All to Him I Owe

During the week of March 20-25th Steve Pettit and his evangelistic team joined us for a week of meetings. Through the week we enjoyed beautiful sacred music, a number of gospel messages, and heart-oriented topical preaching. It required a lot of effort on our part as a church to host this week. It was also a long week that kept many families out night after night and resulted in some weary church members on the Sunday after. With all of these things in mind I have given thought today to the value of a week of meetings and why we would do it again. Here they are: 

1.  There is value in having gospel oriented services for our church to bring visitors to.

2. There is value in the “saturation” of the Word of God in our lives. We get regular preaching on Sunday’s and Wednesday’s but a full week of preaching is beneficial.

3. There is value in “topical” preaching about the basics of our Christian lives. We cannot live on a steady diet of topical preaching, but a week of messages that are directed at certain areas of our lives is valuable.

4. There is value in having a different voice (the evangelist) saying the same thing the pastor is saying regularly. It reinforces the truth being regularly heard, and some listen more carefully when they hear a different voice.

5. There is value in a church hearing well prepared, God-honoring music.

6. There is value in a week of concentrated effort letting our community know that our church exists.

7. There is value in our children and teens seeing a group of college age young people dedicating their lives to serving the Lord.

8. There is value in the encouragement that an evangelist gives to a pastor.

9. There is value in a church being encouraged to think “decisionally.”

10. There is value in a church working hard together to serve a team of evangelist that are serving us.

Alot of work went into last week. I’m so proud of our church and the way you attended, served, and responded to the preaching of God’s Word. The testimony service on Sunday gave further evidence to the power and value of a week of meetings.

I’m already looking forward to the next time we have a team through!

For Him,

Pastor Ron

 Here at FBC there are seven principles that we use to determine what goes on our church calendar.

1. Giving people a telescopic view of events (a yearly calendar) helps them with the microscopic decisions during the week.

2. We must plan events with family units in mind – not just individuals.

3. Tradition is a form of communication. (the easiest things to communicate are the events we have done before)

4. Simple titles for events require less clarification in communication.

5. Every activity must support the mission statement of the church.

6. Blank spaces on the calendar do not mean the congregation isn’t doing anything.

7. Special activities have the potential to distract from the regular activities.

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4 Words that should identify our calendar: RELAXED, TRADITIONAL, D0-ABLE, PURPOSEFUL

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Before a event can go on the calendar we must know the answer to the following questions:

1. When is it happening?

2. Who is responsible for this event?

3. What is happening at this event?

4. How will we organize and do this event?

5. Why are we doing this?

To our FBC family…rest assured that we are not randomly throwing things on the calendar. There is a method to the madness.

All to Him I owe,

P.Ron

Sunday Night I shared the following list of ministries that do not require a title, or position. They are ministries that anyone can do but are often overlooked. Here they are:

1. The Ministry of Attendance – The greatest way to thank a teacher who has prepared a lesson is to be in attendance to hear that lesson. This is more than just being present, it is being an attentive listener who is engaged to the message being taught.

2. The Ministry of Early Arrival – This simply means coming ahead of time for the purpose of looking for people to visit with or physical needs to attend to.

3. The Ministry of Interception – this is intercepting the possible physical or spiritual distraction a pastor may recieve on a Sunday that can easily distract him.

4. The Ministry of Greeting

5. The Ministry of Children – There are two primary things a pastor can’t compete with in preaching – cute kids, and crying kids! Anyone who is working in the nursery is helping eliminate a distraction to the Word of God. When a mom places her child in the nursery and is comfortable that the baby is safe, cared for and loved, then she is able to rest comfortably in the service.

6. Amber Alert Ministry – this is the ministry of looking for people that are missing and giving them a call or a note the next week to find them.

7. The Ministry of Encouragement – every church has critics. Critique is always possible because everything we do in church could always be done better. What about the ministry of encouragement? Notice the things that are good, and going well!

8. Life-line ministry – this is the ministry a person has who notices people who are starting to drift away. They catch them and attempt to bring them back.

9. The Ministry of Friendship – As a church we are family, but a church becomes stronger when family members decide to be friends.

