Our foundations and functions by looking at a couple of different things tonight I'm gonna start in first Corinthians chapter 9 verses 13 and 14 And I'm actually gonna go through several passages because we're gonna talk about tonight about tithing about projects so these are these are things financially and how we do things at brain Baptist Church and And then we're going to look a little bit at administration tonight and kind of close things out with this series. Again, this is something normally that we will teach, kind of like I've done these, like the E3 classes that we'll be starting actually at the end of February, the last Wednesday in February, we'll start our E3 classes. And so we'll let you know very soon what classes those will be, who will be teaching them, and the dates and everything. But we are excited about our E3 classes. We usually do that in the early part of the year. and it's just a time on Wednesday nights. We already have the children back doing truth trackers, we have the teens up doing youth group, and then we'll do some of our classes. So we'll meet in here and then we'll disperse to our classes and we'll have a great time learning together in different areas and being equipped further for ministry. So normally this is one of those classes that I'll do. Basically if you're new to Berean, if you're interested in hearing, we go through about six or so lessons at least Sometimes more than that on just foundational doctrine. It just depends because every class Every group of people that are in the class every time we teach it is going to be a little bit different and some people have more questions than others and Some of them have questions where we need to actually stop and spend the rest of a class period just on that one question and it just kind of laying some more doctrinal foundation and And then others are more interested, as we get to this point, in some of these different functionalities. They're very familiar. They've been in a solid Bible-preaching church before. God's moved into our area. And they are interested in how we do things. And yes, they want to understand. They've already probably read our doctrinal statement on our website. They've come and they've been to several of our services, maybe watched some on livestream. And so they're familiar with the doctrine and some of the different ways that we practice things and some of our policies are things that they're interested in and making their decision if Berean would be the church for them. And so I just thought that it would be good to go through on some Sunday nights in kind of a very brief way for some of you who've been here for a long time and maybe never gone through these things or maybe some of you that are just coming and we haven't had a class yet. that it would at least catch you up to speed a little bit in a very general way on some things. So I wanted to talk about tonight how the church works, financial and administrative functionality. So tithing is the first thing I want to hit. Tithe means 10% or one-tenth. and the church is supported by the tithe. That's why we start in 1 Corinthians 9, verses 13 and 14. Do you not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? And they which wait at the altar are partakers of the altar, even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. So as Paul here is teaching to the Corinthian believers and admonishing them, He is talking about giving. And one of the things that many of them who came and were saved out of Judaism would have understood was that they gave tithes at the temple. And those tithes and those offerings were not only to cover the costs of the sacrifices and the maintenance of the temple, but it was also, it was the way that the priests got their living. And so he's talking about that this was under the Old Testament, this was required. And this is one of the reasons why it was required. We believe that tithing in the New Testament is a great place to start. I believe that God does require of us faithfulness and accountability and that one of the ways that we worship him is through our financial giving. So, what are some of the things, I'm just going to list these and then I'm going to go through some other passages of scripture in a minute. Well, one of the things in 1 Corinthians 9 talks about it is our pastoral salaries. We're blessed to be able to have the opportunity here at Berean Baptist Church to have those that serve in a full-time vocational capacity. My salary is paid, so I don't have to work another job. I'm able to really devote myself to Bible study and prayer and counseling and hospital visits and mentoring and establishing a vision for the church and working on structuring ministries and outreach events and all of that sort of thing. And so, and Pastor Mike, Pastor Blake, and now Pastor Jason as well. And then also we have other salaries. We have a couple of secretaries in the office that are there. And so they are very vital. We have a financial secretary, Tammy Smith. She's vital to the functioning of our ministry with all the bookkeeping work that she does. And so the giving helps to pay for things like that. Supplies, all kinds of different supplies that we need, teaching materials, Sunday school materials, office supplies, all kinds of different things. You like to have the lights on and the heat, especially today, right? And so for the utilities, it helps to cover the cost of the utilities. And like in the summer, when we have to replace air conditioners, Praise the Lord that we are able to, in our budget, plan for replacing an air conditioner if it goes down. And so those are some of the things that the general giving goes towards in the tithes and offerings. And then, and this happened from the time that Berean was established, that Berean has always tithed a portion of the general funds over to the missions fund. And currently we are at 