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A Message from Pastor Tom, January 8, 2022

Dear Antioch Church Family,

I hope this finds you well and I hope you and your families had a great celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and I hope you enjoyed spending time together with family and friends during Christmas!

We are still experiencing the effects of the Covid pandemic, and it has affected each of us personally in some way or another.  Even considering this, I pray you all know and understand that God has a greater plan than all of this and I pray you focus on your faith in the midst of the fear that you may be feeling or experiencing.  

       I have said it many times that God is at work in Antioch, and 2021 was no different! Despite Covid and all the unrest in the world, I can see the fruits of what God is doing in our church!  This is clear through us reaching our 250^th year of serving the Lord in the Yale, Sussex and Southampton County Communities.  What an awesome milestone the Lord has allowed us to behold and partake in!  

       We were able to do a lot of things as a church this past year, most noteworthy were: 

We held our Easter sunrise service as a joint service with Joyner United Methodist Church and it was a wonderful celebration with a great turnout.  This was followed by our regular Easter worship service.  I am hopeful that this Easter we can hold our sunrise service followed by breakfast.  

We continued to use our FM transmitter to share our church service with those who remained in the parking lot and beyond.  I often wonder how many people in the community we are reaching with our transmitter.  

We also made good use of our projectors and AV equipment during four special events our church held during the year. 

• We had the guest wedding of Lindsey Harrup in our sanctuary.
• We held two funerals for our beloved members Pam Harrell and Roger Kitchen, and we also supported another funeral of another member, Jessica Davis.  

During these times both joyous and difficult, our church family pulled together and showed our love as a church family through coming together and sharing our hospitality, compassion, and showing our love for the Lord and others.  This in my humble opinion is what makes our church family so special.  

We continued to do work on our parsonage and finished the crawl space drainage, removing the old shrubbery and replaced them with new, and new mulch and painted the shutters.  Thank you to all who helped with this.  

We continued our monthly luncheon for our senior church members, and we continued sharing in great fellowship, food, and fun!  I also had the opportunity to share several devotionals.   

       We had two new members join our church family this year.  Roy Moring who came to us from Oakland Baptist in 

Prince George, VA and Bonnie Scimone who came back home to Antioch after being gone for a time.  As you know Bonnie grew up in this church.  We are so thankful to have Bonnie and Roy as a part of our family.  I am always thankful and humbled when people move their memberships.  While making a decision for Christ is lifechanging and baptizing new believers is indescribable, it is an honor to have members who have been called to our church by the Lord because He led them here, but they also chose us after what is often a difficult decision.  I am thankful for our new members and for the opportunity to serve as their pastor.  

In December we started celebrating Advent and several families and members participated in the lighting of the advent candles in a meaningful and memorable way.    

Lastly, as we have entered the new year, we cannot help but look back at the many blessings God has bestowed upon us which again include:

• Increased attendance and new people attending.
• My first full year as your Pastor which I am so honored to serve as.  I love you all and I look forward to the coming year together.  
• We had two new members transfer their membership to become part of our family.    
• We averaged between 40 and 50 in attendance on many Sundays!  We also experienced great Sunday School attendance!  
• We lost three members of our beloved church family and while we miss and love them dearly, we know they are celebrating with the Lord and their loved ones, and we will surely see them again:
  
  • Jessica Davis
  • Pam Harrell
  • Roger Kitchen

• While our church did not host this wedding, I had the honor to marry a special couple, Michael and Leanna Collins at Gwynn’s Island with friends and family with the Chesapeake Bay in the background.

• We were blessed to host the wedding of Jacob and Samantha Blair.  They are a special couple, and I was overjoyed and honored to be able to marry them with family, friends, and their church family in our beautiful sanctuary.
    
• We were able to repair the rest of our parsonage issues in the crawl space and we did a beautification project.  We also removed the huge pine tree in the front yard.  
• Our most seasoned member celebrated her 96^th birthday! (Mrs. Ruth Harrup)
• We continued monthly senior luncheons.

Again, while I am sure I may have missed a few things, it is abundantly clear to see how absolutely blessed we are in so many ways. The Lord is surely at work in and through Antioch Baptist Church!  All we need to remind ourselves to do is to stay out of God’s way and He will surely do a mighty work through us, in the lives of those in the Yale, Sussex, and the Southampton communities, and in Christ’s greater church.

       “May the Lord bless you and keep you; May the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace” (Numbers 6:24-26.)

       I love each of you and your families dearly and my family and I love our Antioch church family.  We are thankful to be serving the Lord together and walking our walk with Christ—with each of you!  

                                           In Christian Love, 

                                           Pastor Tom Guess