Academy of Arts Presents The Pilgrim's Progress

Other than the Bible itself, “The Pilgrim’s Progress” is one of the most influential works of Christian literature ever written.

Join us for “The Pilgrim’s Progress” on the evening of July 30 (5 PM, AUD) presented live by the Academy of Arts traveling drama ministry program.

Experience the epic tale of one man’s journey from the City of Destruction to the gates
of the Celestial City and all of the challenges, triumphs, and perils he faces along the way.

From the Slough of Despond to the stronghold of Giant Despair, this stirring classic is a
must-see for all ages!

This is a FREE event open to the public.

Founded in 1971, the Academy of Arts exists to train and inspire the next generation
of servant leaders to properly use the powerful tool of communication for others’ good
and God’s glory. The Academy lives out this vision through their multi-faceted organization
which includes The Logos Theatre, a Christian Conservatory, 2 traveling ministries to 13
states, a professional film company, Venture Films, and supplying classes and training for all
ages “MAKING THE BIBLE COME ALIVE.”

Back to School Splash

Morningside is excited to welcome you to our Back to School Splash on Wednesday, August 2 from 7:00-8:30 pm. We will be giving away school supplies and Bible resources. Isaiah 117 House will provide a lemonade stand. Kids can enjoy inflatables, treats and more. Bring a towel! You might get wet!

We will also be opening up our Awana registration for K3-5th graders. Awana meets every Wednesday night during the school year from 6:45-8:00 pm. Our first night of club is September 6.

We look forward to seeing you at the the Back to School Splash!

Ice Cream Social

Sunday, July 2 is our 5th annual ice cream social (5 PM, Chapel).

In the summer of 2019 we were looking for a good way to celebrate Independence Day in three different languages. We decided to enjoy ice cream together and have prayer for our nation from our English, Spanish, and Chinese leaders. We met in the South Wing—before it became the Kids Wing! And our pastors served up ice cream for everyone.

Since 2019, some of our socials have been outdoors. Last year we were in our gym. This year, we’ll enjoy being in our Chapel. We’ll have some patriotic music and spend some time praying for our nation. And of course, we’ll enjoy some delicious ice cream together again.

We hope you can join us.

If you would like to help set up or clean up, let us know!

Get to Know Jalen Ontoy

We welcome Jalen Ontoy to our staff. Jalen is doing a ministry internship this summer after serving as an associate member for several years. We welcomed him to regular membership on June 25, and on July 1 we witnessed as he and Jenna Webb made their marriage vows.

Jalen grew up in a godly Christian home and came to Christ at an early age. He felt God directing him toward Christian ministry during his teen years, and he served his local church in several areas including youth, music, and preaching. 

Jeriel, now our associate pastor, asked Jalen to consider attending Morningside during his college years. Jalen became an associate member in the fall of 2020.

In the summer of 2022, Jalen participated in a church-planting internship that opened his eyes to the need for healthy, gospel-centered churches. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies in 2023 from Bob Jones University. He is busy pursuing his Master of Divinity in Church Planting, and on July 1 he is marrying our own Jenna Webb.

Jalen and Jenna are both involved in music ministry and student ministry, and they attend our new Engage young couples class.

To help Jalen get to know our church family, we are building a list of members willing to provide dinners for him. Sign up here if you would like to help.

Keepers of the Kingdom Family Edition

Keepers of the Kingdom VBS (June 4-7) was great. We have a lot more to cover!

Wednesdays this summer, we have opportunities for the whole family to learn about the armor of God.

Teens and adults will begin together (7 PM, AUD) for singing, testimonies about witnessing opportunities, and a brief challenge from one of our pastors about the armor of God.

As the adults break into prayer groups, our teens will break out for their own programming, and the pastor will go share a similar challenge with our kids as part of Keepers of the Kingdom Wednesdays.

