once you have salvation
your works won't keep you out of heaven, either!
When we become
Christians we all have tons of baggage in the way of addictions, habitual sins,
etc. They normally don't just disappear overnight when we accept Christ, and he
doesn't expect that they will. As we learn and grow in the Christian life,
however, some will simply start to drop out of our lives on their own as the
Holy Spirit guides us away from these things. This is known as spiritual
"fruit" -- it's the visible changes in our attitudes and behavior
that indicates Christ is within us.
Repentance is
genuine sorrow for a particular sin, asking God's Forgiveness, asking God to
empower us to resist the sin, /*and*/ /*intending to not do it again*/. That
does not mean we won't do it
again, it means that we will be trying our
best, with God's strength and comfort, to avoid doing it again. If we mess up
and do it again, we repent again. What's important here is what's in our
hearts, and God knows what that is; you can't "fool" him. If we don't
genuinely intend to try and stop the sinful action then we aren't repenting.
You'll find differing
views on this, but I believe "once saved, always saved." Meaning that once you truly have salvation sin will not cause you
to lose it. The only way to lose your salvation is to give it back by
deliberately rejecting God in your heart. The flip side of this, though, is
that if you are truly saved you will not want to be living a sinful life.
It's possible to
be saved and not be an effective Christian. God has a plan to use every one of
us. You need to be involved in daily reading of the Bible and prayer because
that's the primary way in which God communicates with us. That's how you can
learn God's will for your life
so you can fulfill your purpose. The Bible
says when we do good works on earth we are storing up riches in heaven. While
good works have no bearing at all on our salvation, they do directly affect our
rewards in heaven. Exactly what heaven is, and what those rewards might be, are
unfortunately too complex for our minds to comprehend.
Salvation is a
matter of what's in your heart, and no human other than you can know that. You
could say and do all the right things that would make you appear to me to be
saved when you really are not -- Matthew 7 tells us there will be people like
that. A good test as to whether you are truly saved is to see whether you are
genuinely concerned about your salvation. If you're worried about having lost
your salvation then you are saved! Unsaved people don't care about things like
that.
If you aren't
regularly attending a Bible teaching church go out and find one. That's a
church, which is committed to studying the text, meaning, and application of
the Bible to our lives. It would be a church where everyone brings their Bible
with them to services, and the Bible is referred to and explained by the pastor
during his message. Many of the people in the congregation will be taking notes
and marking passages in their Bibles.
I hope I've
helped. Feel free to contact me again if I can do anything else!
*Bless you
rider,
Ron Anderson
CSBA Board Members
|
Brian
Phillips Servant |
Scott Journigan Vice President |
Tim Moore |
Marvin Gurganus Treasurer |
|
|
Art Graham |
Ron Anderson Web Master |
Art Lohman Chaplain |
|
Jon Treese |
Brian Pilcher |
|
|
Money
Here’s what happens with your dues.
- $2.00
(10%) of every $20.00 member dues payment is sent to Changing Tomorrow
Children’s Foundation in
- CSBA
“gear”, i.e., T-Shirts, stickers, patches and banners - not much of an
annual expense as there’s a relatively small demand for T-Shirts and
stickers.
- Bibles
and the shipping costs - this expense is usually taken care of by the CSBA
annual Run For The Word.
- There
are miscellaneous expenses incurred, i.e., postage, and infrequent
expenses incurred to organize and run a rally.
- Annual
donation to CSB Racing - the board had approved of a donation in both 2005
and 2006 for water bottles to be distributed at race events. We also
purchased a pop-up tent in 2006 for CSB Racing to be used at events (we
own the tent).
Our expenses as a large organization are low. There are no salaries, rent, equipment or monthly bills of any kind, except for the monthly bank fee of the CSBA checking account. No CSBA funds are used for board members to attend events. Our website is managed by an individual who donates his time and expertise.
The bottom line: Your board of directors is a tight fisted group. We do our best to use your dues money to further the work of spreading The Good News of Jesus Christ.
Need a CSBA T-Shirt?
Newly designed CSBA T-Shirts are now in stock!
Contact Scott Journigan firedad415@hotmail.com
NEED A CSBA STICKER?
We have
new stickers in stock! Current color choices are white, blue, red, and
black (transparent background).
And the cost? If you feel moved, you can make a
donation to the Bible Fund, or Wim’s kids, at BreakThrough Ministry (http://www.christiansportbike.com/donate.cgi).
The stickers are a gesture of thanks to the membership for helping the CSBA to
be a Christian association that makes a
difference for Jesus Christ, both here, and around the world.
Email your name, address, member number, and sticker color (white – blue – black – red) to brianp@christiansportbike.com.
Take care & God bless,
CSBA Servant
Roberta Peart
Editor