This is a sad and difficult week. I admire and understand the decision of our Pastor, because I know how difficult this decision was for him. But it leaves us with a tremendous loss. I wish our Pastor and Elliott well. They deserve it. God will direct their paths. We will pray for, support and encourage them. We will seek their prayers for us, as I know the extent of their love for First Baptist Church and their desire to see this church succeed.

It is in these times that church leadership and unity is critical. Your church staff and church leaders understand this and will continue to serve our God and this church as best we can.  Decisions will be made in the very near future with regard to the pastor’s position. We earnestly seek your prayers and support as we enter into this time of transition.

The first thing we want to do is to say goodbye to a wonderful and able pastor who has served this church for 25 years. During my time here at First Baptist, I have marveled at the respect and admiration for our pastor in this church and community.  He is well known and well loved. To honor his ministry for these many years, we are planning a joint recognition service for Hal and Elliott on Sunday morning, May 15th at 10:30 am.  Following that service, we will have a church-wide dinner in their honor.

As a part of that recognition service, we invite you to:

• Write a personal note or letter to Hal and Elliott before May 15th
  
• Participate in a church-wide love offering for our Pastor. You can turn this in with your church offering – just be sure to clearly mark it “Love Offering”.
  
• Share with the church office any significant stories, pictures, or memories that may be used at the recognition service or dinner.
  
• Help with the planning and preparation of this event.
  

More details will follow.

The second task will be to continue the immediate work and ministry of the church in a manner pleasing to God.  The deacons, staff and other church leadership will work to see that all immediate needs are met to the best of our ability. We ask for your patience as we make this transition and we gladly accept any help from the congregation. One thing we will not be able to do is to give you the same care and attention that Hal gave to you and your families through the years. His knowledge and heart-felt concern for you will be impossible to duplicate.

The third task will be to implement a process for the church during this transition time.  Due to the fact that this church has not had a lot of experience in this regard, we will call on our Association and State leadership to assist us in this task.  It may take a couple of months to put a plan together, but we will be diligent in this effort.

The final task will be to find God’s person to lead First Baptist Church for the future.  This is an extremely important decision for our church.  We need to get this right, so we will take the time to deliberate and seek out God’s will.  Your patience and prayers during this time will be critical to the success of this decision.

We are all in this together.  With your help, this transition time will make FBC stronger and more able to meet the needs of the future.  Hal and Elliott West have served us faithfully for many years.  We will miss them deeply.  They will not be forgotten, and the impact of their ministry here at FBC will continue for many years to come.

With the new schedule in place on Sunday mornings, we have more positions that we need to fill in our nursery & preschool areas. The 9:45 AM hour is almost set, with permanent workers and a few rotating volunteers. We need to focus on providing childcare for the 8:30 and 11 AM hours. We are only providing childcare for children four years of age and younger during our worship services at this time. For the first hour at 8:30, two pairs of rotating workers for each Sunday will be adequate. For the 11:00 worship service, we need at least four rotating workers so we can split the preschool groups for better care.

Can you help? Please call the church office, or see Bonnie Steedly. We could also use some other volunteers to supervise the nursery area during these times so that one person is not required to be there for the full three hours.

In addition to the need for volunteers, we are also putting into place better safeguards for our precious children. We are working on a more efficient check-in system so we can improve the communication from parents to the workers. We are developing a system to better identify who is a worker so new parents visiting our church will know who is authorized to take care of their children and we want to limit unauthorized people from being in our nursery at any time. We already have a screening process in place for all workers and will be continuing that procedure. 

If we are serious about wanting families with children to attend our church, we have to get the childcare right.  We have some precious kids – who need you! 

Contact Doug if you are interested in helping. 

We have reached the 68% mark and one Sunday to go!  I hope that as you celebrate Thanksgiving this week you will remember the goodness of our Lord ... "We are So Blessed!".   You no doubt have heard the phrase "God is Good all the Time."  His goodness is worth celebrating - so let's do it!

In past posts, I have written about our missions giving and our church ministries.  Today I would like to share some other hidden gems in our church that are supported by our tithes and offerings to the church.  

• Bereavement:  We have a wonderful team of people (mostly ladies) who provide a lunch or dinner for families who have lost a loved one.  This usually happens after the funeral service. This is a great ministry to our families at a very tender time in their lives.  Great ministry ladies!
  
• Upward Sports: This ministry is led by Kathy Jones who holds this part-time position.  She leads a team of very committed volunteers who coach, referee and make our soccer and basketball seasons happen.  This is a very effective ministry to our children, community and church and your support allows this to happen.
  
• Church Decorations:  Every church has people who decorate the sanctuary and other areas for special occasions. However, I don't think I have every seen such a dedicated and talented group of ladies that decorate our church.  You will see the fruit of their labors very soon with our Christmas decorations.  They also decorate for various banquets and special events at our church in addition to special flower arrangements for our worship services.  Simply beautiful!
  