We call our evangelistic testimonies “Good News About the Good News.” We started sharing them on Wednesdays in the fall of 2022. We list them in our private prayer update each week. We look forward to sharing these times with our teens this summer.

Would you like to receive our weekly prayer updates? Let us know.

Last summer our pastors challenged our kids about God’s goodness during “Popsicles with the Pastors.” Our pastors are excited that to share this year’s challenges about the armor of God with the whole church family.

If you aren’t joining us for prayer meeting and other obligations don’t prevent you, consider coming this summer. There’s nothing more important than prayer—it’s actually the final piece of the armor of God (Ephesians 6:18).

Summer Growth Classes

This summer we have the opportunity to get Biblical instruction on practical topics. On Sundays @ 5 PM (5/21; 6/25; 7/16; and 8/6) kids will start in their classes and teens and above will have an opening service in the auditorium before splitting to the Growth Class of their choice.

Age 0-2 (Nursery)

K3-K4 (101)

K5-5th Grade: How Can I Find God? (Kids Wing)

Teens - Pastor Jeff Webb (Teen Room)

Biblical Worship - Pastors Ontoy & Jones (Auditorium)

Biblical Stewardship (107)

• 5/21: Personal Finance (Kimberly Young)

• 6/25: Insurance & Real Estate (Geoff & Alex Darst)

• 7/16: Estate Planning (Shane Rogers)

• 8/6: Investing (Jeff Bryson)

Living as a Church: Discipleship Training for Adult Disciplers - Pastor Stuhl (attend either 5/21 or 7/16) (106)

Living as a Church: Life Group Training for Host & Facilitators - Pastor Huffman (attend either 6/25 or 8/6) (106)

Living as a Church: Discipleship Training for Child Disciplers - Nathan Washer & Andrew Cropsey (attend either 6/25 or 8/6) (Fellowship Hall)

Graduation Sunday

for 2023 Graduates

We plan to recognize this year's graduates on April 30 (10 AM, AUD). We want you to know how proud we are of you.

Finishing an educational milestone is a great time to think about what God has done and to look forward to what He will do in the future.

Pictures for K5 & High school

For our kindergarten and high school graduates, please email name and picture to mypicture@morningside.org by Sunday April 23.

We're also celebrating our graduates that night.

testimonies & Prayer

In our April 30 evening service, we will hear testimonies from several college graduates and pray for them as they follow the Lord’s leading.

Pizza Fellowship

After the evening service, join us in the gym for a graduation party and send-off. Our Rooted college-age group will be providing a pizza dinner (suggested donation $10/person or $3/family). 

We truly are proud of you, graduates, and we look forward to recognizing you!

Easter at Morningside

April 9 is Easter Sunday. You are welcome at our Good Friday and Easter services.

Good Friday Service

This year we invite you to join us on the evening of Good Friday as part of Easter weekend. This service begins at 7:00pm and will include Communion as we reflect on our Lord’s sacrifice.

Easter Service

Our Easter service is special, but it’s simple. The choir and orchestra provide great music about the Resurrection, we praise God together in song, and our pastor preaches about how Jesus’ resurrection applies to everyday life.

Services are interpreted in ASL, and we will also hold services in Spanish (11:00) and Mandarin Chinese (10:00).

Photo Stations

We’ll have photo stations available in our lobby for Easter pictures throughout the morning.

Egg Hunt

A few minutes after our 10:00 service, kids through Grade 5 will meet for an Egg Hunt.

Coffee & Doughnuts

All guests are welcome to join us in the lobby for coffee and doughnuts right after the morning service.

Los invitados al servicio en español tendrán donas disponibles antes del servicio.

We are excited to celebrate again this year. Will you join us?

Good Friday Service

On Easter Sunday we celebrate that Jesus of Nazareth rose… from the dead.

That itself was a miracle.

But it also proved another miracle.

Ever since Jesus began His preaching, He would tell His hearers to “repent”—to turn away from their sin. He told them that God was too holy to accept their good deeds as payment for their bad deeds. But He also told His closest followers that He would lay down His life willingly.

