I could plead a busy schedule. I could cry about how I was in Alabama for a week with no Internet service. I could give you one excuse after another about my long absence from the blogosphere. But, as you probably know, an excuse is merely the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. So, we won’t go there. To cut to the chase, I haven’t blogged because I have not taken the time to sit down and my keyboard and do it.

Well, I am back today, but just for a moment. I stopped by to encourage all the preachers out there to stand up and put out tomorrow. Get you a word from God and faithfully declare it to the people who show up at your place. I will be praying for you. I hope you will do the same for me.

No promises as to my success, but I will try to do a little better about blogging in the future. Just a little, maybe. I will try. We’ll see what happens. See you soon, I think, I hope, I….gotta run!

Alan Carr

The Lord helped His people at Calvary yesterday. We had great attendance in both services. And the presence of the Lord was very evident. Last evening the people of the Lord worshiped and praised the Lord with singing, shouting and testimonies for the entire service. It was good to be in His house on Sunday.

The events of yesterday made me thankful that I am a part of a old-fashioned Baptist church that still believes in preaching, praying and praising the Lord. I am also thankful to be a fundamentalist. Some people cast dispersions on that name these days, Every body, it seems, wants to be hip, cool and embrace the latest trends.

On one side of the equation you have the people in the contemporary movement. They try to reach the world by becoming more like the world. The preaching, the music and the ambiance are all designed to make the world feel more at home in the church. It is assumed that by making the Gospel message more appealing, more people will be attracted to it. What they fail to remember, in my opinion, is one simple truth: the Gospel needs no adjustments. It is fine like it is. Present it like the Bible declares it and the Holy Spirit will do the work.

On the other side of the coin you have people who get consumed with some branch of orthodoxy. Be it those in the Reformed movement who live and breath the five-points of Calvinism, or those who fixate on their pet doctrine to the exclusion of all others. In my mind this mindset is as dangerous and damaging as the other. People are put off and turned away from the church by those who get trapped in the morass of single minded devotion to their favorite creed or movement.

Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for the emphasis on grace in the Word of God. I know that everything flows from and is an expression of the grace of God in our lives. I am also thankful for the fundamental doctrines of the faith. I know that they are the bedrock upon which the church stands,. I am not advocating an abandonment of orthodoxy in favor of some contemporary form of worship and expression. I am advocating keeping Jesus Christ at the center of everything we do. I am advocating loving Him; preaching Him; living for Him and like Him, so that the world might be drawn to Him. I am advocating a return to the Word of God as the centerpiece of our walk, our work and our worship. I am advocating keeping Jesus at the center of everything we do!

What do you think?

Alan Carr

We often speak of the grace of God. And rightly so! The grace of God is one of the greatest of God’s blessings in our lives. After all, it was grace that put us in the plan of God before the foundation of the world. It was grace that moved Jesus to enter this world as a man to die on the cross for our sins. It was grace that fixed the redemptive love of God on us and saved us from our sins. It is grace that keeps us in our saved condition. It is grace that deliver us safely home to the presence of the Father. Thank God for grace!

I also praise Him for His grace in my life day by day. During Paul’s struggle with that thorn in his flesh, he received this promise from the Lord, “My grace is sufficient for thee…” (2 Cor. 12:9) That is the kind of grace i am interested in today. Just this week I have seen that grace on so many levels. I have spent some time with a dear lady who’s sister was murdered in a senseless shooting last Saturday. I have seen the grace of God active in her life. I have been spending time with a precious saint of God who is just looking for a place to cross from this world into that world. I have seen his smiles and heard his words of faith, hope and anticipation. That is grace! I have watched his wife minister to him and talk to him about Heaven and how he is going there soon. That is grace! Everywhere I look I see the evident, manifest grace of God. I praise Him for that grace. Every time I see His grace in action it reminds me that when my dark hours come, and they will, He will be with me to comfort me and to help me demonstrate a good testimony to the glory of God. You and I should take some time to praise Him today for His grace in our lives!

I stand in need of prayer over the next few days. At 2:00 today I will conduct the funeral of the dear lady who was murdered last week. Tonight at 7:00 I have a wedding rehearsal. Tomorrow at 2:00 I have the wedding. Sunday I will preach at 11:00 and then we will ordain my son Jesse at 3:00. I am tired already, but I have His promise that His grace will be sufficient for me! Praise His name!

Alan Carr

Our Lord’s Day services at Calvary were good yesterday. In the AM service we honored our veterans and active duty active duty service members. We have 21 veterans in attendance. I enjoyed that portion of the service. We also honored Brother Hughes Kincaid. Preacher Kincaid is 90 years old. He was saved in 1944 and has been preaching the Gospel ever since. He has served several churches in this area and he is a precious, special man of God. We tried to honor him for his service and we presented him with a Christian flag.

Our services were somewhat somber yesterday. One of our dear ladies was murdered at her home on Saturday and the church was trying to process that situation. Please remember the deceased lady’s sister Phyllis. Her sister was the only family she had. Phyllis needs much prayer in these days. We will have services for Vivian Kincaid later in the week, Please remember those folks in your prayers.

That’s all for today. God bless!

Alan Carr

We have been privileged to have Brother Tom Gilliam with us this week in meeting. He has been preaching on some Old Testament that are “Worth Praying Again.” He has preached on the prayer of Asher from Deut. 33; the pray of Hannah from 1 Sam. 1-2; the prayer of Jabez from 1 Chron. 4; and the prayer of Jehoshaphat from 2 Chron. 20. He will finish the series this evening. The sermons have challenged me in my own prayer life.

As I pray and as I study the subject of prayer, I am convinced that I know very little about how to pray. I am also convinced that I have done very little real praying in my life. I will, by the help of the Lord, strive to change that. Please remmeber our church as we close out our meeting tonight.

