A Great Day at First Baptist Church!

What a great day we had Sunday... packed house, great singing, and the message wasn't too long :)

But at the end of the service we were able to make an announcement that I want to share here in case you missed it.

About 10 1/2 months ago, we asked our church to take a step of faith and give sacrificially above their regular giving toward the rebuilding and renovating of our preschool ministry facilities.

We initially estimated that the church could stretch and give $95,000 extra in the first year and another $95,000 extra in the second year. But we decided to just see what would happen if we refused to borrow any money and challenged the church to give it all in one year... a total of $190,000.

Well when the pledges came in last March we were overwhelmed with the total: $181,000. And while that was still short of the funds needed for the project, we were excited. Well, as of last week, the offerings toward the pledge totaled: $191,733.40!

The original goal of $190,000 was reached and surpassed one and a half months early!

As the project bids have come in, however, the actual cost of the project has risen to $220,000. But in addition to the church meeting the original goal, a very generous family has given an extra $30,000 which takes us even beyond the new cost total for the project.

What does this mean? We can begin now to build what we need and incur no debt!

Thank you for your sacrificial giving. Thank you for your faithfulness. And thank the Lord for his bountiful provisions!

I look forward to seeing all of the young families we are able to reach through this new facility you have given toward.

Pastor Noel

New Ministry Staff

Dear FBC Heath Family,

As I shared with you back in January, we are making a concerted effort to increase our outreach to young families by improving and expanding our preschool, children, and youth ministries.

The first step in that was to begin the process of renovating our preschool facilities. The cost of that project will be around $190,000, and it is our commitment to pay cash for this expense. So this past March we began to collect the needed funds. As of today, four months later, through your generosity and sacrifice, you have given $140,722.45! Construction will begin as soon as we have the needed funds in that account.

This Sunday we will take another step in this effort to reach more young families. We will ask the church to create two new ministry staff positions. Both of them will be under the umbrella title of “Family Ministry Directors”. We have asked Phil and Christine Lintz to serve in these positions once they are approved.

Phil will be working along side Pastor Troy in the youth ministry. We will eventually see that ministry split into a junior high and a senior high ministry. It is our desire to see our youth ministry grow to reach more and more young people. One of the steps we believe is needed for this is to free up Troy’s time to focus on the Senior High youth and then to have Phil focus on reaching and discipling the younger ones.

It is often difficult to preach a message to teens when you have 12-year-olds and 18-year-olds in the same group. Many of the issues an eighteen year old in our culture will face are different from those the twelve year old encounters.

Troy and I have spent much time talking and praying about this, and we believe this will be a valuable step toward increasing the effectiveness of our youth ministry.

Christine will work with Pastor Wally in the preschool and children’s ministry. With the new preschool facility, our new security procedures, and our expanding children’s ministries, we simply need more hands on deck. Christine has become a great assistant to Pastor Wally and an effective leader alongside many others in our children’s ministry in the last year. Pastor Wally and I are looking forward to seeing how an expanded role for Christine will help us reach more families.

In order to facilitate these new positions and also to increase Pastor Troy’s salary to better reflect his responsibilities, we will need to make some financial adjustments. I believe at this time, with the financial climate of our nation and state, we do not need to increase our budget requirements. So I have asked Scott, our administrator, to identify sufficient funds that we can move from one area of the budget to another to take care of this need. He has put together a recommendation that will accommodate the change without negatively impacting any of our ministries. After the church approves this ministry step, we will ask the finance team to officially make those changes.

If you have any questions, please call or email me or Pastor Wally at the church. Or you can contact any of our church council members. We will try to answer all your questions during the week. Sunday we will vote without discussion in our morning worship service.

I am thankful for how the Lord has provided our church with such excellent leaders… both those I get to work with on staff and those godly, faithful laypeople in our church.

In Christ,

Pastor Noel

Upcoming Week

It is going to be a busy week but I had a refreshing time with the Lord this morning so I am ready...

This morning is the Heartbeats Golf Tournament. That is an annual event where we try to raise a little money for Heartbeats, a great organization that helps women in crisis situations, and have a little fun as well. Looks like it is going to rain all morning, so I don't know what that is going to do to the schedule.

I will be preaching a funeral at 1:00 p.m. today. The funeral is for someone I never met. These kinds of funerals can be difficult. Pray that I will have wisdom.

A couple of meetings this afternoon, and I hope to get a little bit of a jump on message prep this week since we are starting a new PM series.

Here is what I'm praying for this week...

