Pine Ridge Baptist Church

Prayer for Teachers, Students, Administrators, and Parents Going Back to School today

Heavenly Father,
As this new school year begins, we lift up every person stepping into our schools. Thank You for the gift of learning and for the community You form around our children.

Lord, strengthen our teachers. Give them wisdom for each lesson, patience for each challenge, and joy in the calling You’ve placed on their lives. Let their classrooms be places of peace, respect, and discovery.

We pray for our students. Calm their nerves and fill them with courage to try new things, make new friends, and do their best. Guard their hearts and minds. Remind them they are loved, valued, and created with purpose.

Bless our administrators with discernment and steady leadership. Grant them clarity in decisions, compassion in discipline, and vision to create safe, nurturing environments where both staff and students can thrive.

And Father, uphold every parent and guardian. Give them peace as they release their children into new grades and new routines. Provide them energy, resources, and wisdom to support learning at home. Let their homes be places of encouragement and rest.

Cover every school building, bus, and playground with Your protection. May respect, kindness, and grace define this year. Let teachers, students, administrators, and parents all reflect Your light — working together to truly "light their world."

We place this school year in Your hands. Go before us, walk beside us, and watch over us.

In Jesus’ name we pray,
Amen

We’re so grateful for the beautiful fellowship we shared at the Sisters in Grace Doers of the Word Sunday School class gathering today! God designed us to grow together — fellowship with other believers is His gift to strengthen our faith, and it's clear that our gathering was infused with love, laughter, and inspiration. Our guest speaker, Angie Tracey, brought us an incredible message and shared her powerful testimony, followed by a stunning rendition of 'Go Light Your World' that moved us all to tears. It's moments like these that remind us we're not alone in our walk with God - we're part of a larger family that uplifts and supports one another. Huge thanks to Angie for sharing her gifts and her heart with us!

Pine Ridge Baptist Church “Loving God, loving people, and sharing the love of Jesus. “

Prayer offered up this morning for all our students and teachers who will be going back to school this Thursday.

A message from Pastor Bill

Next week starts a new school year. However, the time for training our children does not have a new year, it is an ongoing practice.If God has entrusted children to your care, I pray that you take the task
of training them up in the Lord very seriously. The Bible is clear about
this as we see in Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

The following is an excerpt from “Perspective on Family Ministry “showing how the early church dealt with the idea of training up children.
Family Discipleship in the History of the Church.
The expectation of family discipleship didn’t end with the New Testament era. Two early Christian documents, Didache and Letter of Barnabas, provide summaries of Christian practices that date to the
first and second centuries AD. Both of these writings include an identical command for parents, a command evidently oft-repeated in the early churches: “You shall train your son and your daughter in the fear of God from their youth up.”
A second-century church leader named Polycarp specifically held husbands responsible to partner with their wives “to train their children in the fear of God.” Another leader in the early church, Clement of Rome, urged parents to embrace the privilege of sharing with their children “the instruction that is in Christ.” The church father John Chrysostom described the process of parenthood in terms of training
children to be “athletes for Christ.” And how were parents to coach their children toward godliness? According to Chrysostom: To each of you fathers and mothers, I speak: Just as we see artists fashioning their paintings and statues with great precision, so we must care for these wondrous statues of ours. Painters, once they have set the canvas on the easel, paint on it day by day to accomplish their purpose. Sculptors, too, working in marble, proceed in a similar manner; they remove what is unhelpful and add what is lacking. You should proceed in the same way. Like the creators of statues, give all your leisure time to fashioning these wondrous
statues of God. As you remove what is unhelpful and add what is lacking, inspect them day by day, to see with which good qualities nature has supplied them so that you can increase these qualities, and to see which faults so that you can eradicate them.

How to Do Great Things for God
As a pastor, I make this statement to my church: “What you do for God beyond your home will not typically be greater than what you practice with God within your home.”
Please pray for our all school staff and all students as they begin the
new year, and train the children in your care in the truth and love of God.
Pastor BillAlderman

New day, new week, new month! Come and let us worship the Lord!

"In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Proverbs 3:6

The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation but in fellowship with other believers. If you do not have a church home we invite you to join us. If you want to learn more about our loving Savior Jesus Christ come join us .