7/9/24 - Staff Meeting

Visitors & Prayer Requests

Visitors

Christy Smith - came foreward to candidate for church membership

Elizabeth - Came forward to candidate for church membership

Katelyn and Hunter Hall - Parent’s class - both received Christ and will set up a date for baptism next. They will be part of Discovery class and then dedicate their son Braxton

Christy Smith - came forward to candidate for church membership

Elizabeth - Came forward to candidate for church membership

Katelyn and Hunter Hall - Parent’s class - both received Christ and will set up a date for baptism next. They will be part of Discovery class and then dedicate their son Braxton

Prayer Requests

Blake Taylor - having second chemo treatment this week

Fred Peck - looking for a bone marrow donor and possibly moving to Durham for the three months it takes to have the procedure

Arlie & Billie Heflin - health issues. Some kind of hives

Family of Roy Clark - James Cotten’s Uncle

Sammy Jo’s grandparents having surgery this week (and it’s her birthday on Wednesday)

George Montford - Stage four cancer in hospice

Sara Hill’s cousin Beth - having health issues

Khmer People & Turkish Speaking people - Praying for churches to adopt these people, reach them for the gospel

Jain People group - praying for a church to be a base of operation for us to help reach them in Cary

Blake Taylor - having second chemo treatment this week

Fred Peck - looking for a bone marrow donor and possibly moving to Durham for the three months it takes to have the procedure

Arlie & Billie Heflin - health issues. Some kind of hives

Family of Roy Clark - James Cotten’s Uncle

Sammy Jo’s grandparents having surgery this week (and it’s her birthday on Wednesday)

George Montford - Stage four cancer in hospice

Sara Hill’s cousin Beth - having health issues

Khmer People & Turkish Speaking people - Praying for churches to adopt these people, reach them for the gospel

Jain People group - praying for a church to be a base of operation for us to help reach them in Cary

Lead - Chapter 2 - Gospel

Principle 2 - If your leaders are going to be tools of God’s grace, they need to be committed to nurturing that grace in one another’s lives

If you have given yourself to building people, you have accepted the call to suffer for the sake of the gospel

The church is filled with immature people

No leader is ever fully matured either

God knows that every person we minister to is a person in process

The hardship, messiness, and unpredictability of ministry is God’s workroom of grace

Healthy ministry communities which leave a legacy of long-term gospel productivity, have longevity and fruit because they are, at their core, communities of grace.

How to be a Gospel Functioning Community

A Gospel Community is Nurturing

No leader, no matter how successful or prominent, is free from the need to be nurtured.

Every leader needs to have his heart, life, and ministry firmly planted in the right-now nutrients of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so that he gets his identity, meaning, and purpose, inner peace, and sense of calling from the gospel.

Even though he is a leader, just like the garden plant that looks healthy but continues to need to be watered, so every leader, no matter how influential and spiritually mature, needs ongoing spiritual care from the community of leaders that surround him.

Hebrews 10:19–25 ESV

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

starting with Chapter 11 - this is populated by people who, no matter what they are facing, have an unwavering confidence in the presence, power, and promised of the one who sent them

At the center of the nurturing work of a spiritually healthy and productive leadership community is not a plan, but a person, Jesus.

As leaders, we don’t just work to develop cooperation with and confidence in one another along with functional unity, but we work to draw one another ever nearer to the Savior.

IT is love for Jesus that has the power to crush leader pride

Would you say that ours is a community that has nurtured our growth in grace and therefore our gospel productivity?

A Gospel Community is Honest

James 5:15–16 ESV

15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Does the thought of leaders regularly confessing their faults to one another, so that they may receive the rescue of the powerful prayers of their fellow leaders, sound radical or impractical to you?

There is sin in every church and ministry community, because sin still resides in the heart of every leader

So we either deny our sin to ourselves and hiding it from others, or we are admitting its presence to ourselves and confessing it to others.