14%. So 14% of what come in the general tithes and offerings transfers over to our missions program. So let me kind of familiarize you a little bit with that. Some of you are very familiar with it and some of you may not be. So we divide it up into several categories. One of the main categories, of course, is the monthly financial support of our missionaries. Our philosophy, and I'm just going to share some things with you tonight, our philosophy at Berean Baptist Church is that we would rather support less missionaries for more per month and know those missionaries and serve with those missionaries than we would to support a whole bunch of missionaries for a less amount of money per month and really not know any of them well or maybe one or two of them. You know, I know of a church that I preached at, and they were proud of the fact that they supported 300 missionaries. But the highest supported missionary was $50 a month. And I guarantee you that half of the missionaries that they supported, if they walked into the church service on Sunday night like this, nobody would recognize them as one of their missionaries. And I'm not faulting that church. That was how they wanted to do things, and that's between them and the Lord. But at Berean Baptist Church, we want to be involved with our missionaries. We have our interactive display for our missions out there, and one of our offerings went towards that this year. And the reason for that is to encourage you to be current with our missionaries, to know what's going on in their lives, to be able, even from that touch screen, you can actually email them. In our prayer sheet on Wednesday night, we have all our missionaries listed and we rotate through and we'll highlight usually with a portion of an updated newsletter what's going on with that particular missionary. We make them a prayer emphasis. We take mission trips to go spend time with our missionaries. And so the missions fund is divided up into monthly support for our missionaries, And then we have some other subcategories. One of the subcategories is that there is an amount set aside for Krista and I, as pastor and wife, to go and visit one of our missionaries per year. And the reason for that is for encouragement and accountability. We go, we see what's going on in the ministry, actually Boots on the ground, right there. We get a flavor for the culture and for the people of that ministry. We get to spend time with the missionaries. It gives us a greater insight and passion for what they are doing. And hopefully, we are able to just enjoy some fellowship, have fun together, and be an encouragement to them. And so this is something that was happening long before I got here. And, uh, and, but it's one of the things that I delight in being able to do. And so that's what part of that goes towards. And then we do have mission projects. We might go to the Dominican Republic and put a roof on a church building, or we might go to Spain and, and help with the farmhouse at Aerete, or we might go somewhere else and do a project. And so, Not only will we take willing workers to do whatever that work is, but also to try to cover the expense of the materials or maybe tools, things like that. Sometimes it's more of an outreach type of thing where we're going to go and we're going to blitz a village with a bunch of literature. We want to be able to cover the expense of all of that so that we go to minister to the missionary We've covered our all our own expenses. We're not being a burden to those missionaries but we've also supplied the materials whether it's teaching materials or or whether it's flyers or whether it's Lumber and and tin roof material and all that kind of stuff. Whatever it is. We want to make sure that we've covered that so we have projects now I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but a few years ago, some of our missionaries had a medical emergency and somebody in our church approached the pastors and said, Hey, we'd like to propose to the missions committee that we would actually, we want to personally start with a financial gift. to begin a medical emergency fund for missionaries. So that if a missionary has an emergency on the field and they need to fly back to the United States, or let's say they're in Africa and they need to fly to Germany, or something like that, that we already have those funds set aside. As soon as we find that out from the missionaries, we may not be able to cover the whole thing, but we can cover a good portion of that because that's set aside to help them with that medical emergency. Not long after I first got here, one of our missionaries was back here reporting to their churches, and then found out that there was an issue back in their church at home that was very serious, and they needed to get back right away. Well, they weren't planning on going back. To buy a last-minute international ticket is very expensive, but we were able to help with that out of our projects fund. Um, so that that's also part of what that missions project goes towards. Um, we do a Christmas wishlist, by the way, I want to brag on y'all for a little bit. We, again, for the second year in a row, we're able to provide everything on all of our missionaries wishlists. And we also do a birthday gift for Jesus offering. Now this year, the offering went to Tap Horner for a van. Do you know how much money came in? Our goal was $20,000 to help them get a good van for that ministry. $20,000 came in. So we were able to meet that. But somebody else gave a gift and said, we want this to go towards a bigger birthday gift for Jesus project. So get this, $21,000 went to Timothy Sadu to help him finish a building. And 16,000 went to Aquila so that they could get their printing ministry, all that stuff in place and the final equipment purchased and materials so they can get that started. And so we're able to help our missionaries. Yeah, some