Thursday, October 29, 2009

Battles, Blessings & Budgets...

Church Family,

It is that time of year heading into November we will meet to adopt a budget for 2010. Your ministerial & support staff, finance committee, and church counsel have a system in place for the stewardship of God’s resources here at Calvary. We have done a thorough job of preparing our budget for 2010. This is a detailed and lengthy process of review and revision that began back in June of 2009 to be ready in time for our November Church in Conference. The product of these hours of labor is included in this edition of “The Way” newsletter. You may be like me and when you see the bottom line, your heart begins to race, palms may begin to sweat, and some panic begins to settle in on your frugal soul. Your first thought after you catch your breath might be something like: “What in the world are they thinking? We’re not meeting our budget now!” If you don’t have that thought, check your pulse or brain to make sure you are still alive, if those check out, then ask the Lord why you are not more concerned about His church. See that’s the thought I had in all honesty and I was involved in the process! Once my heart rate goes back to “normal” (whatever that means) and I got over my little wave of panic that I’m the one who has to stand before the church to ask for approval of this budget, the Lord was quick to remind me of three things…battles, blessings & budgets.

First of all, the Lord wants you and me to remember the battle we’re called to wage each day personally and corporately. It is a cosmic battle against Satan and the forces Hell to win souls and to make disciples of them for the Lord Jesus. That is our mandate, it is our mission and commission directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus gave everything He had to secure the final victory over Satan and his crowd, and we have been given the awesome privilege and responsibility to be about the Master’s business to go and make disciples. When we remember the reason we’re doing what we do, the battle if you will, we have a cause like young shepherd David who went out and slew the giant Goliath. As we think about the stewardship of God’s money in 2010, we must remember the cause, the battle for souls and disciples.

Secondly, we must remember the blessings. You see God’s financial program of the tithe and offering makes no sense whatsoever from a rational point of view. But God has ordained a system that the first 10% of our income, the tithe, is commanded to be brought to God’s storehouse, the church on the Lord’s Day. This tithe (10%) is non-negotiable and was the minimum requirement in the Old Testament. God’s people also regularly gave “offerings” on top of their tithe because of gratitude to God for His blessings. New Testament giving is “grace giving” routinely over and above the tithe out of gratitude for the Savior. What a believer is saying when they give the tithe and the offering is they trust God with their finances and they are dependent upon Him to supply. The good news is God has promised to bless His children when we obey in this spiritual discipline. In Malachi 3:10, God promises “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this," Says the LORD of hosts, "If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.” I’ve learned in my lifetime, God is faithful to His promises and I cannot out give God. So remember not only the battle, but remember the blessings of God’s promises and provision for His church and your family’s support of God’s work.

Finally, we must remember the reality is that a budget is nothing more than a goal, a target that we’ll aim at in 2010. It in no way means that we’re actually going to spend all of that as we never spend more than we receive and just because we have resources doesn’t mean we spend it. For example, if we plan to have to replace a copy machine that we use to send you this newsletter, but the thing just keeps working,  we don’t spend that money. This is evidence of the next verse in Malachi 3:11 “I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes…” In other words God is saying if we’re obedient with our tithe, He’s promised to stretch our resources further! The other thing to remember about a budget for church is that it is our vision of what we’d like to be able do to further God’s kingdom. If the money is God’s and it is, then what we’re saying with our budget planning is “Lord, this is what we’d like to do for the kingdom this next year, will you provide this for us?” It is a faith budget for sure, but through our many different processes to arrive at this budget, we believe we’re being realistic with it.

I pray these thoughts on battles, blessings and budgets will be helpful, from my little corner of the world to yours…

Ralph Green

Senior Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church

www.calvarybelair.com

Posted via email from Pastor Ralph

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Everybody doing what they can do...

Somewhere along the line, you all may have heard me say “All it takes to grow a great church is everybody doing what they can do.” Am I just making this up? Is there any Biblical evidence for this saying? You bet. You see I’ve been reading through the Scriptures and my goal is to go from Genesis to Revelation in a year. I was reading through Matthew and I see Jesus calling His disciples, four fishermen named Andy, Pete, Jimmy and Johnny; later on, He calls a hated tax collector named Matt, and then Phil, Bart, Tom, Little Jim, Tad, Simon, and a traitor named Judas. They were a hodge-podge group of guys from different backgrounds and life experiences but all called by Jesus to follow Him. Each had different skills and talents, faults and flaws. God has given us the benefit of seeing their lives, warts and all in the New Testament. Pete was always going off half-cocked, his motto: “Ready, fire, aim.” Jimmy and Johnny – Jesus nicknamed them “the sons of thunder” – I take that to mean they were a bit hot-headed and had been their share of fights. Yet Jesus did something amazing in each of their lives and gave them the responsibility of telling the world about Him and what He did for us on that old rugged cross. Here over 2000 years later, we’re still tasked with that same responsibility. Truly the disciples were successful because of the power of God the Holy Spirit that rested upon them – each of them different, each unique, and each “did what they could do” for the kingdom.

When I look at our family here at Calvary, I see a lot people “doing what they can do.” Working in the kitchen, teaching a Bible Study class, playing an instrument or singing, working in preschool, children or youth ministry on Sunday morning or Wednesday evening. I am so proud of you all for allowing the Savior to take you and use you to further His kingdom. Your love for Jesus and service of Him inspires and encourages me.  But I also see a lot of people sitting on the sidelines, not engaged, not committed and certainly not serving in some capacity. Fact is, we need helping reaching this community with the Gospel.

