- Mission trip coming. More info to follow.
- Mighty to Save: April 11, 2022 We joined 4 other churches for a Palm Sunday Cantata: We had a great time lifting up the name of the Lord. We had 12 in the choir and about 60 or so attend.
- Bartow Antique Fair outreach: We are now in our 2nd year for our prayer booth for this event. We have a booth set up for every 2nd Saturday of the month and are praying with people and sharing the Gospel.
- Prayer Drive and Walk: Sept. 11, 2022 and September 2021. We had a great day of visiting families and praying with them today.
- VBS: July 2021We had a great VBS and had about 50 total kids and workers. God was Blessed and we had a BLAST.
- Evangelism Battery Give away: July 10, 2020 Today we went and gave away 2=9 Volt batteries for smoke detectors to 100 new residents within the last year of Alturas. It was to show the love of the Lord in a different way. We wanted to help keep them safe and show them we care about of community.
- Father’s Day gift give away June 19th 2020. Like on Mothers Day we went and delivered Father’s Day gifts to all the men of our church. THey were happy to get a little something to show them we love them.
- Mother’s Day gift give away May 8th 2020. We went and delivered Mother’s Day gifts to all the Ladies of our church. THey were happy to get a little something to show them we love them.
- March 29th our First Live Streaming Service: It sometimes takes a pandemic for things to happen. We had our first live service on Facebook live on the pastors Facebook page and had great response. the next week we had over 80 viewing. God is awesome.🤷♂️
- Homecoming: March 7th & 8th 2020: We had our 66th annual Homecoming services. On Saturday night we had an awesome concert with Simple Faith Quartet. It was so uplifting. Sunday we had an awesome service and the Lord was glorified. We also had a ton of food for our dinner on the grounds.
- Youth Sunday February 19th 2020: We had an awesome day of Worship with our youth doing all the aspects of the Service including the preaching. Thank you to Richard III, Jenny and the youth for a great day in God’s house
- We had our church children & youth Christmas play Sunday Dec 22 and it went well. We shared the real meaning of Christmas and how it was about a babe born in a manger a Savior & Messiah. We had 1 man come and rededicate his life to the Lord and another family join our church family. Praise to the Lord for his many Blessings.
- We had our church hayride and caroling and had fun while it lasted. There was about 26 of us going around caroling until the police pulled us over and told us now it is illegal to do that. oh well. We came back to the church and had some great chili.
- Church Thanksgiving dinner: We had a great time of fellowship last night and had 49 people come for our thanksgiving dinner. We had lots of food and a great time of worship around our Bonn Fire. The Holy spirit was working all day.
- Holy Spirit Power: What a Sunday Nov. 24 2019, The Holy Spirit was again in full control and we saw a husband and wife walked down the aisle. 1 accepted Christ as her savior and the other rededicated his life to the Lord. And we had 17 visitors to church this morning.
- God is good:We had another person walk the Aisle to accept Christ and be baptized this past Sunday Sept 22, 2019. God is so awesome and allows us to see some of the harvest. We had a goal of 6 baptisms for the year and now have met our goal. with God’s divine help.
- Fish Fry: We had a great fish fry fundraiser and raised $415.Corey did our frying and Bro. Chris was a great leader and ran the show. Look for our next one in September.
- VBS: We had a great Vacation Bible School. We had 29 kids enrolled and 27 workers. We also had 3 young people make a decision to accept Christ. We praise God for His blessings this week. We also got 520 items for our food pantry and 350 in offering for the pantry.
- Yard Sale & Fish Fry Fundraiser: May 5th and 6th we had a yard sale & fish fry fundraiser we raised $500.00 for ministry needs. We also had a gospel sing after the fish fry saturday and had fun lifting up the name of the Lord.
- Kids Encounter: For the last 4 months on the first Friday of each month from 6-10pm we have had a kids night so parents can go out and Kids can come and have fun. It has been for Ages 4-12. We have have games, snacks, story time, crafts, special guests, and more for the kids. We had the firemen come out and the kids got to tour the firetrucks and each got a fire helmet. We had inflatables scheduled and even Smoky the bear. We are taking a break for the summer and revamping the program for the fall.
- Homecoming: March 9th & 10th we had our 65th Annual HomeComing. We were fortunate again to have Simple Faith in concert on the 9th at 6:30 pm after having a great Fish Fry Fundraiser from 4-6pm. On Sunday we had a great day of celebration and dinner on the grounds after the morning service. Brother Bill Anderson Preached a powerful message and Janet Sardon played beautifully on the piano. We were also BLessed to have Raymond McGIll play his guitar and dobro & sing. Troy Garard joined him. It was an awesome morning to lift up the name of Jesus.