By the way, if you are looking for an evangelist who will make you think and take you deep in to a text, you should consider Brother Tom. He lives in Winterville, GA and his web site is called Bible Truth Ministry and is well worth a visit. Lord willing, I will post the audios from the meeting in the next few days.

God bless you folks and please remember this preacher in your prayers.

Alan Carr

When you first start a blog you are filled with thoughts, ideas and energy for the task. You say to yourself, “Self, surely you can spare a few minutes each day to astound the world with your brilliance, your acumen and your clever use of the English language.” Then life intervenes and you realize that you do not have the time to devote to a blog on a daily basis, nor do you possess sufficient ideas to attract readers to your blog. So, what do you do? You either post when you can, or you abandon the whole idea. For me, the solution has been to post when i can. That is what I intend to keep doing.

So, we had a good Sunday at Calvary. The Lord manifested Himself in a big way Sunday morning, then we ordained a Deacon on Sunday evening. It was a good day in the Lord.

Yesterday, I took our new Associate Pastor to visit some of our shut-ins. He will be helping me with some visitation within the church. That will be a blessing, especially at certain times of the year. Pray for Brother Chad as he begins his duties here at Calvary. On the same note, pray for our out-going Associate Brother Josh Hinson and his family as they move to Brunswick, GA to plant a church there. Sometimes the ministry is a place of transitions. Those transitions can be frightening, but they always result in blessings when the Lord is doing the leading.

Well, I have about a million things to do today, and a million more will appear as I work through those. I would appreciate your prayers.

Alan Carr

This past weekend was a real blessing! I preached to a houseful of young folks on Friday evening and there was a good move of God in the invitation. What a blessing it was to see teenagers shout, pray and testify. We came back on Saturday and I had the privilege of preaching with my son Jesse. He did a good job as usual. The Lord blessed on Saturday as well. Then, we went to Calvary on Sunday. The Lord came by there too. I didn’t get to preach on Sunday morning and we had a great service on Sunday night. Praise His name! I am at Good Hope Baptist Church, which is located just outside of Wake Forest, NC, this week. The meeting got off to a good start last night. The Lord blessed the preaching with a good response from His people. Pray for the meeting the week and pray for the church. They are looking for a Pastor and they are having a hard time finding a preacher. Did you see what I said? They are looking for a Pastor who can preach too. I am hearing the more and more as I travel here and there. Our schools are graduating a lot of men who can administrate and organize the church, but they are not graduating many preachers. God give us a generation of leather-lunged, old-fashioned, Bible-thumpers who will preach the Gospel of grace in the power of the Holy Ghost. God give us Pastors who are also preachers. Anything else may be a contradiction in terms.

Alan Carr

The meeting at Central Baptist Church in Carrollton, GA was probably the best meeting I have been to in a long time. The preaching was excellent and the Spirit of the Lord was present in every service. Sometimes, campmeeting degenerates into a preaching competition. That spirit was very much absent last week. Every message was on target and substantive. The content of the sermons was helpful and served as food for my soul. I truly appreciated being invited to the meeting. The singing was top notch as well. Local choirs, folk in the church, sister Robin Calhoun and the Gilley Family all did a great job with the singing.

Besides the spiritual component of the meeting, the Pastor and people of Central Baptist went above the call of duty. They provided us with a fine room in a local motel. They labored and served us two complete meals each day. The Pastor, Brother Doug Bearden, is simply a prince of a man. He has a special touch on his life and I am grateful to be able to call him my friend.

We had a good day Sunday at Calvary. The Lord helped us in both services and I praise Him for that. On Monday, I preach at Lakeview Baptist Church here in Lenoir. They are having a different preacher each evening this week in their revival. We had a good service. There Pastor is Brother Ron Burgett. He is being used of God at Lakeview. This Friday and Saturday I am preaching at Community Baptist Church in Morganton, NC, where Brother Billy Bollinger is the Pastor. This is a youth meeting. Please pray for the services. On Friday, I will be preaching by myself. On Saturday, I will be join by Brother Jesse Carr, who is the Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Morganton, NC. Brother Jesse is also my son! Pray for us. Then, on Monday, I will be going to Wake Forest, NC to preach for three nights at Good Hope Baptist Church. They are without a Pastor, but their Interim is Dr. Fred Williams. Pray for this meeting as well.

I am looking forward to being at Calvary this evening for our Wednesday service. As Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home.” I love to go here and there and preach, but I sure do get to missing my folks. Isn’t it amazing what the Lord does in the heart of a preacher when he places him in a church? it’s like a wedding in some ways.

Have a good day!

Alan Carr

The campmeeting at Central Baptist in Carrollton, GA got off to a good start last night. The Lord moved in and we enjoyed some great singing by the church choir and the Rick Gilley Family. Jimbo Seaton and Steve Dagenhart both preached powerful messages, and God helped some folks. Praise His name! I am on my way over for the morning session, where I am scheduled to preach the first message. (I hope you are praying!) I don’t have time for more now, but I will try to keep you folks updated as the meeting progresses.

Alan Carr

Joan and I made it safely to Carrollton today. We are here for the campmeeting at Central Baptist Church. Brother Doug Bearden is the Pastor. Brother Doug is one of God’s choice preachers and he is a faithful friend. I am honored to be asked to preach in this meeting. Please pray for the meeting. I am scheduled to preach in the morning services every day, along with Keith Purser. Rick Safriet, Steve Dagenhart, John Edmiston, Ruel Fox, Marty Watkins, among others will be preaching in the evening services. Pray the God will be exalted in the meeting. I am here to preach, but more importantly, I am here to get fed and to draw closer to my Lord. Pray for us this week.

Alan Carr