LESSON THEME FOR March - HOPE   Wow!  What a Saturday!  What a crowd!  Our annual South Carolina Bible Bowl was a terrific success with more than 600 in attendance from 21 congregations throughout the state.  A special thank you goes out to our Bible Bowl teams who studied so very hard over the past three months in preparation for some very difficult questions from Esther and Amos.  We are so very proud of you for representing St. Andrews Road in such an outstanding way.  Thank you also to our team of workers who dedicated themselves to serving others from beginning to end.  I am so very thankful and humbled to be a part of such a wonderful congregation.   Congratulations to this year’s winners:                            Pre-teen Division              Essex Village Church of Christ                            Teen Division                     Boiling Springs Church of Christ                            Adult Division                    Essex Village Church of Christ   Next weekend will be a busy one for us here at St. Andrews Road.  Several of our men will be attending the Carolina Men’s Fellowship singing at Rock Hill on  Friday night, March 7th.  Those attending the singing on Friday night will then meet up with the rest of our Christian brothers at Gold Hill Road on Saturday, March 8th, for the Carolina Men’s Fellowship gathering.  Last year there were 577 men in attendance for fellowship and the preaching of God’s word.  We still have plenty of room if any of our men would like to make the trip.   The very next day, Sunday, March 9th, Brother Richard McWilliams from the Greer church of Christ will be with us for our Gospel Meeting.  This gospel meeting will continue through Wednesday night.  Check out the dates, times, and topics on the front of your newsletter.  Pick up a gospel  meeting announcement from the table in the lobby: and invite and remind your family, friends, and neighbors to be with you for every meeting.  Please be in prayer for these  events and make plans to participate if you can.   On Sunday morning from the pulpit, we will focus on our upcoming Gospel Meeting.  I’ve  entitled the sermon: “Keys to a Successful Meeting.”  We will look at our PURPOSE, our PREPARATION, the PROSPECTS, our PRESENCE, our PARTICIPATION, and our PRAYER as the keys that will open the door of opportunity to personal and collective Christian growth.   On Sunday evening we will begin a series of lesson on our theme for the month of March: "The Reasons for Our Hope – Introduction.”  We will then focus on five lessons from 1 Peter, chapter 1 –  God’s word is infallible, inexhaustible, imperishable, indestructible, and indispensable. I hope you will be encouraged and challenged by these lessons from the Book of books, the Bible.  Our attendance this past Sunday morning was 236.  Our Sunday evening and Wednesday evening attendances are on the rise.  We are above budget. God is certainly blessing us in every- day here in beautiful Columbia, South Carolina.  May we continue to show and share the love of Jesus Christ at home, at school, at work, and into and throughout our communities.  It is indeed a privilege to be a Christian.   “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God!  Therefore the world does not know us, because it does not know Him.  Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been  revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is”  (1 John 3:1-2).