As I write this note, today we buried Laverne Hoffman, one of our long time members who joined Calvary in 1953 with her husband Al. I can tell you as I thought and prayed preparing for her funeral, looking at her membership file and her ministry here, I was broken hearted. I thought “Lord, we’re losing a generation of church members like Laverne. Who’s going to take up her place on the wall? Why don’t people commit to joining Your church now and serve like the Hoffman’s?”  Last year and this year, we’ve buried about 10-12 faithful saints of God who finished their race, key people who were involved and faithful as members of Calvary. Many of these folks are of the “World War II” generation. They knew the meaning of commitment, sacrifice and service. Having a “whatever it takes attitude” to win a war.  I can tell you from my discussions with many of these folks they are burdened for our future as a church. They wonder who will pick up the torch and continue the war for the souls of men, women, boys and girls.

The good news folks is that Jesus, in that same Gospel of Matthew promised us and His disciples in 16:18 “I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” The fact Jesus took those ordinary men to change the world excites me even though one generation is rapidly passing the baton to the next because God is always faithful. To our older folks, let me encourage you not to lose heart, keep running, keep ministering and working, knowing a generation of people are watching you carefully. Find one of those younger men or women to mentor and teach them how to be servants, people who will sacrifice and fight the good fight of faith to win souls. To our younger folks, let me encourage you to learn from those going before you, go up to one of those saints you see ministering in an area that interests you and ask to work with them, glean from the wisdom God’s given them in serving. The disciples learned from Jesus by hanging out with Him. He invested in them and they invested in being teachable, being mentored by the Master. I had a man ask me if I would mentor him the other day. I’m so excited to be able to invest in this man something for the kingdom’s sake. While I can’t mentor everyone, I can work with him for a while and we’ll see where it leads. There is much to learn and work on together as we are in a relay and the baton is being passed forward to the next generation of warriors for the Lord Jesus Christ, our Commander and Chief. “All it takes to grow a great church is everybody doing what they can do.” What are you doing for Jesus? Something to think about, from my little corner to yours….

Ralph Green

Senior Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church

www.calvarybelair.com

Posted via email from Pastor Ralph

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Taking advantage of opportunities...

Calvary Family,

As I write this, my heart is full of gratitude and thanksgiving to the Lord for you as we asked you to help us take advantage of an opportunity for outreach with the Bel Air Festival of the Arts. We as a staff had to make a tough decision as to where we were going to devote our energies by choosing not to do the farm fair and focusing on a major event that would bring nearly 20,000 people into our back yard. By being flexible and working together, opening our parking lot for people going to the festival, we were able to give out about 445 gift bags, each with a flier about Calvary and our ministries, a gift, a gospel tract and a gospel presentation on CD. No matter what responsibility you had that day or leading up to it, you had a major impact on our community and more importantly for the Kingdom of God. I am so proud of you, I nearly have buttons popping of my shirt. We’ve already gotten some great feedback from the community and even some of our neighbors who were impressed we’d open our facility this way. We’ll see how the Lord uses that outreach to draw people to Himself.

We’ve got another opportunity to take advantage of with Dr. Cky Carrigan who will be sharing with us Oct. 10-11. I know I’m asking a lot of you to give up a Saturday morning to come to this conference, but let me share with you why you need to come to this entire event. You see this morning, I was sitting in a doctor’s office waiting for a lab tech to prick me to draw blood for my annual checkup. I struck up a conversation with her about how long she’d been sticking people (26 years). She’s trying to slow down as she put it because life is too short. I shared with her about preaching Mrs. Ruby Rose’s funeral on Tuesday and what a blessing to share Jesus with the people who came. Instantly she responded about what a blessing her faith is, how it sustains her and so forth. She sounded like she believed just like me. I spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ and how my faith in Him is the most important thing for me also. I asked her where she goes to church and she said she’s a Jehovah’s Witness. Instantly, my brain was racing trying to remember my seminary training and trying to recall the deal with the JW’s. Sadly, I was caught off guard and wasn’t ready, didn’t have ammo in my rusty brain to dialogue with her about the reality that the JW’s don’t worship the same Jesus. While she was using the right terms and phrases, what she and I were talking about was not the same. The sobering reality is, unless this woman comes to love the Jesus of the Bible and not some man-made “Jesus”, even though she is sincere, she will go to Hell. I was so sad walking out of that office that I wasn’t prepared to share the genuine Jesus with her. I knew enough from my training to recognize a counterfeit but to listen to this woman, right terminology, sweet lady, Satan whispering in my ear that she’s okay, Holy Spirit convicting me she’s lost; I thought boy I can’t wait for Dr. Carrigan to teach us in October. No doubt you’ve had a similar experience somewhere along the way. See Paul warned the Corinthian Church about counterfeits in 2nd Cor. 11:14-15 “And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it so no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.” My job as your shepherd is to protect you from counterfeits so you are not drawn away in your faith, and to equip you with tools to reach people like this lady. I know if I need this, you do also. My friend Dr. Carrigan is an expert in cults and world religions and he as an amazing ability to help us understand in simple terms how to spot a counterfeit and to equip us to share the Jesus of the Bible. Make your reservations today as this conference is upon us quickly.

On a personal note, when you get this issue of The Way, our family will be moving from our townhouse to a home in Bel Air. We are so excited at the Lord’s provision for this need for our family. Once we get settled, we look forward to hosting an open house for you our church family. We’re thrilled to have permanent housing and sink roots deeper into our field of service. I’d appreciate your continued prayers that we sell our home in Houston as it is still on the market there. I want to take advantage of every opportunity, from my little corner of the world to yours…

Ralph Green

Senior Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church

www.calvarybelair.com

Posted via email from Pastor Ralph