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| July 2010 | Village Worship
Village Worship Mountain Brook Baptist Church
By Erica Breen Mountain Brook Baptist Church is located at 3631 Montevallo Rd S. Their services are at 10 a.m., Contemporary Worship Service and 10 a.m., Traditional Worship Service. James D. Moebes is the Senior Minister at Mountain Brook Baptist. How many members do you have? How many on your staff? Total membership at the church is 2,012. We have 10 ministerial and 12 administrative members on staff and three maintenance workers. When was Mountain Brook Baptist founded, and has it always been in this location? The Church was founded in April 1944 as Crestline Baptist Church and we met in Crestline City Hall and Crestline School. Later, the name was changed to Valley Baptist Church and the congregation moved into a house on Jackson Avenue, which the Church had bought and renovated to be used as a pastor’s home and meeting place for the Church. The congregation voted to change the name to Mountain Brook Baptist Church on July 17, 1944. Property was bought and the Chapel was constructed on Montevallo Road and was dedicated on January 14, 1951. What types of outreach projects are currently the focus of your church? We are involved in many missions across Birmingham and the state of Alabama. We had major involvement in Disaster Relief for Hurricane Katrina. For the past two years we have been down to the coast five times and we went to Biloxi, and Kiln and helped repair some of the damage. We are also involved with Habitat for Humanity in conjunction with Mountain Brook High School. We have built two houses in the past year. We are also actively involved in
Mountain Brook Baptist has been at its current location since 1951
James D. Moebes Senior Minister
Seeds of Hope in Perry County. Inside our church, the Reaching People Committee visits prospects, new members, and visitors and our At Home Committee visits members who need personal contact because of illness, confinement due to medical conditions, etc. Our Deacons also deliver informational packets to new members and visitors. Do you have any annual events that you host each year for your members and community? Community is invited to all MBBC events. A few of these events are the Holy Week Services, Easter Egg Hunt for Preschool/Children, Living Nativity at Christmas, Outdoor picnics, concerts, Fall Festival for Children, and Vacation Bible School. The Living Nativity started in the early 70’s and still continues to this day. It is on December 21, 22, and 23 every year with three performances each night. It has
live animals such as a cow, a donkey, sheep and even a camel. It is held on the lower parking area and viewers can sit in their car and watch the show. Our Vacation Bible School is also very popular in the summer. We do bible stories, crafts and plays with consistent bible teaching. This year it will be on July 12-16 with a “rodeo, western” theme. What other groups use your church facility? A few groups that use our church facility are Junior High and High School events, Adult Study Groups (book clubs, etc), Birmingham Boys Choir, Birmingham Hospitality Network, Big Oak Ranch Auxiliary. What projects are your youth involved in? Several Projects are the First and Third Wednesday evening service projects, Sunday night worship service “The Brook”, Acteens on Wednesdays, Fall and Spring Retreats for recreation and bible study, Junior High Bible Study every Wednesday morning and High School breakfast each Friday. On June 10, our youth left to go to Kenya. In Kenya, our senior youth will be working on building and repairing many of the roads in Kenya. They will also help teach students in primary school. We have had previous members of our congregation that grew up in Kenya and we had heard of
other churches doing missions in Kenya so we were very interested. Does your church have a Day School or full time child care programs? Yes, our Early Learning Center is birth through 5 year kindergarten. Historically, the Kindergarten program began with 143 children and a 5 day per week operation in 1982. Also, a Mother’s Day Out Program was available 3 days a week. Full time Day Care was inaugurated in 1993. Currently, our Early Learning Center has an enrollment of 135 children in Full Day and 205 students in the Half Day program. To learn more about Mountain Brook Baptist, or to volunteer with any of these outreach ministries, visit their website, www.mbbc.org or call 205-871-0331.
Mountain Brook Baptist Church
Is Your Backyard Wild Yet? Canterbury United
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Canterbury VBS 2010 was truly a Galactic Blast for the over 510 children, youth, and adult participants who took a trip on the starship Galactic Praise, June 7-11. Thanks to our stellar directors Lee Alice Estes and Amy Knight and a whole galaxy of adult and youth helpers, the children were treated to Bible stories from the Old and New Testaments that focused on God’s wonderful, incredible, amazing, magnificent, and absolutely awesome love for us. Three talking gorillas (that’s right, we said “gorillas”) accompanied us on this space trek and reminded us daily of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s amazing creation. Younger children enjoyed science experiments (have you ever tried to drink water upside down?) in the Galactic
Observatory, and the older kids took a field trip to the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. Hopefully, these seemingly secular experiences will help the children remember that God is the author of all creation, even to the very ends of our galaxy and beyond. He has provided all that we need (even gravity to keep us “down to earth”), and all He asks in return is our love and praise. The Canterbury VBS Mission Project for this year was Ashlee’s Toy Closet, and the students collected over 600 gently used and restored toys to share with children who have lost their homes through natural disasters like fire or tornados. Over $350 was also donated to pay the postage to send these toys to Nevada for distribution.