Church Christmas Letter # 2

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
Matthew 2:10

Dear Church Family,

When the wise men saw the star, they rejoiced. Christmas is a time of great rejoicing. It is a time when we rejoice in time spent with family and friends. It is a time when we rejoice with the songs of the season and the things that remind us of yesteryear. Most importantly, Christmas should be a time when we rejoice in the birth of the Savior.

This year has been an exciting and difficult year here at Fellowship Baptist Church. We have had the excitement of the salvation of Lila, followed a week later by the sadness of the stroke to Nancy. We have had the excitement of being given one van only to discover we couldn't get it through Maryland's inspection. We have had the excitement of the Lord's provision of another wheelchair accessible van and the excitement of a good turn-out for our summer Vacation Bible School. We have had the difficulties of many of our church family facing times of physical, financial, and even spiritual trials.

In November, I preached a message in which I referenced a quote from Winston Churchill regarding "insurmountable opportunities." The phrase was meant to convey the idea that the task ahead was a task of difficulty, but was also a task that could reap great benefit and great fruit. As I look ahead to the coming year, I believe that we, as a church, are facing some "insurmountable opportunities" from a human perspective, but I rejoice that even as the Christmas story reminds us, "with God nothing shall be impossible." (Luke 1:37)

In the coming days, we, as a church, need to be more diligent than ever in our attempt to reach out for Christ and to stand for Him in the midst of a lost and dying world. May I ask you to seriously pray about your involvement here at Fellowship Baptist Church during the days ahead? I am excited about some of the things that we have planned for the days ahead, but I recognize that for many of them to have the impact that they can and should have, we, as a church family, need to show ourselves faithful.

1 Corinthians 4:2 tells us that "it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful." The requirement isn't exceptional abilities or great wealth - it is faithfulness. As we look forward to another year of ministry, may we be faithful in our attendance, faithful in our witnessing, faithful in our Christian walk, living for and depending on Christ in every area of our life.

May God give you a blessed Christmas season and may the New Year be a year in which we all grow closer to Christ and see Him work in us and through us in an even greater way.

In Christ,



Pastor Frank Sansone and family

2008 Church Christmas Letter 1

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
Matthew 2:10

When the wise men saw the star, they rejoiced. Christmas is a time of great rejoicing. It is a time when we rejoice in time spent with family and friends. It is a time when we rejoice with the songs of the season and the things that remind us of yesteryear. Most importantly, Christmas should be a time when we rejoice in the birth of the Savior.

God is a giving God and has given unto us His Son, Jesus Christ, to born in a lowly manger, to live a sinless and spotless life, to die on the cross for our sins, and to rise again in power and glory.

As the Christmas season is upon us, may our minds not only be filled with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads, but may our minds and hearts be filled with a love for the One who gave everything for us. The Bible tells us in John 3:16 that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Bible relates to us the wonderful truth that Jesus Christ came to save us from our sin and that he lived a perfect, sinless life and died a cruel death on the cross of Calvary to be our Substitute and our Savior.

December is a special time for at Fellowship Baptist Church, and we would like to invite you to join us for our Special Christmas Sunday Service this coming Sunday, December 21. As part of our service that morning, the children will be performing a program called "There's A Song in the Air." We will also have a great time of singing, special music, a special Christmas-themed message and a Fellowship Lunch with plenty of great food and good fellowship after the service.

Whether you are a regular attender or whether you have not been out for awhile, wouldn't this Christmas Sunday be a great Sunday to come back out and join us at Fellowship Baptist Church?

May God give you a Blessed Christmas in which the Gift of Christmas remains foremost in your mind.


In Christ,



Pastor Frank Sansone

A Note About Goodsearch and Goodshop

A Note About GoodSearch and GoodShop

GoodSearch is an organization that provide an opportunity to support the churches and charities in a pain-free and cost-free method. At the end of 2007, after researching Goodsearch, I completed the steps necessary for Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury to be able to receive funds from the Goodsearch program. We recently received our check from Goodsearch for 2008 in the amount of $76.56 and I thought this would be a good opportunity to explain the program and to encourage you to use Goodsearch and Goodshop if you use the internet - or have friends and family that use the internet.

How does Goodsearch work?

Goodsearch provides a donation to the church whenever you use Goodsearch to search the internet - instead of using Google or some other search engine. The search results are powered by Yahoo!, so the search results are good results. Anyone who uses the internet already uses some method to search the internet, with Goodsearch, we are simply asking that choice of search engine to be Goodsearch and that the designated charity be Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury.

It is a blessing to be able to receive this money and for a small church like Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury, even a relatively small amount of money like this can help offset the cost of Sunday School curriculum or Vacation Bible School materials or Jr. Church materials or tracts or bulletins. The more people who use Goodsearch for us, the more we are able to raise. The amount of money raised last year was from a relatively few people searching.

In addition to being able to receive donations by simply using GoodSearch as you search the internet, over the last year or so, Goodsearch has added a program called GoodShop. GoodShop uses the same concept, except that instead of making a donation for searching, it makes a donation when you buy something online by going through GoodShop to get to the store's online presence. The stores represented by GoodShop are places many of us go shopping anyway, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Staples, Petsmart, etc. The difference is that you would be making your purchases online instead of at the store. Depending on the store, you may even be able to make your purchase online and pick it up at the store in person (or have it shipped to you - or to a loved one in another part of the country for Christmas). The amount of donation from Goodshop purchases are a percentage of the overall purchase, so that purchasing that Wii from Wal-Mart could result in a donation of $4.50 (1.5% of $300).

How do I use Goodsearch?

Goodsearch has made the process pretty easy. You can either go directly to the site (www.goodsearch.com) and enter "Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury" in the box that asks "Who do you Goodsearch for?". This should only have to be entered once. You could also just simply CLICK HERE and it will already be pre-populated with the information for Fellowship Baptist Church. In addition to this, they also have a Goodsearch toolbar that you use that adds a Goodsearch search box to your Internet browser, allowing you to search for anything you want from anywhere on the internet (using this feature, you don't have to leave the page you are looking at in order to search for something else).

You can Goodsearch at your home computer or from any other computer you use. Even if you don't use the internet very much, perhaps a friend or relative may be willing to "Goodsearch" for us (my sister and mom in Illinois use Goodsearch for our church). If you need help with setting this up, please see me.

While we are not going to raise a large amount of money through this method, it can definitely be a help. If we had just 20 people using Goodsearch an average of five times a day for searching, we would raise $365 during the course of a year.

So, thanks to Goodsearch for the recent donation and thank you to all of you who already use Goodsearch for Fellowship Baptist Church. If you don't, would you consider helping us out in this way? Click here to get started.

Thanks for your help,

Pastor Frank Sansone