After He rose again, Jesus made sure His followers understood. He was the Messiah, the one promised since the beginning of human history who would conquer sin—and death—and the Devil himself.

A few weeks later, overcome by what had happened, those followers launched the Christian church. Paul’s letters tell us why they were so overwhelmed. They finally realized that in His death, Jesus had done what we sinners could never do. He satisfied the wrath of God that we had earned with our sin. Jesus rose again to show that His death had paid the penalty for sin for anyone who believes in Him.

This year we invite you to join us on Good Friday as part of Easter weekend. We will celebrate Communion and reflect on our Lord’s sacrifice. Join us in our chapel at 7 PM on Friday, April 7.

Our senior adults calendar also includes a great opportunity to experience the Easter story at Bob Jones University’s Living Gallery production.

VBS Keepers of the Kingdom 2023

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL - SUMMER 2023

JUNE 4-7, 6:00-8:00 pm (Grades 1-8)

We are engaged in an epic battle for the hearts and minds of our youth. Every day, they’re bombarded with lies about who they are, who their Creator is, and where their salvation comes from. Thankfully, God has given his children armor to wear in this battle between truth and lies, light and darkness, good and evil.

This summer, troupes will learn how to be a part of God’s kingdom through faith in his Son, Jesus, and to put on the armor of God with Keepers of the Kingdom: Standing Strong in Today’s Battle for Truth. Our Royal Majesty’s kingdom is under attack, and we must prepare for battle.

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Day 1: The Two Kingdoms

We will discover there are just two kingdoms—the kingdom of light versus the kingdom of darkness. One is ruled by the good King, Creator God. The other is ruled by the enemy, Satan.

Day 2: The Belt

We must decide our side. Those who become citizens of God’s good kingdom need to wear the armor of God daily, starting with the belt of truth that helps us have an unshakable trust in God’s Word, along with helping us live as truthful people.

Day 3: The Breastplate and Shoes

The breastplate helps God’s children put on Christ’s righteousness and grow in right living. The shoes show us we can be at peace with God, which helps us stand firm in our Christian convictions and share Jesus with others.

Day 4: The Shield and Helmet/The Sword and prayer

The shield and helmet protect us from the enemy’s attacks - wrong thinking, discouragement, and deception. We will learn to discern!

The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God, which helps us train our brains to know, memorize, love and obey God’s Word. And as we battle, we must pray!

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Black History Month

February is Black History Month, “an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history” (History.com).

February has the birthdates of both the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln and the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Each week of February 2022 Morningside celebrated African-American contributions to our hymnody, including gospel hymns by Charles A. Tindley as well as traditional spirituals:

• Give Me Jesus

• Were You There?

• Precious Lord, Take My Hand

• Nothing Between

On February 20, 2022, we also held a panel discussing racial reconciliation. Black history is full of injustice, much of it suffered at the hands of professing Christians. And the injustices endured by African-Americans are certainly not all in the past. But as Ephesians 2:11-22 says, the gospel is able to unite us across racial barriers. Our panelists discussed racial reconciliation from a Christian perspective and helpful strategies for overcoming racial divisions among believers.

One of last year’s panelists, Pastor Ben Gordon, is our special speaker on the evening of Feb. 19.

Pastor Gordon is the senior pastor of Hope Baptist Church, located in one of Greenville’s historically Black neighborhoods. During this Black History Month, we pray for the ministry of Pastor Gordon and Hope Baptist. We also pray that God will help us enjoy gospel unity across racial divisions. We look forward to seeing how our unity can display the gospel.

Missions Conference 2023

Update February 5, 2023

Dr. Patrick Odle urged us to pray that God will send gospel workers into the gospel harvest.

Learn more here.

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Each year we hold a missions conference to help us fulfill our mission of loving our world.