- Progressive Dinner On Dec 29th. we had our progressive dinner and had 12 in attendance. It was halted early when one of our beloved church members had to be taken to the hospital where he passed away on the way there. We will miss Brother George.
- Hayride & Caroling on Dec 12th we had a great time going around caroling with about 16 of us and about 8 more staying back at the church waiting for the some good old fashioned chili to eat.
- Thanksgiving meal: We had our annual thanksgiving meal on Sunday the 18th. The food was amazing and about 35 of our church family ventured out. We then had a great time of worship around the Bonn fire and giving thanks.
- Fall Festival: On Saturday Oct. 27th we teamed up with the Alturas WOmen’s club for our Fall festival. We had a huge 2 story slide and our Adriel ladies had a spaghetti dinner fundraiser and made $150.00 and there were lots of trunk or treats as well as many cakes given away at the cake walk. It was a lot of fun.
- REVIVAL with Mike Petty Oct. 21-24th was outstanding. We had great special music as well as great preaching and a movement of the Holy Spirit like Alturas hasn’t seen in a long time. Brother Raymond played his banjo and sang Sunday along with Sister Sherry M doing a special. We had the worship band from the United Methodist church in Bartow play for our youth event on Monday night along with a dunk tank for Brother Chris our youth Pastor and even a 30 ft banana split on Wed. night and a gift for all our veterans on Tuesday night.
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- Family Dinner Out: Sept 16: no pictures this trip but another great time of fellowship.
- Family DInner out: Aug 19 we had our monthly family dinner out with 25 of our church family going. It was nice fellowshipping outside of church and in the community.
- Our community 5th Sunday sing was great last night. July 29th was a good night to sing. It is great coming together and singing together the name of Jesus and lifting up praises to our Father and King. Brother Raymond was great with some Blue grass and Pastor Kathleen did an amazing job with the Lord’s prayer vocal. The church’s quintet is always top notch and Sister Sherry and others sang great too. One young man on 16 years old, Jack Counts did amazing on the Old Rugged Cross. Next time it will be at our church.
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- V.B.S.: Our VBS was awesome: Here are some pictures of how it is went. We had 29 kids and 18 of our church members work our VBS this year. Special thanks to Parkland Baptist and First Baptist of Whaneta for their decorations and supplies they were a blessing. We also had donations from Taco Bell & McDonalds of food for a couple of nights. We were blessed with the kids all week and made some great friends.
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- The Daniel Plan: Our church invited our community and those around us to do the Daniel Plan by Rick Warren with us. It was a 7 week Bible study and total fitness and life change program. We did it on Thursday nights We started exercising together walking at 5:15 pm and then the Bible study started at 6:00 pm. We pray it helped those who attend to make some changes in the way they view their life and health. We will be doing a refresher of it again down the road
- Mother’s Day Brunch: Saturday May 12th @ 11:15 AM at the Back Porch Restaurant in Lake Alfred the Ladies and young ladies 14 and up had a great time of fellowship and food for the annual Mother’s Day Brunch. We had 15 ladies go. Thank you Adriel’s for providing for this each year. Join them next year to see where it may be………
April 26-28 Yard sale : We had a huge yard sale and raised enough money to buy a badly needed riding mower for our church. Praise the Lord.
March 10th Easter Parade. We participated in the Bartow Easter parade. We had a great time worshiping God and singing His praises on our float
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March 3 & 4 Homecoming Weekend: We had an awesome fish Fry fundraiser and raised $765.00 for ministries of the church and then followed it up with a Holy Spirit filled concert by Simple Faith Quartet. God was moving. Sunday was our 64th Homecoming service and we had a great time with past members coming home and new ones visiting. Our new youth praise band rocked the house and Troy and Kathy Garrard blessed us with some great praises to our Lord.
Active Shooter Training: On Feb 18, 2018 we had active shooter training for churches. Chris did an awesome job. We also had some good sandwiches and refreshments.
February 17, 2018 Youth Valentine Banquet: The youth had their annual Valentines fundraiser banquet to raise funds for the year to do mission trips pay insurance for their van etc. There was a live auction on some really awesome items. There was also a scrumptious southern dinner with pulled pork, baked beans, home made mac- n-cheese, corn bread and banana pudding. The decorations were very country chic and charming and the youth were great wait staff. The auction was a hoot and we laughed a lot. You missed a great time and the youth raised $541.00. God is so good.
