2012 State of the Church Address
Posted on 10. Jan, 2012 by carola@firstbaptistdinuba.org in General News
2012 State of the Church Address
My goal in this state of the church address is to get us all on the same page. That may be impossible, but I’m going to try. I’ve heard many different points of view from our people about what our church needs, and I’m going to share with you my vision, which I’ve already shared with the deacons, and they have given me their approval.
I’m not so naïve that I think you’ll all agree with everything I’m going to say, but I’m hopeful we can reach an agreement and then proceed forward.
In his high-priestly prayer uttered the night before he died on the cross, Jesus made this prayer request for us: “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me” (John 17:23). I believe God has already granted that prayer request for our church. Our church has a reputation in our community for being a loving, generous, and sincere group of followers of Christ, and that is an evidence of our unity. We’re on the opposite end of the spectrum compared to a church that is full of cliques and conflicts, that is arguing and ready to split.
This is not to say that we who make up theFirstBaptistChurchare like sardines in a can. Instead, the image of a fresh-fruit salad occurs to me. In a fresh-fruit salad you have slices of bananas, oranges, strawberries, peaches, pears, apples, and grapes. They’re all in the bowl together, and each fruit is unique. But when you scoop those slices of fruit up with your spoon, you taste a delicious mixed flavor. You and I are like those slices of apples, oranges, bananas, etc. So even though we’re all different, the Holy Spirit has put us together into a delicious fruit salad that we call the First Baptist Church of Dinuba.
The Bible uses this same analogy when it says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Note that the word fruit is in the singular, but there are nine varieties of fruit listed.
Because of this distinctive unity given to us by the Holy Spirit, when new people start coming to our church, I believe we make it easy for them to experience Psalm 34:8, which says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8) Many of you can testify that when you came here, you wanted to become part of our “fruit salad,” and when you did, the rest of us believe it became even more delicious.
So our unity doesn’t mean that we all have the same opinions, likes, and dislikes. Instead our unity is that we’re all in Christ and called by Christ to function as a family of believers. We all have as our goal to see this church glorify God and serve the Lord Jesus, and that is our unity.
But when it comes to the specific steps of reaching our goal, we can easily disagree. So I ask that you listen to my address without trying to agree or disagree, and then make it a matter of prayer before our Lord. I’m confident that anyone who may disagree with some of the details I’ll be proposing will not see their disagreement as major. It may require some personal adjustment to get used to the things I’m going to bring up, but this church has an excellent track record of adjusting to new directions in which God is leading us. I have three main topics to bring before you now.
OUR CHURCH NEEDS TO REACH MORE YOUNG ADULTS
This has been the main topic of discussion at our last two Quarterly Business Meetings. I agree that this is our need. Before I get to the three ways we hope to attract young adults, I’d like to point out that the absence of this age group is widespread in churches everywhere. So it’s not exactly because we’re doing something wrong.
The Reedley Exponent newspaper recently ran an article on a new church worship service for this age group that theReedleyMennoniteBrethrenChurch is starting, and it said, “Studies show that 70% of those who attended church in high school are dropping away after high school and not coming back.”
A second remark about this is that my own age probably has something to do with the scarcity of young adults in our church. Churches tend to attract people like their senior pastor, including his age. I’m a senior, and we do have a thriving seniors’ ministry in this church.
I remember in the mid-1980s virtually the entireReedleyCollegebasketball team and about twenty players from theReedleyCollegefootball team were attending our church every Sunday. Their athletic trainer, Russ Richardson, came here and united with us. He was just a couple of years younger than I was. And so he told the athletes atReedleyCollege, “First Baptist Church of Dinuba has a young pastor who teaches God’s Word.” When the football and basketball players heard that, they followed Russ here, liked what they saw, and stayed.
A few years later, Russ and his wife Debi and their girls moved toSpokane. With a two-year turnover atReedleyCollege, the new athletes coming into the school didn’t have Russ to bring them here, so we stopped seeing them in our church.
Today I’m more of a father figure or even a grandfather figure to 20-year-olds, so we have a built-in disadvantage due to my age when it comes to attracting young adults to our church. But I’m hopeful that many of you who are young can be the friends they can relate to when they come.
So now let me share with you three specific ways we’re going to try to reach more young adults here in 2012:
Financial Peace University
It begins this Wednesday night. Of course anyone can have financial difficulties, so this is for any age group, but young adults are especially vulnerable to financial problems, as they’re beginning to buy or rent homes, they’re starting a family, and they’re entering the work force. They often feel like they have a lot of money to spend, and then they get in over their heads.