Our theme for 2023 is Enduring Hardness as Good Soldiers (2 Tim. 2:3). Pastors Crockett and Smith will be preaching on Jan 29th and Feb 1st.

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Chinese new year fellowship

After the Jan. 29 evening service, our Chinese ministry will sponsor our first all-church fellowship of 2023. We’ll get to enjoy Chinese cuisine as our Chinese brothers and sisters continue their celebration of the Chinese lunar new year (suggested donation $3/person, $10/family).

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Guest speaker

Dr. Patrick Odle will preach in both services on Feb 5th. Dr. Odle became the president of Baptist Mid-Missions in 2020.

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Interactive exhibit

An interactive missions exhibit will emphasize the needs of unreached children in Asia. We built a similar exhibit for the 2019 missions conference.

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Special Offering

Our conference offering is for the Hope for Reno team in Nevada. The Hope for Reno team includes one of our own members, and all the families serve through ODBM. Our 2021 Missions Conference featured the Reno team, and mission trips from our teens and young adults helped the team prepare for its charter service in 2022. We’re thrilled at what the Lord has done in Reno so far, and we’re excited to continue our partnership with the team. Designate “Hope for Reno” online or in our offering boxes.

New Financial Administrator

We would like to welcome our new financial administrator, John Horn, to our staff. John has over 30 years of pastoral and financial experience. We are excited and blessed to have John joining our team. We are looking forward to how God will bless him and our church through his talents.

John served for many years as pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church (Schenectady, NY). John and Bonnie moved to the Upstate in 2022.

We said goodbye to our longtime financial administrator, Jon Jezowski, in October. Since then we have been thankful for the assistance of local finance firm Lighthouse Strategic Insights as well as volunteer assistance from our own Rick Frans.

Members will receive John’s contact information, and anyone is welcome to greet him through our contact form.

ODBM 2023 Golf Tournament

Open Door Baptist Missions Golf Tournament

Please join us for the annual Open Door Baptist Missions Golf Tournament on April 22, 2023. The annual tournament is one of the ways that ODBM can keep costs so low for its missionaries.

After July tournaments during 2020 and 2021, our 2022 tournament returned to its regular spring date. Both the 2021 and 2022 tournaments resulted in record donations for ODBM.

We will have a great day of golf at the beautiful Links O' Tryon in Campobello, SC. Register now and remember to invite your friends to play.

Hope in Trials: Looking Back

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We’re excited to look ahead to 2023, and we’re thankful for what God did in 2022.

Join us on the evening of January 15 for our 2022 annual report and our year in review video.

(UPDATE: WATCH THE YEAR IN REVIEW VIDEO)

Members have received the password for our annual report itself.

Our first annual report was January 2022.

Our 1 Peter sermon series will continue during 2023 as part of our new theme: Living as a Church. You can get the full 1 Peter series on our YouTube channel. Many clips from Hope in Trials sermons are also available on our Instagram profile.

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Theme for 2023: Living as a Church

It’s a new year, but our mission remains the same.

Our theme for 2023 is Living as a Church: How Our Unity Displays the Gospel.

The unity our church enjoys is not built on language. It’s not built on sharing a life stage, race, or social status.

Many of our Sunday school classes and groups are indeed built to help people build relationships within their specific stages of life: college age, young adults, young families, senior adults, and more. We’re thankful for our opportunities to minister in Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and American Sign Language as well as English. We pray all the time that the Lord will help us build relationships across racial barriers.

But our unity transcends language, race, and lifestage. It’s far better than our culture, age, and all of the things that so easily divide people from each other.

What we share in Christ is more important than all those things. Our sins are forgiven. Our eternal home with Christ is secure. Our church family loves us. And together we have a unique opportunity to display God’s love to our world.

Pastor Crockett will preach on this theme throughout 2023. Our life groups will give us chances to build inter-generational relationships. Our monthly Starting Point classes (11 AM, 3rd Sundays) will be a great way to think about our church’s unity as well. We’re even making plans for a summer growth class on it.