We need to have a leadership community that is characterized by forgiveness and fervent prayer.

If we are afraid to confess sin before what should be the most spiritually mature community in the church, we are living in a state of gospel amnesia.

Do we fear being honest about our sin, weaknesses, and failures, and if so, what changes do we need to make?

A Gospel Community is Humble

Perhaps one of the most dangerous, yet seductive, temptations to pride in leaders is the desire to appear to fellow leaders and those they lead as being more righteous than they actually are.

Humility is a fruit of the rule of the gospel in your life.

The gospel doesn’t work to make you independent and self-reliant, but willingly dependent on God and the community of grace He has placed around you.

2 Corinthians 1:8–11 ESV

8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 11 You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

Is our leadership community known for its humility?

A Gospel Community is Patient

James 5:7–11 ESV

7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

Impatience in a leadership community will again and again put that community in the way of, rather than being a part of, what God is doing in their lives and the lives they are called to lead.

In order to achieve our ministry goals, many things over which we have no control over need to fall into place.

How has impatience interfered with the ministry work God has called your leadership community to do?

A Gospel Community is Forgiving

We all still struggle with sin and are still growing in grace

at some point everyone will disappoint you

We must deal with the sin, weakness or failure with forgiveness and restorative wisdom.

Forgiveness should not be confused with permissiveness

Paul begins these verses with a call to speak the truth

Permissiveness means that you love yourself more than the other person and don’t want to go through the hassle of tense and awkward moments that might result if we lovingly speak the truth in that wrong

Is forgiveness producing the good fruit of personal growth and relational unity in our leadership community?

A Gospel Community is Encouraging

A Gospel Community is Protective

Hebrews 3:12–14 ESV

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

We protect each other from spiritual blindness

When we see one of us headed in a bad direction, we should be humbly approachable to other leaders that want to help us avoid something we may not be able to see without getting defensive

It’s all in how we communicate these things

communicate without being accusatory

A Gospel Community is Restorative

James 5:19–20 ESV

19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

Sunday Review

AM Service

Overflow is now fixed. There was a power plug that fried

Parent’s meeting went very well

PM Service

Let’s look at a date to start the new Sunday Evening Push

my suggestion would be the evening of September 15 (Vision Sunday)

This gives me an opportunity to push Sunday evening in the service

Events

This Week (and next)

7/9 - 1-4PM Pool Day for families

6:30 PM Admin

Quarterly budget report

Investment Fund Motion

Facilities use form

7/11 - Conference Call with Subsplash for Onboarding 11:30 AM / Missions (6pm)

7/12 - VBS Decorating

7/14 - VBS Volunteer Meeting 11AM

7/15-19 - SLU 201 - No staff meeting next week

7/16 - Baptist Men

7/20 - Choir Rehearsal / VBS Decorating

7/21 - Luke Preaching AM / Church Council (11:00 am) / Member Meeting (6:00 PM)

Sunday evening will be a time of prayer for VBS

7/22-25 - VBS

Upcoming Events

7/28 - VBS Showcase / Luke on vacation

7/29 - Homeschool Registration

8/2 - Sutherland Rehearsal

8/3 - Serve NC / Sutherland Wedding

8/10 - Ride to Recovery

8/12 - Chuck Lawless Discipleship Course

8/18 - Discovery Class

8/20 -Baptist Men

8/22 - Southeastern Move-In Day / Men's Gathering

8/24 - Choir Rehearsal

9/8 - First Responders Sunday

9/16-17 - Engaging Exposition Conference - SEBTS

9/20-21 - Ladies Retreat

9/25 - SYATP

10/6-10/8 - NC Chaplains Conference

10/12 - Church Clean Up

10/13 - Homecoming

10/11-13 - Global Missions Celebration

10/14-10/17 - BGEA Law Enforcement Chaplains Training

11/3-5 - NC Baptist Annual Meeting

12/13 - Choir rehearsal/party

12/15 - Christmas Cantata