I hope we have many young couples take this class, because I know they could use it. We’re holding the class atWashingtonIntermediateSchoolin an effort to attract non-church people. We’re also offering free babysitting here at the church to make it easy for them to go to these classes. There is even financial assistance available for people for whom the $93 registration fee is a hardship. And finally, couples can come to the first session this Wednesday night with no obligation, financial or otherwise, just to check it out and see if it’s something they want to continue.
I urge you to invite young couples—and any other people who need help with money management—to the first session this Wednesday night.
The Way of Agape Bible Study for Young Women, Ages 18-35
Cathy Hallmark is one of our new members, and she came to me with this idea. She has taught this before in other churches and places, so she brings good experience to this ministry, and she has a heart for young women.
Of course we have other Bible studies offered by our Women’s Ministries, and I love those, but this Bible study targets the exact age group we’re short on and eager to reach in our church—those 18 to 35 years old. The group will meet in Cathy’s home, and I’m hopeful that will attract more young women. And it will focus on a subject they’re all interested in—how to make God’s love your love in your relationships.
Cathy has other, similar Bible studies in mind after this one, and I’m thrilled about that. So this is a second way we’re trying to reach the younger generation. More information, including Cathy’s address, is in our bulletin today. Please invite young women in this age group to be part of this Bible study, even if they’ve never attended our church before.
The Hiring of a Worship Leader for Our 10:45 a.m. Service
For some years now, Pete and Kathy Doherty have been leading the worship in our second service. It’s obvious to me that they understand worship, they love Christ, and they are unbelievably faithful to this ministry. Their leadership of our worship ministers to my heart. But this year we’re going to try something new.
The plan is to recruit a young person fromFresnoPacificUniversityor Fresno Pacific Seminary who is training to be a fulltime worship leader in a church. Pastor Rick, Pastor Nick, and I will be the search committee. We will offer this person practical experience here in our church. We’ll post a part-time job opening at the school, and interview any people who respond. If we feel someone might fit the need well, we’ll invite him or her to lead worship in our second service for two weeks. After that, if we feel the person isn’t a good fit, we’ll thank them, pay them, and continue looking.
If the person is a good fit, we’ll invite them to continue. The plan is to pay them $100 per week, plus $50 per week for gas. That comes out to about $6,000/year.
You might say, “I don’t see this $6,000 in our 2012 budget.” You’re right. It’s not in the budget. The money will come from a designated account of money that has already been given—the entire $6,000. So the funding is there, and we won’t have to raise the money in 2012. That’s why it’s not in our 2012 budget.
I know that some of you would love to return to one worship service, especially since we could accommodate the crowd in one service. I’m convinced that one worship service won’t work well. I’ll try to prove it right now: Raise your hand if you attend our Sunday evening Traditional Service. Keep your hands up. Now lower your hand if you want us to continue offering that evening worship service.
You see? Everyone who goes to our Traditional Evening Service wants it to continue, and therefore, they all want more than one worship service. The same principle applies to our two morning worship services.
We have four generations in this church. I’m thankful to God for each one of them, and I’m sure you are, too. Sociologists call them:
- The Builders (born 1945 and earlier)
- The Boomers (born 1946-1964 and called Baby Boomers because after WWII, thousands of soldiers were coming home, getting married, and having babies)
- The Busters (born 1965-1983)
- The Bridgers (born 1984 to the present, called “Bridgers” because their growing up years span two different centuries)
I’m in the second group, and all three of my children are in the fourth group. Each group has its own idea of what exciting worship looks like.
To take another example: In our first worship service we sometimes get requests for a hymn to be sung, and Dave Gaston, who plans the worship music, is good about honoring those requests. But for every hymn we sing, virtually all of our Bridgers (those in the 20s-30s age group) would say, “That doesn’t do anything for me.” And if, in our first worship service, we emphasized music that our 20 to 30-year-olds would love, then our seniors, not to mention many of our baby boomers, would be disappointed.
That’s why we need two morning worship services. Many times in my own family, our daughter Leslie and son Tommy have driven their cars about 75 miles roundtrip to attend The Well Church inFresno, where they have worship services targeted to their age group. That teaches me how much the Bridgers Generation wants its own kind of worship experience.