• St. Johns Church: We host a worship service and Bible Study time at the St. John's Church in Pinopolis each Sunday morning.  Monty Polk delivers the sermon there each Sunday and Wayne Creech teaches the Sunday School lesson.  This is another ministry supported by our church budget.
  

These and other ministries is what makes FBC what it is.  Thanks again for your support!

Doug

Update for Week 2 of our Thanksgiving Offering!

Last Sunday's Offering totaled $19,044 which brings our total to $43,645!  This is almost 44% of our goal.  Two Sundays left!

This week, I would like to highlight the church ministries that we support with our general budget.  These figures are from the proposed 2011 budget.

        Sunday School (mostly literature)               $19,000
        Music Ministry (Worship, camps, etc)         $18,400
        Youth Ministry (program, camps, etc)          $14,000
        Children's Ministry (program, camps, VBS)   $  9,700
        Discipleship Training                                   $  2,800
        MOPS (new ministry)                                  $  1,000
        Men's & Women's Ministry                           $  2,500
        Other (Preschool, Singles, Seniors, etc)        $  6,475

This totals almost $74,000 in direct ministry to our church families.  Again, all of this support comes from our tithes and offerings.  Your support us crucial to the ministry of First Baptist Church!

Doug

Week one of our Thanksgiving Offering totaled $24,601 of tithes and offerings!  Our goal for the month is $100,000.  This represents about 25% of the goal.  Great Start - thanks for your support!

We have special envelopes for this offering, but understand that you do not have to use these envelopes.  The regular offering envelopes mailed each quarter to our people can also be used.  As in the past, this Thanksgiving offering is used as part of our ongoing church ministries.

Today, I would like to highlight our Missions Giving.  This is the part of our budget and World Mission Offering that we use to fulfill the Great Commission:  "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20).

As a part of our General Budget, we allocate 12% of all our tithes to the Cooperative Program and to the Screven Baptist Association.  This amounts to $116,400 yearly.  We also have a local Benevolence Ministry led by our deacons.  This yearly amount is $15,000 and is projected to rise to $18,000 next year.  This helps local people with food and other assistance.  In our Local Missions Budget of $10,000 yearly, we fund the services at St. John's church in Pinopolis, Habitat for Humanity, Journey Church (a new church start in Summerville) and fund mission projects for our members.  In addition to this, we also contribute to the Gideons Ministry the sum of $8,000 annually. In addition to the budget amounts, many in our congregation give additional funds for these ministries.  And then there is our World Mission Offering!  More on that next time!

I am proud of what First Baptist Church does to promote the gospel to the world.  All of this is made possible by your financial support of First Baptist Church. 

Each November, we collect a Thanksgiving Offering. This offering allows us, as givers, to reflect on God’s blessing and to respond to Him in an important way. This offering has helped with church in recent years to pay off our debt, make much needed improvements to our facilities and expand our ministry reach in the community. Even through the economic slump, we have managed to expand our ministries because of this offering. 

The needs this year are no different. As I shared last month, we are running about 6% behind in our giving to date. This will impact all of our ministries. The Stewardship Committee is putting the final touches to our budget for next year and we will see another decline in our proposed budget. Even with this decline, we anticipate increasing our benevolence ministry and fully funding our children and student ministry. So, the Thanksgiving offering this year will be most crucial in determining the short-term financial future for our church.

This year, instead of conducting this offering for one Sunday, we are asking our people to accept a goal of $100,000 general offering for the whole month of November. A typical monthly offering averages about $70,000. In November of last year, we collected $94,000. We will report our weekly offerings each Sunday in November and ask that you pray about your giving to the church during this month.  This offering will be used to fund our existing budget ministries and we will look for additional opportunities that God presents to us to meet the needs of our people and those in the community. You will be getting a letter in the mail next week about this offering. As always, we thank you for your support.

Doug

As I glance at my bookshelf, I see some interesting titles. These are the books that have dominated my reading over the last decade:“The Coming Church Revolution” (George), “How to Change Your Church” (Nelson), “Leading Turnaround Churches” (Wood), “The American Church in Crisis” (Olson), “Comeback Churches” (Stetzer) and “Transformational Church” (Stetzer & Rainer). All of these books have one idea in common: The church is not what it used to be. This is the reality. You can try to ignore it, but the reality does not change. We live in a different world! Change is happening fast, and the church is dealing with a different reality.  So it is here at First Baptist. Over the next months, you will be hearing about change. Change is tough. But change brings reality to our purpose and vision is necessary for the future of this church … for any church. Change can be exciting. If the change brings us closer to the vision that God has for us, then why would we not embrace that? Please pray! Remember that we are stronger together than we are apart! There is more that unites us than divides us. God has a plan for us, we just have to follow it.

Doug