of them are things like, hey, you know, we need 20 hymn books, $8 a hymn book or whatever. And your family kind of adopts that or part of that. But then there are others that are huge needs. We're also able to give a good portion of money to John Kukinzi Jr. in Brazil. They need to purchase three lots so that they can build their own church building. And we were able to give a portion of that to help them purchase one of those lots out of the three. And so that's also part of what our mission is giving. And then, of course, we always keep some in reserves because our missionaries are out on the field. And we want to make sure that even if there is an economic downturn here and the church takes some sort of a financial hit over a short period of time, that there's not going to be any interruption in our missionaries' monthly support. So we try to really be very careful with that. And then some of what our giving goes towards is our special speakers. Like when we have, Matt Galvin's gonna be coming in. He's gonna preach our men's retreat, and then he's gonna preach a Sunday through Wednesday revival meeting. That's our meeting coming up in March. Well, we actually, the church, has part of our budget to pay for their travel expenses. I was in full-time itinerant ministry. I pulled a 42-foot fifth wheel trailer. I know how expensive that ministry is. And so we are a church that has the financial means to be able to budget, to cover, and pay for their travel expenses to get to us. And sometimes it doesn't even cost that much. But you know what? Then we get to be a blessing to the next church, because the next church they're going to may be a church of 30, 40, 50 people, and they're just going to be able to take up a love offering every night. They can't afford to pay anything extra towards travel expenses. So we are actually being a blessing to another church in helping cover the travel expenses of that evangelist to them. so it enables the evangelists to get there and minister to them, their needs are met, that church gets the blessing, we've had the blessing of having them here. And then of course we take up offerings. Sometimes we'll have special speakers and folks come and preach to fill in, like Pastor Sweat's gonna be filling in for me. And so we'll have honorariums because the laborer is worthy of his hire. And so that is part of special speaker. And then renovation projects. Praise the Lord, because of the generosity of God's people this year, we're going to be able to put money towards, a good portion of money towards the roof renovation. We'll give you more, we're still getting back some numbers and some data on that, but hopefully we'll be able to come to you soon within the next few weeks about putting on the new roof on the newer part of the building. And so that's a real praise. This lighting project was paid for in cash. And it was much needed. We were starting to become a distracting thing in the services. And it was also a dangerous thing because it was starting to overheat things in the electric room. That's never a good situation. And so God provided for us to both be safe and to have good lighting. We still have a little bit of lighting we're gonna do along the sides. God has provided for that. We just gotta get the workers lined up for that, and we'll be getting more lighting in along these sides, on these side aisles, so that'll be a little bit lighter. I wanna go back to some, now that I've kind of covered some of those things, let me talk a little bit about some biblical perspective on giving. In 2 Corinthians chapter eight, and if you wanna turn, you're welcome to, you don't need to. It should be up on the screen. Verses one to three and verses 12 to 15. Paul writes again, he goes, moreover, brethren, we do you wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, how that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power, they were willing of themselves. So even when they were in great financial affliction and distress, they still made worshiping God through their giving a priority. And again, that is an example for us. Paul was citing that as an example to the Corinthian church of the Macedonian believers. Now he says this, and he gives comment in verses 12 to 15, for if there first be a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. Now, there's some folks who say, well, I sure wish I could be giving more. And it's true. They are giving and doing the best they can. And then I sometimes wonder if it's just not some sort of a kind of a hollow lip service. Well, I sure wish I could be giving more. Well, if you evaluate it, probably, you know, you could. So be careful what you say because God knows your situation, right? But that's between that person and the Lord. The important thing is that you are understanding that giving is not so much an obligation as it is an act of worship. It's an act of everything that we have that comes from our God. And when we give our tithes and our offerings, we are giving not only invest, get this, this blows my mind. Do you realize that when you are giving in the tithes and offerings, you are not only, you're not only celebrating, thank you God, I am just giving back a portion of what you've entrusted in this reminds me of your faithfulness and of your goodness to me. But it is also, because everything that we have comes from God, right? So think about this. Jesus said in Matthew chapter six, lay up for yourselves treasures, where? In heaven. And when I give of my temporal funds, I can invest in eternity. And you can't beat God's interest rate. Isn't that wonderful? And I just wonder the folks that we'll see in heaven or Christians that we will meet and fellowship with who were encouraged and strengthened and God did work of revival in their heart because God laid on our hearts to give to his ministry. And some evangelist went to a church because we helped