Join us at Central Baptist Church for a special Christmas presentation!
Christmas is a wonderful time of year filled with family, traditions, music, and giving. But in the middle of all the excitement, it is easy to lose sight of the greatest gift ever given, Jesus Christ.
This Christmas, Central Baptist Church invites you to experience Goodwill to Men, a Christmas musical written by Ron and Shelly Hamilton, with drama by David Burke, conducted by our own Music Minister Kevin Doub.
Set in a small-town secondhand store during the Christmas season, Goodwill to Men brings together memorable characters, beautiful Christmas music, and a meaningful story about love, kindness, and the difference Christ can make in a person’s life.
Through familiar Christmas carols, original songs, and an engaging drama, this presentation reminds us that the true message of Christmas is much greater than the gifts beneath the tree.
The angels proclaimed on the night of Christ’s birth, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Luke 2:14
That message is just as important today as it was over 2,000 years ago.
Make Plans to Join Us!
Date: December 20th 2026
Time: 10:30am
Location: Central Baptist Church — Decatur, Illinois
We invite you to bring your family, invite a friend, and enjoy this special Christmas presentation with us.
We look forward to celebrating the birth of our Saviour with you!
Faith grows as we learn to depend upon God in every circumstance.
Want Stronger Faith? Start Here
Most Christians would say they want stronger faith.
We want to trust God when life changes unexpectedly. We want faith when the answer to prayer does not come quickly. We want to trust Him when we cannot see what He is doing or understand why He has allowed something into our lives.
But how does faith actually grow?
The answer may seem almost too simple:
Our faith in God grows as we learn to trust the Word of God.
The Bible repeatedly tells us, “The just shall live by faith.” Faith is not supposed to be reserved for emergencies or major decisions. God intends faith to become the normal way a Christian lives.
That means we need more than a faith that simply says, “I believe in God.” We need a faith that is alive, growing, and shaping the way we live every day.
You Cannot Separate God From What He Has Said
Think about receiving a letter from someone you know and trust.
When you read the letter, you cannot physically see the person who wrote it. Yet their words carry weight because you know who wrote them. A promise written in that letter means something because you trust the person behind the promise.
In a far greater way, God has given us His Word.
Through Scripture, God has revealed who He is. We learn of His holiness, His mercy, His wisdom, His power, and His love because He has told us about Himself.
We know His promises because He recorded them for us.
We know about creation because God told us:
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
Hebrews 11:3 tells us that “through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.”
None of us stood there and watched God create the universe. We believe it because God has spoken.
The same is true concerning salvation, Christian living, prayer, eternity, Heaven, the return of Christ, and hundreds of other truths.
We trust these things because we trust the God who said them.
So trusting God’s Word is not something separate from trusting God. It is one of the primary ways we express our trust in Him.
Strong faith begins with a growing knowledge of God’s Word.
Weak Bible Habits Produce Weak Faith
This gives us something important to consider.
Sometimes we wonder why our faith seems small. We struggle to trust God. We become easily discouraged. Every difficult circumstance shakes us.
But perhaps the problem is not that we need to somehow manufacture more faith.
Perhaps we need more of God’s Word.
You cannot expect great confidence in someone you hardly know.
The more we learn what God has said, the more we learn about the God who said it. As Scripture fills our minds, it begins giving us something solid to stand upon when our feelings, circumstances, or the opinions of others tell us something different.
That is why God’s command to Joshua was:
“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night…” Joshua 1:8
God’s Word was not supposed to have an occasional place in Joshua’s life. It was to shape his thinking, his decisions, and his actions.
The same should be true of us.
The Bible Does More Than Give Us Information
Bible reading is not merely accumulating facts.
Second Timothy 3 teaches that Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.
Sometimes the Bible teaches me what is true.
Sometimes it reproves me by showing me where I am wrong.
Sometimes it corrects me and gets me pointed in the right direction again.
Sometimes it instructs me in how I should live tomorrow.
And through that process, God matures us.
A baby Christian should not remain a baby Christian forever.
Just as physical growth changes what a person is capable of doing, spiritual growth opens the door to greater usefulness, greater understanding, and greater stability in the Christian life.
God wants us to mature.
And one of His primary tools for producing that maturity is His Word.
The First Attack Is Often Against What God Said
This battle is nothing new.
When Satan appeared in Genesis 3, one of his first attacks was directed toward God’s Word:
“Yea, hath God said…?”
He wanted Eve to question what God had spoken.
The strategy has not changed very much.
If the devil can convince us that God’s Word is unimportant, outdated, optional, or unreliable, he has weakened the very foundation upon which our faith stands.
That is one reason Paul warned Timothy that a time would come when people would “not endure sound doctrine.”
There will always be another voice telling us something different.
Culture has a voice.
Our emotions have a voice.
Our desires have a voice.
Other people have a voice.
The question is: Which voice will have the final word?
Faith says, “God has spoken, and I will trust Him.”
We cannot separate trusting God from trusting His Word.
Planted by the River
Psalm 1 gives a beautiful picture of the person whose life is rooted in God’s Word.
He is:
“like a tree planted by the rivers of water…”
That tree does not survive because it occasionally receives a splash of water. Its roots have access to a continual source.
That is the kind of Christian God wants us to become.
Rooted.
Stable.
Growing.
Fruitful.
Life will still bring storms. Questions will still come. There will be times when we do not understand what God is doing.
But the Christian whose roots are deep in Scripture has somewhere to stand.
If You Want Your Faith to Grow
Perhaps instead of simply praying, “Lord, give me more faith,” we should also ask ourselves a few questions:
How much of God’s Word am I actually taking into my life?
Am I merely reading it, or am I thinking about what it says?
When Scripture disagrees with me, am I willing to change?
When God’s promise conflicts with what I can see, which one will I believe?
Strong faith is not built in a moment.
It grows as we repeatedly open God’s Word, learn what He has said, believe Him, and then live accordingly.
If you want to know God better, get into His Word.
If you want to trust God more, learn what He has said.
And if you want a faith that can stand when life becomes difficult, begin putting down deep roots now.
Because the Christian life was never meant merely to begin by faith.
“The just shall live by faith.”
Growing faith begins with making time for God’s Word each day.
This article was inspired by the Wednesday evening Bible study taught by Pastor Dave Brown at Central Baptist Church. It reflects the central truths of his message with additional thoughts and applications.
