State of the Church Address
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01-22-2023
Welcome to Maranatha Baptist Fellowship, I know I have said this in the past and I probably say this every year but this has to be one of my favorite Sermons.
See this particular Sermon is a chance for us to look back at the year and see how we did as a church, and then to see how we can do better, we can always do better.
When we say that it sounds cliche right, just do better, but this morning should be an honest assessment of how things went
Which is why we set goals and monitor them so we see how we are doing
Most of you know how the State of the Church Address works
For those of you who are new or this is your first time
We will share how we did last year in some areas of ministry, and then we will look to 2023 and begin to share some goals and share our verse for 2023
If you will recall last year we shared our years verse for Maranatha Baptist Fellowship was
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
For most of you, you know this to be the Great Commission
For us last year we focused on this being our verse, it gave us direction
Our focus last year was on the Gospel and Discipleship, so much that last year we focused our sermons what Jesus taught
If we are to supposed to share with people what Jesus taught then we had better know what Jesus taught
So we went through the Parables of Jesus
As we go through last year let me highlight for you some numbers
Yes numbers are important
So important it is a book in the Bible
So Last Year our average attendance for Sunday School was 66 which slightly up
Our average attendance for Big Church was 90 which was slightly down
During Big Church we sang 335 songs!!!
That is awesome church, might I just add that there is room for more people in Sunday School and Big Church
We have Sunday School classes for all ages
You may think the nursery doesn’t do anything, even in the nursery church they are studying the Bible
Then we have 3 grade classes that are in the Answers in Genesis curriculum which takes 4 years to get through
Then we have a Youth Sunday School class that goes through different books of the Bible
We have a young adults Sunday School class, we have a career adults Sunday School class and then our Seasoned Citizens
Sunday School is a great opportunity to grow
We had some amazing times last year
Vacation Bible School saw an average attendance of
Children - 47
Adults - 36
Youth - 18
Average Each night - 102
During VBS we saw 10 Decisions
7 - Salvations
1 Rededication
1 Vocational Service
1 Other
Well done church
Prior to VBS Maranatha Baptist Fellowship spent a bunch of Sunday Afternoons in the Montara Neighborhood
We spent 6 weeks prayer walking through the neighborhoods, for the first 3 weeks it was strictly prayer walking, we even had to tell some people that it was just prayer walking because they were ready to talk to people about Jesus and invite them to church.
The last 3 weeks were devoted to prayer walking and sharing the Gospel with anyone we could, and handing out a number of invitations to Vacation Bible School and our Block Party
We had our Block Party on one of the hottest days of the year
During the Block Party we saw about 40 from the community come out and we were able to talk with and invite to VBS
Church we were seen in the community, some areas to do better are on follow up
Some of you ask what that looks like, it looks like when we get information about people interested in or visiting or people who have made decisions of faith to go back the next week or the week after and meeting with them
It is time for us to do some follow up church
Our Youth Group has been busy busy busy
They had the opportunity to memorized 17 verses last year
They took 12 and served at Camp Barnabas
They took 29 to Super Summer
The Youth Group as a whole went through 3 Books of the Bible
They served with Puppets a number of times at VBS, Christmas Vacation
Jess and Darlene have created a puppet ministry through our students who I think enjoy serving in that capacity
The Youth raised 11,098.64 in total donations to send those kids and leaders to the different camps.
Our AWANA Program that runs on Wednesday Night at 6pm is off and running
We average about 30-35 kids each Wednesday Night, and I know they are memorizing verse.
What is cool is during counsel time, these kids are learning to share the Gospel, so much they are taking the wordless book they learn about in Sparks to school so they can share it their friends and class mates.
We have implanted a heart for the Gospel that TNT has memorized the Roman Road verses, and a few weeks ago those same TNTers are asking God to give them the courage to share the Gospel
We tried something new in 2022
Maranatha Christmas Vacation a vision of Darlene Bluvan, she prayed about and spoke with other people and began to run with it.
It was 3 nights in December, we had 67 night 1, 56 night 2, and 62 night 3.
Well done church that is so exciting to see the church stepping out in faith and trying something new
Church we even sent a mission team to Colombia to work with Mike and Tisha Jones.
They were able to meet with the ladies of the community and encourage them.
They were even able to prayer walk a piece of land that will someday have a church building on it!
