Celebration Baptist Church Tallahassee

Refiner’s Fire by Aaron Sheffield, Student Pastor Have you ever wondered why God allows us to go through hardship in order to grow us deeper in Christ? Soon after getting engaged, my future wife and I lived almost three hundred miles apart for almost two years. As this was before the time of text messaging and social media we had to connect using long-distance calling cards over the phone. The rel...

Trials Turned to Gold by Aaron Sheffield, Student Pastor Have you ever gone through a hard time that seemed to have no good reason? When I was twenty-seven years old, I underwent chemotherapy for cancer. It was not a fun time in my life, but my twenty treatments passed quickly and soon I was cancer-free. Shortly thereafter, I found myself trying to justify why God had allowed me to go through all...

A Tale of Two Churches by Doug Bedgood, Pastor of Christian Living A tale of two churches: The one is in rural Kentucky, the other is in rural Ethiopia. In Kentucky, I find myself alone, sitting on the cold, hard railroad tracks under a starlit sky, crying out to God in frustration. Ironically, what drove me to this was being awakened by the smell of sweaty men and the cavalcade of snoring that re...

Spiritual Fruit by Doug Bedgood, Pastor of Christian Living Paul Johnson was an intimidating figure, He had red hair, large build and a way of smiling one minute and then the next venting his anger to exert his control. Paul, also, was the Chairman of the Board of Deacons at the first church I served at after seminary. Being “called on the carpet” at a Deacons’ meeting to reveal who I was talking...

Upside Down by Doug Bedgood, Pastor of Christian Living Though he was young and fresh out of seminary, Lawton looked the part as the new leader of the burgeoning youth group. Lawton did a lot for me in those formative years as a teenager. It was what he did not do for me, however, that made the greatest impact. As any good Youth Pastor would do, he engaged us in a busy Youth program with all the b...