If the Lord is leading you to join our church family, take the first steps today.

New Year, Same Mission

On New Year’s Day, many of our regular activities and even services are canceled. But we have a special opportunity to hear from one of our newest missionaries.

Paul Schlehlein has served in South Africa with Open Door Baptist Missions for several years, and Morningside has supported his family since 2020. Paul will be our guest speaker in the morning service on January 1, 2023. After the service, he’ll provide a Sunday school lesson in the auditorium.

Paul blogs at betweentwocultures.com.

Many of our classes and groups will not be meeting that day. But if you can come hear Paul’s sermon and lesson, we are sure he will encourage you to love our world as our Lord does.

Our mission remains the same: Loving God, Loving Each Other, and Loving Our World.

Our 2023 theme is coming soon!

Christmas at Morningside

Haga clic aquí para obtener información sobre nuestras celebraciones españolas.

It's a huge blessing to live in a place where so many people are willing to think about the birth of Jesus every December 25th. After all, Christmas commemorates the birth of the most important person in human history. We don't take that blessing lightly, and we would love to have you celebrate Christmas with us.

We have several special Christmas events, and on Christmas Day we'll worship together at 10 AM. We look forward to seeing you.

Come and Worship (Dec. 11)

On December 11 at 10 AM, our choir and orchestra present a Christmas program entitled “Come and Worship.” The program will mix familiar Christmas carols like “Angels from the Realms of Glory” and “Joy to the World!” with new favorites like “Mary, Did You Know” and “O Come, All You Unfaithful.”

The program will encourage you to join the angels… and the shepherds… and the wise men… to “come and worship Christ, the newborn King.”

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Morningside choir and orchestra in “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” December 12, 2021.

Sing a Song of Christmas (Dec. 18)

On December 18 at 5 PM, our kids choir presents “Sing a Song of Christmas.” Afterwards we'll celebrate with a Christmas cookie fellowship.

Lily Grimm sings a solo on December 19, 2021, as our kids choir presents “Wow! It’s Christmas.”

Christmas Eve Service

On Saturday, December 24 at 6pm (note the special time!) our Spanish congregation hosts a special bilingual candlelight service in the Chapel. Join us as we reflect on the coming of our Savior with Scripture and traditional carols in both English and Spanish.

Christmas Service

On December 25, we will celebrate Christmas Day with Christmas carols and a Christmas sermon (10 AM). Child care will be available from birth through grade five.

Our Spanish congregation has several Christmas celebrations too. Check them out here.

Pie & Praise - Happy Thanksgiving!

Update: 11/22

The Sunday evening before Thanksgiving is our third annual Pie & Praise night (Nov. 20, 5 PM).

We’ll begin with our service in the auditorium. We’ll celebrate with a Thanksgiving-themed song service. (If you aren’t already humming “Thank You, Lord, for saving my soul,” consider this a great opportunity to start!)

Afterwards our Homebuilders group will sponsor a pie fellowship in the Chapel. Suggested donation $1/person, $4/family: pies and drinks are provided.

After starting in 2019 and taking a break in 2020, our 2021 service featured an update from our Pursue mission to Reno, NV. We’re still praying for what the Lord is doing in Living Hope Church!

If you’re able to come on November 20, bring a friend--we’ll have plenty of pie to share.

Happy Thanksgiving! Get our full holiday schedule here.

Reception & Dinner

On the evening of October 16, we have several special opportunities to love each other.

We’ll recognize 28 years of service from our financial administrator Jon Jezowski, who is transitioning to serve at the Greenville County Treasurer’s Office.

Jon has served at Morningside since finishing school in 1994.

We’ll hear reports from our pastors’ recent trip to a discipleship conference.

And we’ll enjoy an international dinner provided by our Spanish congregation (suggested donation $3/person, $10/family).

Our Spanish congregation has families from all over Latin America.

We hope you can join us!