with the financial support to get him there. And he preached the message and God's spirit spoke in somebody's heart and God transformed their lives through that. And God used them greatly in that area for the sake of the gospel. And we get to have a part in that. or the giving that we give to our missionaries. Man, can you imagine what the reunion in heaven is going to be like when we all stand around the throne and realize that some of our investments, our temporal investments, as small as you might think, they might be, can make such a huge impact for eternity. And not only do they make an impact, and not only do we get to worship and celebrate God with that, and it works within us a spirit of contentment and gratitude, but you know what else? Jesus says, you're gonna have eternal reward. Jesus is the one who said, lay off yourself treasures in heaven. He's saying invest in not just invest in eternity for my kingdom's sake. Yes, that's true. But he is also saying invest for your own eternal future in my future kingdom. Isn't that amazing? In 2 Corinthians 9, verses 6 and 7, he says, But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. When you are reseeding your lawn this spring, remember that verse. and turn that seed spreader wide open, man, and spread that seed abundantly, right? Don't be sparingly. Go get that extra bag of Scott's Lawn and Turf from Ace Hardware or whatever, and spread it thick. And if you use it, well, it's gonna cost me that much more. Hey, listen, do you want a good, you know, lush lawn or not? Well, then if you sow sparingly, that's how you're gonna, why do I have all these little bare spots in my lawn? Well, maybe you sowed sparingly. Or maybe you took some shortcuts and you didn't aerate your lawn. I better get on, I'm going on a side track here. I used to work in landscaping when I was in college, so forgive me. But, he that sows sparingly shall reap sparingly. He that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Look at this though, every man, according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth the cheerful giver. And here's, I think, one of the points that we can miss, is that when I give from a joyful heart, not grudgingly, not with the attitude, well, if I don't put my tithe in the offering this week, then God's gonna let the transmission drop out of my car, and he's gonna get it out of my hide, you know, that kind of an attitude, right? You know, sometimes I think we give the tithes and offerings almost like somebody gives protection money to the mob so they don't come and beat them up. Okay, God, I don't want anything bad to happen, so I'm gonna give the tithe, so if I give the tithe, then everything's gonna be good, right? That's not the way it works. Because God brings trials into our life to transform us into the image of Christ. And those can be some of the greatest blessings you experience. And the sweetest times with the Lord can be through the deepest, darkest valleys. Because you realize that the Lord is holding your hand and he is with you and you sense his presence because you need him so desperately. But no, we give, and God always supplies our need. David said, I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. And that's another thing that giving does. Giving will strengthen your faith. When you believe that my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus, you say, okay, Lord, you know what my needs are, you know that the bills are here, but I'm gonna make giving and worshiping you a priority. I, quote, need this money. But what I need to do is I need to give it to you. I was hunting at a friend's. He had farms kind of down the Maryland and Pennsylvania side. He had inherited from family way back. He owned a construction company. And I went up there to go hunting with him. Had a great time and he had some other people from the church there. We were fellowshipping and one night he just asked me to kind of conduct. He had this thing that he just, he wanted to have a conversation about a spiritual conversation. He asked if I would kind of head it up and kind of lead it. And, um, it kind of turned into a mini preaching session, um, because they were asking me on some things. And so I was giving them some biblical directive direction from the scriptures. Didn't think anything about it, man. It was just a refreshing time of fellowship together, and I got to share some things, and it was just a good time, and I just kind of went on my way. Didn't think any more thing about it other than hoping that it really truly would be a spiritual help to those dear friends of mine as we were on that hunting weekend trip. I got ready to leave that trip. And I knew, my friend had told me of some of the financial difficulties that he was going through. He had a construction company, and he had to keep his employees on health insurance and pay their salaries and all of that. And when you don't have projects because you have severe weather and stuff like that, the money still has to go out and all of that. And he was wise with his financial planning and things like that, of course. But I knew that at this particular time that he was really under a lot of financial strain, you would say from a business standpoint. And as we got ready to go, he pulled an envelope out and he gave me a check. And I opened up the check and about swallowed my teeth. And I said, brother, you can't afford to give this to our ministry. I mean, I'm praying for God to supply for you, and I appreciate your kindness. He goes, well, you are such a blessing to us. You ministered to us of the word this week, and it was such a blessing, and God just laid this on my heart to do. And I said, but you can't afford to. And he said, no, Todd. He said, I can't afford not to. And he said, I have found in my life that the time when I can least afford to give is the time when I need, I most need to give. And he