... Some decisions about construction plans for preschool facility...
... Connect Ministry: The new semester begins Sunday...
... PM Series. I'll blog more on this tomorrow.
... Youth Ministry: Troy and I will be working together this week...
... New Member Class on Wednesday night...

Pastor Noel

One Good Year

I'm praying especially for Scott and Heather Parry this morning. They are flying to Dallas today to spend a week at a Fellowship One conference. It should be a beneficial conference. Fellowship One is the software we use to manage church information, track prospects and prospect assignments, facilitate Connect ministry, and some online registrations. It is also the software that will manage our preschool security check-in when the new preschool facility is open.

But the reason I'm praying for Scott and Heather this morning is not just the trip to Dallas. This Sunday will mark Scott's one ear anniversary of serving as our church administrator. Most of scott's work takes place behind the scenes, but his contribution is invaluable to what we do as a church. Two of our recent successes, the amazing results of the Securing Future Disciples financial campaign and this past Sunday's Mother's Day outreach would not have happened without Scott's help.

So join me in praying for this family. Thank the Lord that both of them and their family are such a blessing to our church.

Pastor Noel

Babies...

I just looked over an email the church office sent me last night listing thirteen families who have RSVP'd for baby dedication tomorrow. On top of that I know we already have another half dozen we plan to have dedications for this Summer. On top of that I know of at least three pregnant ladies in the church now.

So, what is my point?

I am so thankful to the Lord and to our church for the pending construction of the new preschool ministry suite. You have been so faithful to give to this. I don't recall off the top of my head what the latest total is, but it will be in the bulletin tomorrow. I do know a few thousand dollars more came in this week and that we are well over $100,000 collected for this project in the last couple of months.

Perfect timing... huh?

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I've been praying for the service tomorrow morning. I hope you will join me in this. We are looking for a big crowd and a great opportunity to make an impact in our community.

Pastor Noel

Securing Future Disciples Update II

Update... More information has come in since yesterday...

Here are the latest Securing Future Disciples numbers: (This is going to be reason to cheer!)

• $181,094 -- Total of One Year Pledges & Initial Offering
• $ 14,000 -- Total Savings from Not Borrowing the Needed Funds
• $195,094 -- Total Available (Assuming 100% of Pledges are Given)

When the savings are included this puts us at 102.7% of our high goal! Even better news is this... After only four weeks, we have collected $95,406.13! That is 52.7% of our new one year pledge total.

We are still praying for a few more commitments to be made and of course for the faithfulness of those who have made commitments, but it is apparent that the Lord has certainly blessed us in this endeavor!

Take a few minutes and thank the Lord in prayer for his gracious provision.

Pastor Noel

Securing Future Disciples Update

What a great time we had in worship yesterday! A good crowd in the 8:00 service and a packed crowd in the 10:45 service... One profession of faith in the early service... Choir did a great job... We got to meet so many new people...

I love Easter Sunday!

On another subject... Here are the latest Securing Future Disciples numbers: (This is going to be reason to cheer!)

• $181,094 -- Total of One Year Pledges & Initial Offering
• $ 14,000 -- Total Savings from Not Borrowing the Needed Funds
• $195,094 -- Total Available (Assuming 100% of Pledges are Given)

When the savings are included this puts us at 102.7% of our high goal! Even better news is this... After only four weeks, we have collected $93,006.13! That is 51.4% of our new one year pledge total.

We are still praying for a few more commitments to be made and of course for the faithfulness of those who have made commitments, but it is apparent that the Lord has certainly blessed us in this endeavor!

Take a few minutes and thank the Lord in prayer for his gracious provision.

Pastor Noel

Securing Future Disciples

So the question everyone has been asking me today... "How did we do in our Securing Future Disciples campaign?"

In case you did not know, yesterday was commitment day for our campaign to rebuild our preschool ministry facilities. Our church families streamed forward and placed their commitments and their offerings on the altar. It was the culmination of many weeks of hard work by dozens of people in our church. It was the culmination of much fasting and praying and seeking the Lord.

So how did we do?

Well... You don't really think I would break an announcement like that on my blog do you?

No. We're still working. A few more commitment cards came in today. That will likely continue this week as people who were out of town yesterday are able to make it by the church office. I'm sure we will receive a few more on Sunday from others who weren't in our service yesterday.

We are working on a tally....

The plan right now is to share the totals on Sunday, March 28 in our 10:45 service.

Can I at least give a hint?

:) -- Just don't miss the 3/28 service!

(and get those cards in if you were out of town... I'm anxious to see the final numbers...)

Pastor Noel