Community Christmas Cantata. WOW. What an awesome way to praise God together as a community and sing about the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. This year on Dec. 17, 2017 we did it at the Alturas Methodist Church and had a pretty good turn out. If you want to try and join us next year to lend your voice come on out.
Caroling & Hayride & chili feed: We had our annual hayride and caroling on Wednesday Dec. 13, 2018 @ 6:00 pm. We got to do some caroling around our community on a hay ride and then had some yummy chili. No trailer flats this year. Thank you Brother Bobby for the hay and Bro. Kevin for your trailer again.
Church Family Thanksgiving dinner: Our annual church family thanksgiving dinner was Sunday Nov. 19th, 2017. We had a great time of fellowship and the food was awesome. We also had a great time of worship and sharing around our Bonn fire.
Fall Festival: Our Fall Festival on Oct. 31, 2017 was at the Alturas Women’s club. we raised $58: for the youth’s tags for their van they purchased. We had a dunk tank and many other fun things. The dunk tank was exciting along with the awesome cakes from the cake walk. The Women’s club also raised $40. from that cake walk.
Community 5th Sunday Sing: We had an awesome night Oct. 30, 2017 at The Church for our community sing. It is great getting together with other believers and lifting up the name of Jesus.
Yard Sale Fundraiser: Due to hurricane Irma we rescheduled our fundraiser yard sale to Oct 6 & 7. God blessed us with 1295.00 in sales for the 2 days. God is soooo good.
Hurricane Irma: We were blessed. We had 26 from our community stay with us during the storm as we were an emergency shelter. We stayed dry for the most part and had great caring people here. The church did have some damage but God is in control and he will see us thru th fixing and the finances to get them fixed. We lost a window, the roof the our shed and a good portion of shingles on our roof of the church. Irma was big and strong but God was stronger.
Community 5th Sunday Sing: July 30, 2017 In Alturas all of the churches got together and we had our 5th Sunday It was a great time of Worship to our Lord and fellowship together. It was just plain fun singing to the Lord. We had such a good time. Join us next time.
V.B.S. : We had a great V.B.S. with the theme of Galactic Starveyor for ages preschool thru high school. We did it in the evenings from 6:00 pm-8:30 pm June 26-30, 2017. We had a week of crafts, Bible study, singing great songs, missionary stories and games.We also had great food donated by some of of church people as well as Olive Garden, Panera Bread, Sweet Tomatoes, Flippers Pizza, Hungry Howies Pizza, Arby’s Restaurant, Racetrac & even Red Lobster biscuits. God was good. The kids loved playing on the inflatables. We had 27 kids this week with 20 workers. I am looking forward to see what happens to the seeds we planted in the hearts and minds of these kids.
Community Yard Sale Fundraiser: On July 7- 8, 2017 we had a huge yard sale and raised almost $1200 for the ministries here at the church. GOD IS GOOD. The community came out and got some good deals and had a great time. We had a lot of laughs and hard work. Stay tuned for the next one since this one went over so well. We also had a great time inviting people to church and handing out tracks, especially the kids for VBS who came in just another week.
Family Fun Night: June 25th, 2017 we had our Hawaiian Luau at the church. It was a great time of fun, food and fellowship. We had a limbo contest with Miss Kimber winning but Darian coming in a close second Mrs. Sherry got Dethroned on our hula hoop contest because she was on vacation. We also learned the hula dance to “Amazing grace my chains are gone” by Chris Tomlin. It was a nice evening of fun and worshiping our Lord.
Mother’s Day Lunch: On May 13, 2017 the Adriel’s hosted their annual Mother’s Day lunch and this year it was at the Mason’s lodge in Lake Wales. The lunch was catered by the lodge and they did an awesome job. We had 13 ladies attend and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. They even shared sayings their moms said that they never forgot. It was a great time of fellowship. Also the decorations were very elegant & festive. Thank you Lora & Linda.
Relay for Life: Friday April 28, 2017, we participated in the Bartow/ Lake Wales Cancer Relay for life event at Bartow High School. We had some fun playing corn hole & sold bottled water while raising some money to fight cancer. The event lasted from 4 pm-11 pm. We met a lot of great people especially some amazing cancer survivors. It is great to take part in the community.