wasn't doing that to have any kind of a spiritual impression on me. He wasn't doing that to preach a message to me, but the Holy Spirit did. The Holy Spirit did. And I don't know why I'm getting off on this tonight. It's certainly not because I'm trying to whip up more giving and that sort of a thing because God really blessed us financially this past year. And I'm so thankful for your faithfulness to not only support this ministry, but our missionaries. through your faithful giving. And I know that God is gonna honor you for that. Just like Paul commends the Philippians, in Philippians 4, 14 to 19, notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction. Now, ye Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica, ye sent once and again unto my necessity, not because I desire a gift, but I desire fruit that may abound to your account, but I have all and abound. I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odor of sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God. But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Do you realize that the promise to supply all your need according to his riches in glory is directly related to your giving? Interesting, isn't it? And he's saying, you know, it's not that I'm excited, because Paul, in another place in the scriptures, says, I have learned how to abound and how to be abased. I've learned how to be hungry and to be full, how to be rich, how to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me. He just said that to Philippians here in this passage. But he says, you know, what really makes my heart full is that you have such a heart for the gospel. and for supporting me in that ministry of the gospel that you give in this way. And I rejoice about the eternal reward you're gonna have and the spiritual fruit that you're gonna get to partake of in the harvest. And in the meantime, by the way, God is gonna supply for your temporal needs because he's honoring your faith. Giving grows your faith. But you know, there's a certain ministry also here, talking about giving towards the poor. And I want to talk about that, Matthew chapter six, verses one to four. Jesus said, take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward, but when thou doest alms, let not thy right hand know what thy left hand knoweth, thy right hand doeth. That thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Now alms, giving to the poor. How do we do that at Marine? We have several different things in which we want to minister to those who are in financial need. One of the things that we have is a benevolence fund. Benevolence fund is something on our different Wednesday nights, one of our Wednesday nights, or two, actually, if there's a fifth Wednesday, then the last two Wednesdays, but usually the last Wednesday of the month, or if there's fifth Wednesday of the month, those two offerings go towards our benevolence fund. And our benevolence fund, we have a team made up of some of our deacons, and people can come to the church and say, hey, I'm in financial need. I haven't got my first paycheck. I just got a new job. I've been without work. Or I just lost my job, and I'm going through my savings. I'm trying to find a job. I haven't been able to find a job yet. Or something else, maybe there's some other need, unexpected need that's arisen in their family that's causing the financial hardship for them. They're not a part of our church. But they come to our church and they're seeking for help and we have them fill out a form that gives us information about them so that we can contact them. Then I will listen to their need. I'll have a word of prayer with them. I will share the gospel with them. We'll give them some literature from the church so they'll know how that they can contact us and see that there's different ministries that we can have in their life of encouragement if they live in this area. And then I will send by email, I'll send that information to that team of deacons that's on our benevolence team, and they will contact that person again. Another opportunity to show the love of Christ, another opportunity to share the gospel with somebody, and then they determine of what amount we're gonna help with that need. Now, because we have so many needs and only a limited amount of funds, we have to cap it at a certain maximum amount. But we try to help everybody that we possibly can in a reasonable way that we believe will be a help to them. Sometimes we can't meet the entire need, but certainly we can help a long ways towards meeting that need. So we have the Benevolence Fund. And then we have the Barnabas Fund. The Barnabas Fund was established, I think it was back in 2008. There was a time when a lot of people were losing their jobs as people were going through their savings in between. And so an offering was taken and a fund was established called the Barnabas Fund. Barnabas means son of consolation or encouragement. So this is a fund that we have for members of Berean Baptist Church. And if they've lost their job, they're in great financial distress because of that, that they can fill out an application and there's another team of our deacons. They form the Barnabas team and so that need is submitted to them and they'll seek out some further information. They'll seek to try to be an encouragement to that church member, and then they will meet as a team and discuss how much out of that fund they can help. We've actually helped three of our families this year with that Barnabas Fund. So it is a necessary thing. It's a good thing. And then we also have a Widows Fund. This was established a few years ago. We realized when Pastor Finch died that there it just hit us because of all that Janine was going through that a lot of times when a husband passes away that it puts an immediate financial strain on that widow and she already has enough other things that she has to go through