You might say, “Tom, you said our church is like a fruit salad, where all the different varieties of fruit are in the same bowl. So why can’t we have all the generations in one worship service?”
Good question. When it comes to our membership and our beliefs, we are like a fruit salad—all in the same “bowl.” But let’s remember that apples like to be in more than just a fruit salad. They also enjoy being in an apple pie. In an apple pie you have only apples—no oranges, grapes, etc. And in a banana cream pie you have only bananas—no other kind of fruit.
Our Bible classes are like an apple pie and a banana cream pie. Every one of them is age-related. We don’t see our age-related classes as a threat to our unity, and neither should we see different worship styles as a threat to our unity.
Some in our church have said, “But with our two morning worship services, I feel like we have two different churches.” I understand that, and I agree with that comment. I feel that way, too. But in fact we already have four different churches, represented by our four generations, and even if we put them all together in one worship service, we’d still have four churches, and each one would be dissatisfied with the homogenized worship service.
The fact that we could accommodate everyone in one morning worship service is not the point. Ideally, we could offer four different worship services, one for each generation. But two is a good start, and we do offer a third worship service in the evening to our Builders Generation.
I think two different morning worship styles in two different worship services in the same church is like having two different children in the same family. There’s nothing wrong with that. Suppose you’re the parent of two boys. You’d be naïve if you expected your younger son to be just like your older son.
That’s why we can’t expect the generation of my children’s ages to feel comfortable with the worship style of my age—the baby boomers. So the deacons, staff, and I have been praying that maybe a lay worship leader who aspires to be a fulltime worship leader in five years can come in and have our Bridgers Generation identify with him or her and thus give us more of an influx of the Bridgers Generation into our church.
At theReedleyMennoniteBrethrenChurch, where they’re launching a service for the same age group, they’re going to much greater lengths. They’re giving a facelift to their worship center with changes in the lighting, media, staging, curtains, and they’re even using a young preacher rather than their senior pastor, Dennis Fast.
We’re not investing that much in our second worship service. It’s unclear when we’ll get a young worship leader, or even if one will be available to us. And if we do hire a young worship leader, the Bridgers Generation still may not come in. Our plan may not work, but we believe it’s a plan that may work and can glorify God. I’d rather try something and fail than not try anything when we know we want to attract more young couples. So please pray for God’s guidance in this endeavor.
OUR CHURCH NEEDS TO GROW
We’ve been in decline for several years. Every six months for 29 years now—the time I’ve been the pastor here—I’ve held a baptism, a Newcomers Orientation, and had a day of welcoming new church members. And in each six-month period we’ve always had new people to baptize, new people coming to our Newcomers Orientation, and new members uniting with us. Our church has a history of attracting new people and winning new converts.
But these numbers have been unable to keep up with the number of people dropping out of our church. Church members and attenders drop out for a variety of reasons: death, moving into a nursing home, moving out of Dinuba, changing to another church, and the main reason—just getting out of the habit of coming to church. Here is how our average Sunday morning attendance has declined in recent years:
- 2006: Average attendance of 352
- 2007: Average attendance of 367
- 2008: Average attendance of 345
- 2009: Average attendance of 331
- 2010: Average attendance of 299
- 2011: Average attendance of 288
So we’ve declined an average of 79 people in Sunday morning attendance in the last four years. I have two plans to help reverse that trend, and I ask you to participate in both of them:
A Seeking Ministry of Inactive People
We will seek those who have become inactive. This is like Jesus’ parable in Luke 15 of the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep and goes out searching for his one lost sheep. The parable reads as follows: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when it finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me! I have found my lost sheep!’” (Luke 15:4-6)
I’ve made a list of 59 individuals or couples or entire families who seem to me to be in that group. Now I’m asking for some of you to volunteer, and we’ll put you into groups of two or three, and then you can visit a few of these inactive people. Your message will be, “We’ve missed you at First Baptist. Are you okay? Do you need me to pray for you? How can I help you get back into our church?”
If you’d like to get involved in this seeking ministry of inactive people, come to our J-O-Y Room any of the next three Saturdays, January 14, 21, and/or 28, at 10 A.M. Pastor Rick will organize you into groups of two or three and send you out with names and addresses of people who haven’t been here on Sunday mornings in a long time. You don’t have to sign up, just show up in our J-O-Y Room any of the next 3 Saturdays at 10 A.M., and Pastor Rick will tell you what to do.
So we want to seek out inactive people who are already connected to our church. But now for the other side of that coin.