10. The Ministry of Generosity – It is hard to get people to sign up for something. It is even harder to get them to do what they signed up for. When a person does what they signed up for they often do the bare minimum. Every church would benefit from someone who goes beyond the minimum to do something above and beyond. That is to be generous.

 “They are qualified servants, recognized by the congregation as men who will address the ever changing needs within a church in an effort to facilitate unity and protect priorities.”

So what is our church looking for in Deacon nominations?

1.) Men who meet the qualifications in I Timothy 3:8-13.

 2.) Men who demonstrate a love for God that is demonstrated in their love for the  good of His church.

 3.) Men who have a God-given discernment for the needs of our church and an ability to provide Biblical solutions to those needs.

 4.) Men who are currently demonstrating a servant-minded spirit within our church  (They serve regardless of a position or title).

 5.) Men whom you can trust to do God’s will rather than their own.

Exciting days in our church!!

P.Ron

Church Government

 Church polity is the term used to describe the method with which a church is governed. A quick survey of churches reveals multiple forms and methods of church polity being used. Some of those methods have proven to be successful while others have caused great harm. Surprisingly the Bible is relatively quiet on the exact details of polity. However we must not confuse the silence of details with an absence of principles that can help us establish a proper polity.

 General Principles of Polity

 1.) The New Testament church operated with a “plurality of leadership.” The responsibilities of the church did not fall to just one individual. The church grows both spiritually and numerically when it is producing new leaders and giving new leaders responsibility. (Acts 6, 20; II Timothy 2:2)

 2.) The New Testament does support the concept of a “pastor-lead leadership team.” (Acts 20:28; Hebrews 13:7, 17)

3.) The New Testament does support the concept of a “congregationally-approved leadership team.” (Acts 6:3)

4.) The New Testament emphasizes the character of individuals more than their abilities. (I Timothy 3; Titus  2)

5.) The job description of leaders within the church differs from church to church based upon the church’s needs and the leader’s gifts and talents.

 As I close this post I want to highlight this last principle. Every deacon elected in our church will come to the table of leadership with a different set of gifts and abilities. He will probably come with a very unique burden for areas within our church that he has a passion for. With these things in mind, I believe we will find the details of what are deacons do changing from person to person every time our selection of men changes.

Though they will have a general description of what they do, specifically they will have individual areas that they alone are doing.

These are exciting days.

P.Ron

God has graciously given Faith Baptist Church a wonderful group of teens. More importantly God has given our church a wonderful group of parents who are raising teens. Last night the parents of our teens shared their burdens, and prayer requests for their teens in a meeting with Pastor Kaighen and myself.

It was my privilege to hear these requests and to then share a simple philosophical thought about our youth group. Here is what I shared.

Our youth group is part of our whole church. It is not a small church within our church. God has equipped each of His believers with gifts and abilities that He desires to see used in our church. Some of those gifts and talents are evident now in the lives of the teens and the challenge we face is the challenge of getting them plugged in that they may use those gifts. We can look at our youth group as a “fold” within the great flock of the church. God has graciously called Pastor Kaighen to assist in shepherding this “fold” and to help these teens grow, and use their gifts and abilities within our local church.

When we think of the fold think of the following things in the form of an acrostic:

F – Focused on Future Transitions. We are not teaching or doing activities that merely focus on the here and now, but also on where they are going. Therefore we are training and teaching with their future decisions in mind.

O – Optional. Youth group is one of the tools that come with the toolbox of the local church. I hope that each family with teens would consider the youth group a valuable tool that assist them. We do not gauge a persons faithfulness or level of spirituality by how faithful they are to youth activities. I do hope they will be used, but understand the busy lives of families and want the youth group to simply be an optional tool that many will choose to use.

L – Lead by example and word. The “fold” of the youth group is not merely a platform where teens hear teaching. It is also a platform where they see Godly examples to follow. My hope is to see our youth group facilitate ways in which are teens get to interact and watch Godly adults live joyful Christian lives.

D – Dependent on the whole Church. The youth group is currently led by Pastor Kaighen but the great value of the youth group is when an entire church sees the benefit of the youth group and gets excited about supporting what is happening there. Some have said it takes a village to raise a child, but I say it takes a whole church to properly support a youth group.

Praising the Lord for our teens, their parents, and our youth pastor!