legal paperwork you know processing uh the home the home going to heaven of her husband and all of those things then you add on on top of that the bills don't stop you still got to pay the water bill and the light bill and the phone bill and all those other kind of things and insurances and all that kind of stuff But when some of that money has stopped until the life insurance claims or other things or investments that the husband had made can be made available with a financial planner, in that meantime, there's a gap. And sometimes there are some heavy needs that need to be made. And then what am I going to do? And there's some, maybe sometimes some extra expenses. And so we started the widow's fund for widowed members so that they can apply for that. We try to be proactive and ask when somebody loses, when a lady loses her husband, for instance, we'll go to them and we'll say, hey, listen, you know, how are you doing even, you know, financially? We want them to your spiritual needs. We also don't want you to be under any financial strain. You have enough other things. And we seek to help them with the other things as well, as much as we can. But we also know the financial part is a very real part of that. And so we establish this widow's fund, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction. Right, and so we want to do that. Now, how do we function administratively? I want to talk about that for just a few minutes. A church is successful as each part functions efficiently. In Ephesians 4.16, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love. So there has to be, in order for the body to work, there has to be a level of coordination. For instance, if you are going to drive a nail, it takes some coordination. This hand is holding the nail. This hand is holding the hammer. For me, I'm left-handed, okay? And then I'm trying to drive the nail and it takes some coordination, right? Because if this hand doesn't cooperate, or is inaccurate, this hand's gonna pay for it, right? Or if this hand decides, uh-uh, it's too scared, then drop the nail, and you're not gonna be able to drive that nail. So there has to be an administration. Things have to coordinate together, all right? The Bible says. In 1 Corinthians 14, 40, let everything be done decently and in order. And so there is, I believe, a biblical structure or framework with the pastors and the deacons. And then we have other things, like we have a missions committee. And that missions committee helps us to make proposals on whether we should propose to the church to vote, to approve funds for certain mission trips, or whether we're going to take on a new missionary, and for how much per month, or if we're gonna raise a missionary support, or other vital things like that. And so we have other different groups and leaders that organize things. We have somebody that leads our Wednesday night truth trackers ministry. So there's a level of organization pastor Mike is over all of our children and youth this year Nathan Dwyer is over our truth trackers And so he administrates that along with the other and works with the other teachers in that Daniel Jesperson works with our Children's Church, and he administrates that okay all that underneath pastor Mike's list I'm just kind of giving you one little small microcosm kind of sample of the overall ministry that we have here at Berean, okay? And so there is this administration. So let me just kind of very briefly describe with you how decisions are made. The pastoral staff evaluates it. So let's say somebody comes up and they say, hey, Pastor Todd, or hey, Pastor Mike, or whatever, or goes to one of the deacons. hey, we think we should have this ministry. We'd like to see this ministry started at Marian Baptist Church. Or, you know, we've seen this issue and this needs to be addressed. A decision needs to be made. And so then that word comes back to the pastoral staff and the pastoral staff will sit down and we will evaluate that. We want to evaluate it according to the scriptures. If we need some help, we'll seek outside help and getting counsel from other godly pastors who maybe have already had experience in handling something like this biblically, and we'll get some counsel there, and then we'll come back, and we'll evaluate it as a staff. And then we'll consult with the mission board, our deacon board, excuse me. Our deacons meet the spiritual qualifications and have been voted as deacons by you. So we have our 2025 deacon board, and these men, we believe, are spiritually qualified men. And so we will then go to them. The Bible says the multitude of counselors there is what? there's much safety okay and so we'll go to them and we'll hey what is it that we that we're missing all right i am not like the pope i'm not infallible okay pope's supposed to be infallible i'm not the pope i'm not infallible right pastoral staff we are we are not omniscient we don't know everything our perspectives even though they're different and we try to bring a lot to the table and and see things from every angle as much as we can we can still miss stuff and so we'll go to our deacons and sometimes it just depends on the nature of whatever it is maybe that there are some deacons that have um more of it might be a construction type thing or a building type thing we have people on on our on our deacon board that have experience in that and knowledge in that. Others, it might be some sort of financial thing or some legal thing. And we have men on our deacon board that have expertise in those areas. And so there are things that they're going to see are going to come to their mind, maybe obvious to them, that we totally were oblivious to. And so praise the Lord that God places on the team those who have that experience and that perspective so that we come together from hopefully a biblical perspective Desiring to be unified and to do that which is pleasing