A Recruiting Ministry of New People
Twenty-nine years ago, when I came to our dear church and we were very small, Pastor John Epp, the senior pastor under whom I had served at the First Baptist Church of Visalia, gave me this advice for my new ministry in Dinuba: “Try to bring one new family, or one new couple, or one new person into the church every month.” That was very helpful advice to me! I began thinking in terms of, What new family, new couple, or new individual can I focus on this month to help them unite with us? And God blessed that plan!
So here is my request of you:
If you call First Baptist your church home, ask God to use you to add one new family, one new couple, or one new person to our church this year.
Some of you who do call First Baptist your church home have not united with us in membership, so you can start with yourself. But then I want you to help me bring about church growth by praying for and talking to and inviting some other family or some other couple or some other person to attend here. Pray that they’ll go all the way by uniting with us in membership.
This may be someone you’ll need to introduce to Jesus first. Dare to do that this year, because the most exciting way to see our church grow is by evangelism! Or it may be someone or some family that is already Christian but has no church home of their own or is looking for another church. Imagine what our church would look like if each of you brought one family, one couple, or one person into our First Baptist family in 2012!
This plan needs to be bathed in prayer, and I’ll try to remember to remind you to keep praying about this, especially when it comes to introducing nonbelievers to our Lord Jesus. This is a very exciting ministry that glorifies God. And now my third and final point is also very exciting.
OUR CHURCH NEEDS TO START A SPANISH-SPEAKING MINISTRY HERE
If you already feel like we have two churches here with our two morning worship services, then you’re in for a surprise. The Spanish-speaking ministry will be a third church that meets here! We all know that Dinuba is becoming more and more Hispanic, and we need to meet that need with the gospel.
Less than two blocks from here is the home that Matt Peterson used to live in. Some months back I noticed the new family moving in, and I went there to invite them to our church. But when they spoke, it was all in Spanish. I couldn’t communicate with them! So even in our neighborhood there is a need for a Spanish-speaking ministry.
In 2007, Marco Moreno and his family came to our church. Quickly Marco and his wife Karla united with us in membership. And ever since, Marco has been speaking to me about starting a Spanish-speaking ministry here. Our Converge Pacific West Director of Home Missions, Paul Root, has been telling me the same thing.
The deacons and I have been talking and praying about this for the better part of a year now. We’re not ready to launch this now, but we do expect that sometime in 2012 we’ll launch a Spanish-speaking Bible study that will meet, for starters, probably in our J-O-Y Room on Sunday afternoons. Marco Moreno will be the Bible study leader. We’re doing this on Sunday afternoons so the Spanish group can feel like they have the whole church to themselves.
Eventually and hopefully, this will blossom into a regular congregation and their need for a pastor, but for now, we’re going to start with a core group of Spanish-speaking people who will come here for a Bible study. This isn’t part of the plan to recruit more English-speaking people like us into this church. This is a plan to reach the major ethnic group that God has brought to Dinuba.
It’s as if God has brought the mission field to us that used to be far away inMexico. So now it’s our responsibility to reach out to Hispanics in a way they can relate to. Any of you who are fluent in Spanish and would like to help Marco should talk to him and me about helping. I’m sure Marco will need all the help he can get.
CONCLUSION
The year 2012 kicks off my thirtieth year as the pastor of this church. There have been many surprises in the past:
- The merger of ourFirstBaptistChurchwith theCalvaryBaptistChurchin 1986. These two churches used to be one but then split, so the merger was like a remarriage of a divorced couple.
- The new building program that began in 1986.
- The payment made by Paul Quiring on our behalf of nearly half a million dollars to install the underground utilities and build Lincoln and Nebraska Avenues around our church. When Paul Quiring made this payment, our entire building fund was about half a million dollars, and if we had invested it in underground utilities and roads around the church, we would have had nothing to show above ground and no money in our building fund. In return for his payment of these costs, we gave Paul Quiring 4.5 acres of land on which he built houses on Northridge and Eaton Avenues. So we used to have ten acres of land, and now we have 5.5. This was a miraculous provision from God.
- In 1996 we moved out of the location on the corner ofMercedand J Streets that we had been in for 66 years and moved into this new facility on new land. Some skeptics said we could never build, pay for, and move in to a new church, but by God’s miraculous hand, we did!
- The 80 new members who united with us in 2006.
Now we’re due for another surprise from God, and I’m ready for it. Are you? Let’s trust our Lord together.