Saturday April 22, 2017 Hot Dog Eating Contest: The youth of our church hosted their first ever hot dog eating contest. There was prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. We only had 4 contestants because Pastor Richard had oral surgery Thursday afternoon. He says he could have won making it 5. It was a hoot.
Sunrise Service April 16, 2017: On Resurrection Sunday Morning @ 7:00am the community churches got together and performed Mighty to Save Cantata . We had a great time down at the lake behind the Methodist church with about 95 of our community worshipping our Risen Lord. Then we had a great fellowship together at the Methodist church for breakfast before off to our church for services
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Messiah in the Passover: April 9th, 2017
We had Chosen People ministries facilitate a seder dinner and Messiah in the Passover on Palm Sunday Night. It gave us a clear picture of what it was like then and who the Messiah is. It is interesting to see what Jesus did during the last passover meal. Jim Fox did a great job. It is amazing to see Scripture come together.
63 rd Home Coming Weekend: On March 11th from 3:30-5:30 we had a fish fry fundraiser and raised 1200 towards our termite bill. We served about 140 plates. It was followed by our Southern Gospel sing featuring Gulf State Quartet @ 6:00 pm. They did an awesome job and we had 86 in attendance. On Sunday morning the 12th for our worship service Rev.Eric Holmes Student Pastor from Heartland Community Church brought the message and Barbara Love and family sang special music as well as Elon Sowell. It was an awesome weekend of praising GOd and fellowshipping and remembering what this church has done in the last 63 years. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Baptisms: Feb 26 we baptized 2 youths. Bryson & Melyssa. Praise the Lord for youth stepping up and following Christ. Leo & Chris our youth leaders did their first baptisms. Good job guys.
Community Christmas Cantata: December 18th @ 7 pm we had about 80 of our community come hear His very own star cantata. It was a great time of singing and acting. It is great when the community and it’s churches can come together to sing about the birth of our Savior. Special thank you to the Methodist church for their help with actors & choir. Mrs. Sherry Maberry did a great job directing our program.
Progressive Dinner: On Dec 10 We had our 2nd annual progressive dinner. We went from house to house with great food and fellowship (especially the singing at Flora and George’s). Fifteen adults enjoyed our evening. A special thanks to our youth for providing the childcare
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Caroling & Hayride: We started the evening with some excellent chili and everyone cleaned it up quickly. Then off to the hay filled trailer to sing some carols around Alturas. We made it 3 blocks and then the tire blew. We made it back to the church with a memory and a story to tell. Pastor Richard fixed the two tires with nails in them and bought 2 new ones. Look out next year we’re ready.
November 20-Church Thanksgiving Dinner: We had a great time of turkey and all the trimmings for our church family thanksgiving dinner. We also had some visitors. The food was out of this world and the praise and worship around the big Bonn Fire was extra special.
October 29th Community Fall Festival: We had our community fall festival in the Middle of Alturas with about 190 people attending. The 3 churches in Alturas got together to put it on. We had lots of things to do games, free hot dogs, bottled water, face painting, football throw, balloon dart throw game, fishing booth, picture booth, puppet show, live music etc. Here are some pictures.
October 16th We had our Pioneer Day Sunday and dinner on the grounds. We had an old fashion day with everyone wearing outfits from days gone by and even a prize for the best dressed. We began the day at 9:15 am for breakfast then Sunday School as well as worship service and then we had a big dinner on the grounds. This was an event for a Sunday School drive to get people to try out our Sunday morning Bible study hour. It was a blast. We had some foot stompin and roof raisin gospel singing. Maybe we will do it again sometime.
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August 1-5th V.B.S. We had a great Vacation Bible School. It was the first time at night and we had 39 kids enrolled with 17 workers this year. Our theme was Submerged: Diving deeper with Jesus and the Word of God. It was an amazing time with the kids and youth each night as we had ages preschool thru high school. We provided a light supper, crafts, missions video & stories, Bible lessons, exciting songs and had the inflatable bounce castle and slides for them to play on during recreation time. The best part of all is one young lady accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior and we planted many seeds. We had our family day on Sunday and had 8 families come from the community other than our church kids to watch their kids give a presentation and sing the sings of the week. It was such a blessing. Here are some pictures from the week.
