CHANGING MY HOME CHURCH
I have been a member of Mesquite Bible Church www.mesquitebible.org for about two years. And I am in the process of changing my membership to Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCPC) www.pcpc.org
Next weekend I will attend the Intro to PCPC Classes. This is the time they give an overview of what they believe and how they practice their faith.
I know several coworkers and students at the seminary where I am employed that are members at PCPC. One of the biggest differences between a Bible Church and a Presbyterian church is dispensation verses covenant theology. I will be exploring those issues. Several people on the staff of PCPC are DTS grads so somehow they have made peace with that issue.
REASONS
When I informed my pastor and small group members of my change I mentioned these main reasons EVANGELISM, BENEVOLENCE, . ENTREPRENEURIAL, DONORS and SMALL GROUP.
EVANGELISM
After Hurricane Katrina there was a huge out pouring of help from believers and unbelievers alike. For more than a month after the incident I was all over the web researching what needed to be done and what was happening in the DFW area as well as along the Gulf Coast. There was chaos and confusion all over the place. I book marked more than 300 sites that presented parts of the overall solution. I created an initial web site to serve as a networking hub and information clearinghouse www.OurResponse.org
When I examined many dozens of church web sites during that month only TWO indicated that this was divine opportunity to ALSO share the gospel message. One of those was in Mobile Alabama and the other was PCPC. I had signed up on the PCPC site
http://www.pcpcrelief.org/ to volunteer. I was invited to attend a training for those they were matching in a 4 to 1 ratio with screened evacuee families. The importance of gracefully presenting the gospel was mentioned repeatedly. In the welcome kits there was a full Bible and an Evangecube
http://www.evangecube.org God used me to bring a few hundred gospels of John called Living Water to add to the gifts www.livingwater.org
All the Bible churches were silent on this critical topic. I felt hurt then but in hindsight I am not shocked. I have talked several times with the professor of evangelism and professor of missions at the seminary. I have felt deep pains that those who know so much about the Bible and theology make such a small application of what the Word clearly says. I met with these two men when I was at my lowest points. This was a few times a year for six years. I do not recall anything they said that helped change my outlook or attitude. They just said this is the way it is.
I fully expected that it would take many months before we reached the state of peace and stability for the evacuees we have today. That work was not lost. That is just a rough sketch of all that will be needed in the wake of the future hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, mudslides and tsunamis. From that came the resurrection of the concept to send out quarterly CDs. I will work with volunteers who will go back to those 300 sites and develop more width and depth to the ministry.
In the Sunday school class I visited they had several phone stations set up to take inbound calls for an evangelism ministry called Need Him
http://www.needhimresources.com I know that any church of individual can be set up to take calls forwarded to them from people that are seeking answers to spiritual questions. Need Him offers great training for free. They always need more volunteers. I have helped to promote this ministry before and most churches that are approached by them never do anything.
BENEVOLENCE
I have been working diligently for many years to prepare ways to take biblical Christianity to cyberspace in a way that is innovative, interactive and collaborative. Evangelism has been a part of that mix. Partly the web links can be used to answer the various questions that seekers have. Also it can be used to equip believers to communicate more clearly with those they know personally. For example apologetics is a complicated and critical subject needed in reaching the younger generation. Very few churches teach these lessons and the seminary offers very little contrasted to the scope of the entire field. Yet there are dozens of sites that have done an excellent job addressing one part.
Discipleship is also a huge and complex field. I have hundreds of pages of notes and outlines that will become part of the guts of the interactive web sites. The user will not see this. But the web designers and programmers need this kind of input to craft an excellent site.
Along the way I kept bumping into what I call biblical benevolence. I have collected dozens of Bible verses that I believe are applicable to New Testament believers. However I have rarely heard them taught or preached. I have less often seen the verses applied on an individual or church wide basis. For several months I would spend my Sunday afternoons invested in collecting and organizing these verses. Then I began to write an essay. It keeps getting wider and deeper. I am not yet ready to release it.
Before Hurricane Katrina I would mention this to anyone that would listen. I got some nodding heads from seminary students and seasoned church members. But no one could explain why it was so absent in our collective or individual expression of faith.
When there was a massive outpouring of help after Katrina and later Rita I rejoiced deep inside my soul. At last I was witnessing what the Bible said. There were one million people displaced. Tens of thousands of these came to DFW Metroplex. My hope was that in the coming months Christians can at last learn how to share their material goods in the name of Jesus. But what I did not expect was for president Bush to get he congress to come up with so many billion dollars so fast.
The shelters were emptied fairly quickly. The people moved into apartments and trailers funded by FEMA. The needs for food and clothes dissolved fast. For a few weeks there was a call for furniture. Then there was no more call for help. So the Bible churches shut down operations. Yet PCPC continues to help. They are calling for coats and warm clothes. They are gradually phasing out the assistance from the host families. They have a concert scheduled for the evacuees and host families. And they are sending work teams to the impacted area. Partly they can do all this due to their size but mostly it is their heart. I know of huge Bible churches that have zero follow through.
And PCPC set up a warehouse in cooperation with a Baptist church and a liberal Presbyterian church. That screamed volumes to me. I have never understood why Christians would not cross denominational lines for such common community projects.
Before I considered not only changing my church membership but also my denominational affiliation I explored the church’s site and their mother denomination site.
http://www.pcanet.org/ this was to make sure this was normal for them and it is. They call it mercy ministry instead of what I call benevolence.
