NCF Update 06/14/25

Good afternoon church family,

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day and I look forward to gathering together with you. It is a special Lord’s Day, as it is also Father’s Day. We honor all of the fathers in our church family. You are a blessing, and what you do really matters. In a culture that has often demeaned fatherhood, we Christians recognize that the heart of fathering comes from our Father in heaven. It is critical both for the health of families and for the thriving of culture that we have fathers who are fathering from a gospel-centric position. Part of how we apply our saltiness to the world is by being an example of the better way which is ours in Christ. May the Lord grant grace to all of our fathers to live out the gospel implications of fatherhood in front of our culture in a way that draws them into Christ. We will have a small gift and a word of encouragement for all fathers who are in attendance tomorrow. We hope you will join us as we worship together and honor the Lord. We will meet at 9:30am in the morning for prayer and at 10:45am for worship as usual.

I want to make everyone aware that we have continued to have some sewer line issues at Serve. We are now at the point where we must replace the sewer line as soon as possible. We knew this was coming at some point, but were hoping we could wait until we were able to raise some money. We simply cannot wait any longer. We have a good estimate from Mullen Plumbing which is a long-standing and reputable plumber here in the OKC metro. It looks like it’s going to cost us $12,500 to make this repair. While their estimate is half of some previous estimates we received, it is still a large chunk of money for our fellowship to come up with. I fully trust the Lord with this! We have contacted the Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma and they are willing to help us get this urgent repair completed. We have borrowed money from them in the past and as far as organizations we might borrow money from go, they are one of the best. All interest from loans given out by the Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma is sown into missions and kingdom causes in our state and around the world. I would rather not have to borrow money, but we are in an urgent situation with our sewer line. If we do not repair it soon I am concerned that we will not be able to operate our building which will greatly and negatively impact our ability to do the ministry the Lord has called us to do. This would be a wonderful time for any special offerings the Lord might lead any of us to make. The more we can fundraise from our church and community to help cover this expense, the less we will need to borrow from the Baptist Foundation. I am confident that the Lord has us in his hands. He will take care of us as he always has. We are really a very blessed church.

This past week when we had the plumber come out to take a look at the system, he made a recommendation that we make every effort to flush only liquid down the line until we get it repaired. That is a great challenge as we are operating a business throughout the week, and we gather a good group together each Sunday. I wanted to let you all know in advance so we can work together on this. Our sewer line is flowing freely right now, but in order to keep that trend continuing we are working to try and avoid flushing solid waste down the toilets. The plumber has also advised us to avoid flushing toilet paper as much as possible. We have provided trash cans in each stall to take care of the toilet paper issue, but I fully recognize that not being able to flush solid waste down the toilet is a challenge. We intend to have this repair completed within the next few weeks so this will only be a temporary inconvenience. I am asking for you to help us with this as much as possible. If someone has an emergency and has to flush something solid down the toilet we should be okay, but if a lot of that happens we might not be. I guess we could say we are just living in an extra exciting time together. Pray that the Lord will help us with this, that our pipes will flow freely and that the funding we need will be provided.

I hope and pray that each one of us finds time to rest in the Lord on this lovely Saturday. The Lord has given us Saturdays as a day to rest and to reflect on him and all that he’s done for us. The Holy Spirit wants to give rest to our souls. May we seek him out that he might give us this gift.

I love and appreciate you all. Continue to pray for one another, and for our church as we walk through this season. Don’t forget to pray also for the people of Tulakes as we consider what the Lord is doing between our two churches. May the grace and peace of the Lord rest upon each of us. May Christ empower us to carry on every good work which he has prepared for us to do in his name.

In His steps,

Pastor Nick

Luke 19:10 CSB — “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”