Fwd: 180 SK8 Church Update, Mar 25

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mike Baber <pilgrim8@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 1:10 PM
Subject: 180 SK8 Church Update, Mar 25
To: Mike Baber <pilgrim8@gmail.com>

Hello everyone!
I am not used to addressing such a large group of people in the email world. I just realized that I am writing many people in different regions with very diverse activities going on in their lives! I am so blessed to have you as friends and acquaintances. Thanks for the replies this past month. It meant so much to get your positive encouragements for this outreach to young people. We have seen such a kingdom work take hold in these young people's lives. Only God is worthy of credit for such great work. We are literally just his vessels. We have asked him to fill us and he has been so faithful. Oh that we can see these youth grow up to be godly men leading others to the Savior and living lives pleasing to our heavenly Father!

· We had a tremendous February and early March. As many of you know, 8 young men gave their hearts to the Lord on March 6 (see our blog at http://plgrmprogress.blogspot.com/). We have books and will begin a follow-thru Bible study to provide the training to get them grounded in God's Word.

· We took advantage of Spring Break and installed a great new addition to the mini-ramp. The skaters were so amped! I wish you could have seen their faces. It fit perfectly with the existing ramp. Matt and Doug (adult leaders/skaters) shared in the Bible-talks for this week's special Wed-Thur-Fri skate sessions from 4-7pm.

I won't go into lots of details here. This is meant to whet your appetite for more info that you can get on our blog and to request that you remember to pray for us. We are so hungry to demonstrate God's love for the lost through our actions, communicate God's truth through our teaching and to honor God through our lives. Please pray for souls to be saved and for saved souls to grow to Christ-honoring maturity.

Love in Christ,

Mike Baber

	180 sk8 Church 303 9th Street Belgrade, MT 59714 406-388-9180 http://plgrmprogress@blogspot.com/

sk8 church update for Friday March 6, 2009

Hello!

So many of you received my snail-mail letter giving more details about the progress of 180 sk8 Church. I wonder if that did not motivate a lot of you to be praying for the ministry this Friday night. Why? Because there were events taking place that only God could have orchestrated.  This email update will be a short description of the March 6^th session at our new building.

 

We had lower than average skaters for the evening. It snowed most of the day and it was very cold. This would probably explain why a lot of those kids who walk to sk8 church were not there.

 

I spent some time speaking to one of the guys who takes care of the music for me. I asked Matt if he had ever given his life to the Lord. I did this after he was describing the change in his life since coming to sk8 church. He said that this was all new to him and that it was really important to him.  In response to my question, he indicated that he had never given his heart to the Lord but that this decision was something that he was interested in pursuing. This motivated me to pray for the approaching Bible-talk time. I prayed for the Lord to give me the words to speak. Perhaps I could be used to help Matt make this important decision.

 

Well, I know that God was working in the hearts of these young men. I preached a very simple message drawing upon the lesson from the week before to explain their need to repent and be saved from their sins and to follow Jesus Christ.  Well, I know that most of you know what salvation is all about. I am probably preaching to the choir here. But you've got to realize that most of these boys have never, before sk8 church , had the gospel explained to them. They only know what the world has taught them…that God is a good god and everyone gets to go to heaven because of God's good nature. At sk8 Church they are learning about the God of the Bible and how He killed an animal to cover Adam and Eve's nakedness so they would not have the shame they experienced after disobeying God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They heard for the first time that this was a picture of the death of Christ on the cross to provide covering for OUR sinful hearts because we inherited the sin nature from Adam.

 

The Holy Spirit was really working. When the invitation was given Matt came forward. But he wasn't alone!! There were seven other young men who also came to repent and be saved from sin. I almost told them to sit back down.  I mean, maybe they didn't understand the magnitude of the decision that I was asking them to make.  Oh, me of little faith! God reached down into our little building outside of Belgrade and did a work that only He can do! He was busy working in these young men's hearts by the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I got to lead them in a sinner's prayer as they came to have their sins forgiven! Oh, what a glorious experience to see souls blood-bought by Jesus Christ's death on the cross asking him for forgiveness.  He conquered death through the resurrection and now he is bringing victory into these skater's lives!

 

Please pray that I will develop a good Bible-study for the boys so they can be founded in the Word and progress well in their new-found faith.  

 

I appreciate all of you praying for the ministry. It means an awful lot to have you spending time lifting us up in prayer. Remember what Henry Blackaby said in Experiencing God…When you are looking for the work you should be doing, look for where God is working and then join him  (my paraphrase).

 

Go to our blog at http://plgrmprogress.blogspot.com/ for more info.  Or look for my facebook profile.

 

God Bless you all,

In Christ,

Mike Baber

180 sk8 Church

 

 

Mike's Bible talk

Bubble-building for 180 SK8 indoor!

180 SK8 Ministry 08

Many get our email updates and newsletters, but thought we'd also do a posting on this great blog site we have---thanks to our son, Dan!

Last summer we held skate jams every Friday night at a church parking lot in Belgrade. We had ages 7 to 17 and averaged about 20 kids each time. We held jams from the end of June (when it stopped raining) until the end of October. We had two fun skate competition nights with about 30 kids each time.

Now we are excited to have our first indoor skate park, (bubble-shaped building provided by the same church, lumber for ramps donated by local lumber shops, drill donated by local hardware store) small building, but accommodating for several skaters at the same time on one half-pipe ramp that our partners, Matt Cruize, Dan Barnes, and Doug Duschene built. Matt and Doug are adult skaters that are also working with the kids every Friday night. They are awesome. Mike stops the skating midway to sit the kids down and share a gospel message from the Bible each session. They tend to really listen to him.