July 24-30 Mission Trip Miami. We went to N Miami to help out Christ Centered Church and Pastor Dr Derrick Allen and the crew there. We had a great deal of work lined up. We painted at a public school and also did yard work and tree trimming there. We also did some painting at a neighbors house in the community. We did a prayer walk and put door hangers on telling them we prayed for their family, homes and neighborhood. We also handed out water and prayed for people in 2 parks, made flyers up then passed them up for a possible new church start in another neighborhood as well as empty 2 storage sheds for the church that help them save $300. a month to be able to use for other ministry. All together a great week. We even got to go to the beach one afternoon to swim.
July 17 Family fun night of Kitchen wars: We had our 2nd annual kitchen wars and had a great time of cooking chaos and sabotages with the winning team all getting McDonald’s gift cards as their rewards. It was great having some visitors as well. The food was pretty tasty too.
June 26th, Rick & Katrina Baby Shower, We had a baby shower for Rick & Katrina Bender and their new little girl. They already have 2 children Matthew & Ruthie now Phoebe will be coming July 30th. Congratulations.
June 26th, Youth Sunday, We have some amazing youth. Our youth Sunday was awesome. The youth honored God and the Holy Spirit was moving in our service. This is the next generation of leaders in our churches. We are proud of them. Our Youth Pastor Ricky Counts and youth leaders Chris Clifton & Leo Schobl are doing a terrific job with them. Pray for them as they prepare for their mission trip to Chattanooga TN on July 23-30th. Last year we had 5 participate this year 9 almost double. God really is blessing.
June 5th, We had Doug & Joli Cullens from Choose Life Ministries USA come share with us in the morning worship service about the sanctity of human Life. We had a great time of worship and an uplifting message of truth from the Word of God. We had one man walk the aisle to receive Christ as his Savior and Lord. God is good.
Mother’s Day Brunch May 7th, 2016. Our ladies had a great time at the Barn Restaurant in Lake Alfred for a Mother’s day brunch paid for by the Adriel’s ladies group in our church. They had 17 ladies go and had a great time of fellowship.
Easter Sunrise 2016 was great. We had a community service with 4 of the churches in our community area. The Church, First United Methodist of Alturas, First Baptist Church Lake Garfield and our church. We missed the lake view this year but will have it next year. It was a great time of celebrating our Risen Savior.
Homecoming 2016: We had Gulf State Quartet again this year on Saturday night March 12, 2016 before our homecoming Sunday and they were awesome. God was glorified and the roof was raised. Sunday morning we had an excellent service with Dennis Albritten singing and also Sherry Maberry sang a special and had a beautiful DVD of some of our former members and friends. Rev. Wayne Maberry brought the Word and we had a great time of fellowship with dinner on the grounds.
Easter Celebration Parade March 12, 2016. Our second year float in the Easter parade was a success. The Youth, along with our youth director Ricky Counts and his wife Jade organized our float and everyone helped with the construction. We appreciated the churches support with the candy, eggs and finances. We gave out 300 plus Easter eggs with the Gospel message inside of it along the way.
Remodeling and updating- March 1. After 40 years of paneling in the front of the church we changed the front of the sanctuary with a complete face lift. It is now clean, white and we also took the pews out to open it up for plays, dramas or even a praise band if God so moves. We also purchased new chairs for our fellowship hall and had them there for our “choir of singers” to use for home coming.
Youth Mission Trip Ft. Meyers. March 5th & 6th. We had 12 youth and adults go down to N. Ft. Meyers to help out our sister church, N. Ft. Meyers First Baptist Church. They did an awesome job and got lots of yard work done, trimmed trees, picked up pine cones and organized rooms in the church etc. Awesome job guys on being the hands & feet of Jesus.
Youth Valentines Banquet February 13th, 2016 Our youth had their Annual Valentines fundraiser banquet. It was decorated well and had a great silent auction. They raised $407.00 for their mission trip to Tennessee in July. The food was excellent and the service the youth provide as our waiters was top notch. I can’t wait til next year. Our Queen for this year was Mrs. Virginia Maynard and King was Pastor Richard.
COWBOYS FOR CHRIST Jan 31st. This great ministry was at our church for Sunday morning Jan 24th and shared another people group being reached (kids & youth cowboys & cowgirls). Specifically rodeo ones. They are also being discipled and encouraged to attend local churches. Thank you chaplain Dave GiIlette and family for coming and sharing.
Youth Fundraiser Movie Night Jan 10th. We showed the moving “Facing the Giants” and raised $167.00 for the youth who used it to go to the Winter Jam Christian Concert event in Tampa on Jan 13th. Thank you for all who came & supported the youth.
