PRAYER GARDEN
Fellowship Baptist Church
Hernando, Mississippi
AN INTERCESSORY CHURCH
About three months ago, a lady stopped by Fellowship Baptist in Hernando, Mississippi, where I am pastor, whom Wanda and I thought probably needed help financially. But, she was not here to get money from the church; she stopped by to give money to the church. She asked if she could give her tithe to Fellowship until she found a church home. She lives several miles away and prefers attending church close to where she lives, but, she feels led until she makes a church decision to give her tithe for the Lord’s work to Fellowship.
The lady moved to this area a few months ago from Knoxville, Tennessee, where she lived for 16 years. She watched A Fresh Start TV Program while living in Knoxville. I do a one minute promo for Fellowship at the end of each program. Pictures of the church are shown on the TV screen as well as graphics giving church information and how to get to the church. That’s how she knew about us. She has been back two more times to the church since then to drop off her monthly tithe check. But, a statement she made the second time she came by has stuck with me. She and Wanda had talked at length the first time she came by and Wanda told her we were mostly older members with no youth or children attending our church right now. The lady thought about it and the next time she stopped by the church she said, “Your church is meant to be an intercessory church.” I like that!
And, we are seeking to be an intercessory church. The picture above is Fellowship’s Prayer Garden that we dedicated a few weeks ago. Whether it is at the Prayer Garden, our Prayer Room, at the Worship Center Altar, or in our private prayer closets, Fellowship is doing what we can for Christ from our corner of the world to impact the world for Him through intercessory prayer, especially for our fellow churches.
BACK ON THE AIR AGAIN IN THE GREATER MEMPHIS AREA
A Fresh Start TV Program will begin airing again on WTWV Memphis on Monday, August 24 at 9:00 P.M.
A repeat airing will be at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday night each week. Previously, when the program was aired on WTWV in Memphis, the station manager aired the program two or three other times during the week. Sometimes, we were on in the middle of the night at 2:00 A.M. or early morning at 4:00 A.M. or later in the day. You never know who may be viewing TV at times like those. Glen Campbell was saved, after years of alcohol and drug abuse, when he would regularly view a late night TV preacher who had a national broadcast. The preacher was eccentric by what most of us would consider a preacher/teacher of the Bible, but he got through to Glen Campbell. Eventually, Glen and his family moved to the Phoenix, Arizona area and joined First Baptist Church in Phoenix.
In reflecting back on the backgrounds of viewers of A Fresh Start, the program makes a difference in the lives of mature believers as well as unchurched and unsaved individuals. I have shared in a previous BTTBM Update about a letter I received from two prison inmates, one at a facility in Mountain City, Tennessee, and the other who was in the Sevier County Jail when I received his letter. The one in the Sevier County Jail wrote that he was saved as a result of viewing A Fresh Start. I wrote him back, but I received my letter back indicating that he had been moved to another prison facility, and no forwarding address or the name of the facility was given.
A few weeks ago, I needed to go to the Shelby County Clerk’s office in downtown Memphis because Wanda and I needed a copy of our Marriage Certificate in order to get new health insurance. Our original Marriage Certificate is packed in a box in a storage unit in Knox County. After the Clerk’s office representative had helped a couple get their Marriage License, when I stepped up to her desk, the African-American representative said, “Bobby Mullins, you are a preacher.” I asked her how she knew who I was because I did not know her. She then told me that she had watched A Fresh Start TV Program when we previously aired it in Memphis. She shared with me that her husband has pastored a church in North Memphis for 30 years. Then, just this past Sunday, a guest singer sang in our evening worship service at Fellowship. When I met her husband, he said “I feel like I’ve known you for awhile.” He shared how he and his wife, who live in Hernando, vacationed in Gatlinburg after I came as pastor to Fellowship in January 2012. They were in their hotel room on a Sunday morning when A Fresh Start came on TV. He knew that a Bobby Mulllins had come as pastor to Fellowship Baptist Church in Hernando, so he watched the program, and sure enough at the end of the program, when I do a promo for Fellowship, he knew I was the Bobby Mullins who was pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church, Hernando.
I get responses regularly from people like those I have just shared with you when I am somewhere where A Fresh Start airs. Although I am grateful that people let me know how the program has blessed them, the reason we air the program is to help people from a Biblical perspective to make fresh starts in life which we all need to make at some time. And, we do so for God’s Glory and that souls will be saved and Christians will grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
EXTRAORDINARY MID-YEAR GIVING AND THE CONTINUED NEED FOR IT
Usually, the slackest months for donations to Back To The Basics Ministries are in the middle of the year during June, July, and August. But, our TV costs and ministry costs are not less during those months. We have aired A Fresh Start on WTWV in Memphis on two other occasions, the first time for over a year, and the second time for four months. The donations needed from local Memphis area residents to fund the program’s airing were not enough to cover the needed costs so we discontinued the program in Memphis. But, I felt that we needed to air the 20 newest programs of A Fresh Start that have aired on WVLR in Knoxville but not in Memphis/Hernando. So, I asked the members of Fellowship to help me raise the 20 weeks of funds to air the program in our area. Within three weeks, we had the funds in hand, Praise the Lord! It took extraordinary giving in the middle of the year to provide the funds to get A Fresh Start back on the air in Memphis.
It costs $187.50 a week to air A Fresh Start on WVLR in the Greater Knoxville area with three airing per week, two in prime time. It costs $200.00 per week to air A Fresh Start on WTWV in the Greater Memphis area. To tape, edit, and produce each new program of A Fresh Start costs $250.00. As I already mentioned, the cost to air A Fresh Start TV Program is the same each week, even during the slack time period for ministry donations. I am thankful for the regular monthly givers to Back To The Basics, whose gifts I can count on to cover the monthly cost of TV airing. The end of the year donations mainly go toward helping to produce new programs of A Fresh Start. We can usually get to May or June with new programs of A Fresh Start before we begin repeating programs due to lack of funds to produce new programs. The donations that come in from supporters once or twice or so during the year help us to be able to tape new programs of A Fresh Start after the end of the year donations have run out.
I feel a sense of urgency to tape some new programs of A Fresh Start ASAP because the Lord has given me messages that are timely and needed in addressing the spiritual needs of today. I need at least $2000.00 right now to tape eight new programs. If you have not given in awhile, will you consider making a donation to Back To The Basics Ministries P.O. Box 32486 Knoxville, TN 37030
or go to www.drbobbymullins.com and click on the Donate link and follow the instructions.
I pray that God’s richest blessings will rest upon you and abide within you,
Bobby Mullins
Bro. Bobby Mullins
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