to God and to handle the matters of the church wisely So the pastoral staff will evaluate consult with a deacon board and any ministry leaders if it affects their their area It might affect you know, like like for instance, we switched from frontline to truth trackers and so pastor mike evaluated several different programs And he actually proposed that to, he took it to the teachers and he said, look this over, let's talk about this. He had first presented it to pastoral staff. We'd also talked to the deacons about it. He went to those leaders of those different areas of ministry and said, what do you think? Let's evaluate this together. because it's going to affect their ministry. We look for things like, is this gonna be something that is sustainable? Is it gonna be effective for the Lord? And we gather, sometimes we'll even gather back, get some feedback from you as a congregation, more on a grassroots level than in a corporate setting like this. Except for, of course, when we take a church vote on something. There are certain things that do require a church vote. So, like the creation of a staff position. Now, when it comes to hiring staff, you notice that we didn't vote on Pastor Jason being our next music pastor. We did not take a congregational vote, because according to the church constitution, the senior pastor or lead pastor is the only position that is voted on by the congregation, and then the pastor hires and fires. It's left up to his discretion. However, I'd be very foolish if I did not consult my pastoral staff, if I did not consult the deacons, if I did not have like Pastor Jason come in and lead and see what his ministry is like and have him talk with you guys and then there were many of you that we were gathering feedback because we want to make a decision that is both pleasing to the Lord and beneficial for you. And if it's pleasing the Lord, it will be beneficial to you. But we want to make wise decisions and we want to be careful to make sure we're being faithful stewards of this ministry. But if there's going to be a creation of a staff position, if I wanted to create a new staff position, then that would take a whole process and have to come to a church vote. Okay. So for instance, let's just say, and we're not, we're not thinking in this direction right now, but let's say that in a few years we hit, we have, we've grown and I want to create a staff position of an interim assistant pastor. who then we're going to plug in as the new lead pastor of a church plant that we'll plant out of Berean Baptist Church. Now, this is going off script a little bit, all right? But let me tell you one of my dreams for Berean Baptist Church. is that what God would grow us some more. And when we get to a certain, I have a number in mind, of course I'm always flexible to the Lord's leading, but I have a number in mind when our church reaches this in regular attendance, I would like to take a portion, a percentage of the church that all travel from one general location and start working with them and training them and getting some people in place so that we can plan a church that already has a lead pastor, that already has a deacon board, that already has Sunday school teachers, nursery workers, greeters, all of that's already plugged in. And you're starting a church that already has 50 or 60 people that weren't bringing, and now they're a church wherever, okay, somewhere in our area, but a little bit of a distance away. So we're expanding that ministry influence, not talking about a satellite church, they will be their own independent, fundamental, Bible preaching Baptist church, okay? There will not be a satellite church. I don't want to have these mega campuses and satellite churches, all right? That's not me. And I don't think that that's Beroean style either, okay? And I'm not dissing on that. I'm just saying that's not us. But we want to be able to plant a church. So I would have to, I'd have to portray that vision and we would have to vote on creating a position of assistant pastor slash lead pastor of the church plan. Because that would be a position we haven't had here at Berean Baptist Church. And by the way, I'd love to see us replicate that several times, not just do one church plan. But if we only get to do one, I'd be thrilled to be able to at least do one. But that's up to the Lord. Anyway. Altering the budget. You've already at our first line of December, we do our annual business meeting. And one of the things that we do by ballot vote is approve the budget for the next year. So the 2025 budget has been approved. If there would be something where we would need to alter that budget because maybe an unforeseen expense or maybe an unforeseen opportunity or something else, We would have to bring that for a church vote and say, look, this is what the budget says. This is what we see. This is how God's provided. This is why we believe that this would be a biblically wise choice, but the church has to vote on this to approve this. And if you don't, we'll abide by the church's decision. All of those things, expenditures outside of the budget, those require a church vote. We're just talking administration here, but the pastor is the one who makes the final decisions in matters that do not require a church vote. Like I said earlier, such as hiring a staff member. So you know the old adage, the buck stops here? It does. So y'all pray for me. Because I want to make wise godly decisions that both will bring glory to God and are beneficial for you and for the sake of the gospel in our community. And so these decisions, I want to be careful that we're making biblically sound wise decisions, because it is, the buck stops here. And I don't view that as a burden, I view that as an honor. But it is something I do take very seriously and appreciate your prayer. The election of the deacons and then the clerks, like our church secretary