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Pastor's Page

Posted on November 16, 2006 ...

After the close of this Sunday evening's worship time there will be an extension of our November business meeting to consider two important items in the life of our church. First, the Stewardship Committee will present their proposed 2007 church operating budget. The 2007 proposed budget features several distinctions:

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ It is almost identical to the total of our current 2006 Budget.
?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ It is within the range of our current budget giving.
?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ It increases gifts to the Cooperative Program over $5,000.00 by raising the percent of our undesignated gifts going to this mission cause to 15%.
?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ It creates a new line item that will help us address long-term maintenance needs of our facilities.

Following this item, our agenda will then turn to a formal proposal from our Building Study Committee. Two Sunday nights ago they unveiled their plans. Last Sunday night an informative and healthy time of dialogue took place in our Annex. While diverse thought and opinion was shared regarding some specific items within their facility proposals, the overall goals and provisions within the plan were well received. Thus, the Building Study Committee has chosen to propose the adoption of their plan without major amendments from the way it was originally presented.

On several occasions it was said that this was a consensus proposal representing a collective set of opinions. Thus, this proposal probably contains some specific items that may not be in complete agreement with our individual preferences. However, I urge us all to look at the plan as a whole and focus upon the many positive improvements it can bring to our campus: centralizing our office area, improving our preschool facilities, creating classrooms for students and adults, and providing a large space for student worship, recreation, and church-wide fellowships.


One of my favorite Southern Baptist words is cooperation. (As noted above, we call the way we fund our denominational missions, The Cooperative Program.) By definition, cooperation is the ability of diverse people to work together. Functioning as a healthy team requires coordinating our efforts toward the common benefit, willingness to compromise, and remembering "the big picture." As a pastor deeply committed to the welfare of this church, I hope that on Sunday night our church family will choose to cooperate and work together by adopting the Building Study Committee's proposal. Jay