FROM YOUR PASTOR’S HEART March 11, 2024

March was birthday month in my family. For the boy “Growing Up on Dump Ground Road,” it was a sweet time of weekly cakes! All of his siblings were born in March, with a birthday each week of the month. He was the exception to the rule, and was often teased about being adopted. In his teens, he turned the tables on his tormentors, telling them that was why he was much smarter and better looking than the rest of the children.

The man that God grew from the DGR kid is still getting to celebrate birthdays of some special people in the month of March. In our CBC family, we have a long list of people who were born this month: Jackie Bowen (5), Tammy Law (6), Becky Cross (, Stephanie Burk (10), Doris Fortner (11), Eddie Bowen (14), David Yates (16), Virginia Morton (19), Mary Beth Nichols (24), and Michael Lynn (28). In honor of my family tradition, I am expecting a piece of cake from each of you on your special day.

The good news is that I am adopted into your families and you into mine! We read of God’s gift to us in Ephesians 1:5-6: “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” While I may not be smarter or better looking than any of you, I am your brother by the will of God and by Christ’s act of mercy and grace on the cross! Just as God planned the day of our birth, He planned for the redemption of our souls and the day of our new birth in Jesus Christ.

As your pastor, your friend and a member of your forever family, let me wish all of you a “funtastic day” of celebrating the life that God has given to you. Let me also say to everyone who reads this article, “You are loved by Bro. Jim, no matter what month you were born or what day of the year it is!”

Serving in love,

Bro. Jim