A church who would have thought a small church in little Topeka, KS would have a hand in planting a church in a whole other country
Our Men’s Ministry has continued to meet on Thursday Nights and to do Bible Study
Our Women’s Ministry has also been meeting on Thursday Night to do Bible Study, they also had their Women’s Christmas Dinner
And they scheduled some get together’s to fellowship with each other.
In Total we brought in 243,965.46 Dollars and we spent 218,701.96 Dollars
That means we brought in 26,263.50 dollars more than we spent
We brought in 3500 for Annie Armstrong which is for those doing ministry in the North America
We brought in 4090 for the Lottie Moon Christmas offering which is for those doing ministry outside of North America
Praise the Lord Church!!
We saw 21 Total Salvations
We saw 20 new members join this local Body of Believers
Last year I set a goal to have 20 baptisms for the church
We did not meet that goal, we had 16 Baptisms
But church we had 16 baptisms!!!!
How cool is that
Please don’t hang your head that we only had 16 baptisms, but Praise the Lord we had 16 baptisms
Our goal for 2023 will be 20 baptisms, and to do that church it will require more and better follow up as we continue to share the Gospel
Those are the numbers
Lets just say it, obviously we can do better
Those are the numbers, and they are just that
Numbers
Just like a book in the Bible
We do not live and die by the numbers
We have seen more than number growth
We have seen people join the church
We have seen people get saved and get baptized
We have seen other people boldly sharing the Gospel with those in their personal lives and during praise time they are able to share with us how they prayed to receive Christ
We have seen soul growth here at Maranatha Baptist Fellowship
Most of us have gone through some extreme difficulties
And because of that I have seen you grow in your own personal walks with Christ
I pray you continue your own growth in Christ
I know that God will continue use Maranatha Baptist Fellowship to be a light in this dark world
As we look to 2023
It will require work and commitment
I told you it is important to set goals so you can look back and see what you can do better
Because the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over expecting different results
Ministry Leaders again I want to encourage to set some goals for your ministry for 2023
If you will recall last year we had a verse and we have shared that this morning this year will be no different.
In looking to this next year I attended a Bi-Vocational Pastor Sermon Prep get together
And part of that was having a verse for the coming year and the other part of it was planning out your sermons for the year or quarters or by months
It served to help me in my sermon planning and prep and confirm in me the verse we have for this year
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
I told you this year would require some work in your own life.
These verse should tell it all
We will talk more about this verse next week as we dig into it some more
But the big thing for us out of that verse is to have no other Gods or gods, either big G or little g gods.
I think in the churches today we have allowed idols to pop up and I know for certain even as believers we have allowed idols to pop up in our lives and sometimes we do such a good job of justifying
These verses are a call to remove the idols in your own life
To prayerfully examine your own life and see if there are idols in there and then remove them, all of them.
Next year we have a budget of 220,000
that may require you to look at what you give to the church and it may mean that to remove an idol in your life you need to give more to the church
Or it may mean that if you don’t give to the church you need to start
We have a goal of 20 baptisms
Church let me break this down for us this morning
This is not just 20 people we want to dunk
These are 20 people we want to see come to salvation and to see discipled to and through baptism
That would mean that you will need to remove the idol of me time and spend time with other people
Or spend time working on, practicing, and dare I say it sharing the Gospel with people who are around you
Church there are quite a few names on the 1 in the back
For us to accomplish our goal of 20 baptisms it may mean that you go and find that name that you wrote on that card and seek that person out and begin to talk with them and share the Lord with them.
For us to reach our goal of 20 baptisms it will mean that more than 5-10 people show up when we do evangelism training or the different outreach events
For us to reach that goal of 20 baptisms it will mean more follow up
It will mean reaching out to those visitors, to those people we make contact with at our outreach events, it will mean making contact with those people who make decisions and meeting with them after and encouraging them in their decision.
It will mean inviting them to Bible Study and Sunday School, dare I say it but not giving them an option to not show up, which will mean as you do the follow up, you may need to start to attend Bible Study and Sunday School yourself
Church I am so excited about what God will do in our church when we remove the idols, and I am so excited about what God will do in your own life when you remove the idols in your own life and Make Jesus the number 1 priority in your own life.
Now as we close this State of the Church Address out this morning, I would invite you and call you to move into groups and begin to pray for the things listed on the screen.
CLOSING
PRAYER LIST
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;
Government
Church Leadership
Church Ministry Leaders
Passion to KNOW God
Growth in your own personal relationship with Jesus
Church Ministries
As the band plays softly, I would ask that you begin to pray in your groups for these things. When we are finished we will gather together and sing and be dismissed.