What I found locally is an on-going outreach to West Dallas
http://www.pcpcmissions.org/wdf/ and other community outreaches
http://www.pcpcmissions.org/communityoutreach/aboutco.asp What I found nationally is Mission to North America Disaster Response
http://www.pca-mna.org/disasterministries/disaster.htm this is how they respond to all kinds of disasters. And there are other mercy ministries
http://www.pca-mna.org/mercy%20ministries/mercy.htm What I found internationally is Street Child
http://www.streetchildinternational.org/ medical missions
http://tinyurl.com/978nq It is now my hope that as I mention the importance of including benevolence (mercy) with evangelism on the brand new web platform I will get more than blank stares and nodding heads.
ENTREPRENEURIAL
I get the sense that the many of the members and leaders of PCPC have more of an entrepreneurial mindset than where I was a member before. Most middle class folks seem to somehow make ends meet from month to month. But they rarely consider the long term or big picture. However if a person owns a business or has considerable investments then they must look beyond the short term.
What I need in the short term and long term is advisors. I am in the process of pioneering a work in cyberspace that is unlike anything that exists today www.fourbridges.org . In many ways I am like William Carey who pioneered missions in India and Hudson Taylor who pioneered missions in China.
There is no person that I can model or follow. But I can call upon those who have experience and education in key disciplines like Strategic Planning, Project Management, Fund Raising, Curriculum Design, Web Development, Database Management and Volunteer Management. I have a web site just for advisors and consultants
http://4badvisorsconsultants.homestead.com/ My dream is to have enough budget to hire top quality consultants to address key problems and questions. And then take their recommendations to an active Board of Advisors who will work with the paid staff, many volunteer teams and me. We pray, share and take the consultants excellent inputs to make them into a reality.
I need interaction with advisors. My leadership style is collaborative.
Then with their advice the large and small donations to the ministry will follow. For example I have struggled for many years to write a business plan for the ministry. I have dozens of guidelines and many partial drafts. But there has never been a document that could be mistaken for a real business plan yet. A large part of a business plan is the budget. During this start-up phase there is no track record of previous donations and expenses to use. This is a pioneering work so there is no other ministry budget to adapt.
My game plan today is to go out on the fund raising trail very soon. I will take my passion, vision and plans. I shall tell the initial donors that part of their money will go to hire a consultant to help craft the initial business plan. That document can be used by God to more easily persuade the next round of donors to give generously.
But that is not the end of the story. I have always wanted to have a dynamic document at the hub of the operations. This will be frequently revised and improved. It will be used to help us enroll and coordinate with various others over the Internet. I cannot afford the hire
DONORS
God has provided me with two accountability partners that I have talked with seperately and at length several times a month for years. They know all about the ministry and my personal challenges. Along the way the topic of finding a home church has been discussed.
As I consider why others choose a home church, the reasons include good preaching, good teaching, good worship, good fellowship, opportunities to minister, seeking a spouse, good programs for children, etc. Yet none those appeal to me today. Thankfully God has granted me plenty of friends and an abundance of opportunities to minister. During the last thirty years of study I have a fairly good foundation for my faith. And I invest many hours a week with a variety of spiritual inputs. I do not depend on a few minutes on Sunday morning for all my spiritual food for the week. Worship is wonderful. But for many years I have been stuck in the same rut.
It has gotten to where I hate to hear myself say that the next goal is to raise 40 thousand dollars for launch the ministry. There many ways to keep it funded after it gets going. I have attended dozens of fund raising lunches and seminars over the years. I kept the handouts. My challenge is to apply what I know.
Most of the fund raising seminars were for those secular people that worked full time for hospitals, museums, universities, private schools, etc. They said that when a nonprofit needs to make a major addition to the infrastructure like a building, computer lab, major medical machine, etc that is when it is wisest to approach the major donors. These few people are the ones that write large checks to take the enterprise to the next level.
I have known to do that for many years. You may be tired of reading about this. But deep inside I am frightened. I am at the season of my life that I MUST face my fears and just do it.
This particular church is very large and it is located in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of the region. For example across the street for the church was the Mercedes Benz dealership that also sold Rolls Royce. These people have the means to write large checks without it hurting their lifestyle. I need to make it my business to get to know them and to let them get to know me. Sooner than later the initial funds will be raised. Then Four Bridges will begin to take shape by way of the quarterly CDs and web platform.
Then on another level it is important in this season of my life to get to know personally what wealthy Christians like and dislike in terms of appeals to donate to nonprofits. I have some preconceptions but these are based on speculation and rumor.
I need to talk with those who can contribute much into the kingdom of God and are willing to do that. This relates to how I will design and operate the Four Bridges Ministry. Over the last six years I have come to know dozens of international seminary students and those that are preparing to go into missions work. These wonderful people spend most of their time and energy keeping up with their studies. They do not understand the basics of fund raising. I have helped many to prepare their first newsletter.
Long ago God led me to set up a web site just for major donors
http://majordonors.homestead.com/ SMALL GROUP
This is a mega church so I know from previous experiences that it is critical to get connected into a suitable Sunday school class and small group. I am in the process of seeking these. And quickly along this journey I came across Men’s Fraternity
http://pcpcmensfraternity.com/about/ They meet early Monday mornings and have a small group as part of the way to deal with mens issues. I have only attended a few times but I have greatly enjoyed it.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
jso123's journal