and our financial donations secretary, are approved at the annual, and the approval of the annual church budget, they're voted upon in the annual church business meeting. And then the pastor may call special business meetings such as to vote on taking on another missionary for monthly support at my discretion with a proper notice. So I have to give a notice, one service in advance. I like to give at least a week in advance. I like to like on a Sunday say, hey, this Wednesday, we're going to have a business meeting or on Wednesday. Hey, this Sunday we're going to have a business meeting. I like to have at least one full week in between. For instance, when this opportunity to buy the transit, and I know it's not a Sprinter, okay, I was using the general term, that's the Mercedes. We have the Ford, all right, the transit, and it is a nice van, if you've seen it out there. And the Lord provided us for us to get that. In order to do that because that was money from unrestricted accounts plus money that had been set aside from the sale of another Vehicle that the church had had plus an offering that was given all together. We had enough to purchase it But we needed the church vote. So I called a special meeting to approve the expenditure of $50,000 so we could purchase that transit van and which we did okay so uh sometimes we call it special business meetings for things like that so that's just i just want to give you a little bit of flavor if you say well pastor todd um i'd like a little bit more information on on certain aspects of how we handle things um in a financial way or administrative way or how I got a question about this in particular. Please bring that to my attention. We wanna do things decently and in an order, in a way that is pleasing to God and is proper. We don't want anything to detract from Christ's testimony or ours here at Marine Baptist Church. So if you see something that is not being done well, if you see something that's not being done according to how it should be laid out in the church constitution, please let us know that, bring that to our attention. Again, we wanna do the very best we can. But we are flawed humans at best and we we could use your help with that if you have concerns Please let us know that we want to make sure that we are very transparent as a matter of fact Pastor Blake is our administrative pastor and one of the things he oversees is the budget and the finances here at Berean and so he provides quarterly a Financial report it's out on the church set out at the Church Life Center and we make public announcements. Hey, I The quarterly financial statement is out there. You can review it. If you have any questions, please ask us. Again, why? Because we want to do things decently and in order. We want to be above reproach. One of the things that we are doing, and we do this about every three years, is we go back for two years prior, and we do an audit. We have an outside company come in. We're going to do it this spring. We're going to have an outside company come in, and they're going to audit our books from 2023 and 2024. And why did we have that done? Well, first of all, to make sure that our testimony is above reproach, that somebody from the outside who's an expert in this, who is objective in this, will catch any inconsistencies, bring them to our attention so that we can correct them. And if there are certain practices that need to change, we can put those policies in order. Because again, we want to have not only a testimony and accountability to you, but to all men. And we have a responsibility to be in subjection to the requirements of our government. And so we want to make sure that we are in compliance. So that's why we do that. And by the way, those things ain't cheap. But we budget them in so that we can do that, so that we can be above reproach and make sure we're doing things correctly. Again, folks, what we do, we ought to do for the glory of God. And the reason for the church's existence is the glory of God. Well, we want to give God the glory, and we want to celebrate his goodness tonight. In just a little bit, we are going to have a fellowship reception before the Hamiltons. All right? And so in a minute, I'm going to stand. I have a stand. And we're not even going to dismiss them in the song. What we're going to do is, while I'm praying, I know this is unusual, but while I'm praying, I'm going to ask the Hamiltons to go back to the Sweat Ministry Center so they can be back there to greet you. And you can give them the right hand at fellowship. or bear hug or whatever, all right? And welcome them. There's gonna be some light refreshments back there that you can enjoy. Parents, please keep an eye on your youngins, and we're gonna have a wonderful time celebrating God's goodness. It's been a long time coming, but you know what? It's worth the wait. And praise the Lord that the Hamiltons are here. And we're excited about what the Lord has for us in the future and how he is going to work, how he's going to use the Hamiltons here. And I trust that we'll be a wonderful blessing to them. So we're gonna have some, I think there's some cake, there's gonna be some cookies, maybe some chips and things to drink back there. And you can enjoy some fellowship. But please make sure, and the main point of this is, is to welcome the Hamiltons. So make them feel welcome, smother them with affection. All right? And I know that you will. Let's stand and we'll pray, thank the Lord for the Hamiltons and for the refreshments. And then we'll be dismissed and you can just head straight back to the Sweat Ministry Center. Heavenly Father, we thank you that there has been a foundation from day one at Marine Baptist Church to do things in a way that is decent and orderly, that is above reproach, and that reflects your excellence in all things. Help us, Lord, not to grow careless or negligent in any aspect.