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| Greetings! |
Our son called from California with some happy news a few days ago. Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever heard him this excited and so peaceful at the same time. Our conversation was rich and deep. He had only been back home on the Left Coast for a week after coming here in time for his sister's graduation and staying through Christmas.
Now and again we write things or say things that catch us a bit off guard. Jonathan's home is in California now, not upstairs in our house. He comes to our house for visits now. I'm pretty sure I was not ready to think those thoughts this morning.
Our Baby Girl is now a college graduate. Later this year, she will begin the great adventure that is law school. While we would love for her to attend a nearby law school, she is applying both near and far. She could end up on either the east coast or the west. Who knows where she will go from there.
One of my aunts died right after Christmas. I was asked to speak at her funeral. What a privilege it would have been to do so. However, one of our Christmas guests brought the influenza bug with him and it jumped on me. I had to leave the hospital while my father was in surgery because I became quite ill and did not want to infect him, my mom, or anyone else.
Life is a moving target. We never quite arrive at a steady state, not at least until our bones rest in peace beneath headstones and green grass.
We have a new year with 358 days remaining as of this writing to celebrate life and living. A dear departed friend said we should give our flowers to the living. I want to remember that every day. Let me begin with these bouquets:
Happy birthday, Jonathan! Every man has his own story and his own journey. Yours is more thrilling than most. The things you have overcome, the places you've been, the experiences you have (mostly) enjoyed are thrilling. No one would believe them all if they were written as a novel. How proud your mother and I are of the officer, gentleman, and leader you have become. I look forward to celebrating the upcoming big events with you.
Congratulations to Gary Crowell on this thirteenth anniversary with TBA as of January 1. Gary is man with sharp pencils and a diligent work ethic. He arrives early, stays late, and labors long to make sure financial and legal matters are administered appropriately. This past year he took the lead in our work with international people groups and refugees. He is also extending his work with churches in the areas of ministers' taxes and legacy giving.
Congratulations to Jay Harris on his fifteenth anniversary with TBA as of January 17. Jay added to his church starting, coaching, and prayer ministries this past year by leading a group of churches through the Church Unique process. His quick wit and tender heart endear him to all who know him.
Congratulations to Becky Biser who celebrates thirty-three years with TBA as of February 1. The first thing you notice about Becky is her smile. A hug generally follows that. A kick in the pants is not unheard of. She is one of the most tenacious people I know when it comes to knowing God and doing what he says. She is a leader of leaders.
Who will you celebrate today? Who needs your bouquets?
With gratitude,
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Pastors' Conference and Executive Board
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Pastors' Conference and Executive Board Schedule
January 12- Dr. Wesley Shotwell, Ash Creek Baptist Church
January 19- No Meeting (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)
January 26- Executive Board
All Meetings, unless otherwise noted, will be held at Cornerstone Assistance Network in the Creation Cafe (3500 Noble Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76111). Lunch is $7.00 at the door.
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Renovations Aren't For Sissies
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Renovations Aren't For Sissies
By Becky Biser
I remember ten years ago when we renovated our kitchen at our home. That was hard, but the outcome was worth all the mess and dust. Now the Association office is undergoing extreme renovations. Demolition is over, new walls have been built and now walls and floors are being prepared for painting, new tile, new cabinets, and new carpet. The old antiquated heating and air conditioning unit is gone, new duct work is being installed, and we are without heat at the writing of this article. We are being told that will change in the next few days and we will once again have heat. However, without heat, I want more coffee, and that isn't a good thing when you have to go next door to the LifeWay Bookstore to use a restroom.
As you can tell, renovations are not for sissies.
That is the same way for us as individuals. When we want to make renovations in our relationships, in our overall health, or in our churches, it takes a plan and perseverance. The hopes of a much better outcome should drive us to continue.
What are the renovations you want for 2015? How will you get there? Who can help you?
Spiritual Renovations:
Hearing God Retreats have been planned throughout the year to help make space for you to spend with God. The first retreat is January 15-16 at Riverbend Retreat Center. The retreat will begin at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 15 and end at noon on Friday, January 16. The cost is $50 and includes a private room, dinner and breakfast. This is a retreat. You will have two large blocks of time to spend with the Lord, sleeping and/or taking a walk. You will be guided through some Bible readings and other readings to help you connect with the Lord. If you are interested, please contact Becky Biser at becky@tarrantbaptist.org or sign up online here.
Ministry, Health and Leadership Renovations:
re:FOCUS - Ever feel like you are on a ministry treadmill? It never stops. You feel isolated. You are exhausted and running on fumes. Jesus set the example to get away, get quiet and focus on God. Come join a cohort of other ministers and go on a two year journey together focusing on God, making disciples and what that means in your setting. This journey will involve four two day retreats, monthly peer group meetings and group reading assignments. If this is something you have thought about, don't wait, be a part. Start the renovations. The next journey begins March 19-21 at Riverbend Retreat Center. We will start with dinner at 6:00 p.m. Thursday and end Saturday at noon. The cost is $125 and includes lodging, meals, snacks and materials.
Church Unique Vision co::Lab
Based on the concepts of Church Unique, the process will equip you to rethink vision, develop as a missional leader and communicate with stunning clarity. The purpose of the co::Lab is to train and equip church leaders to assess, articulate and align their church around a clear vision for their church.Each church brings their pastor and up to 3 members of their team, maximizing the practical, take-home value of collaboration. Begins January 20- Register Today!
Professional Coach Training - Needing some new communication skills to make a bigger impact in the lives of others? You can renovate your listening skills along with other skills to help others achieve their goals through coach training. You will learn to listen on multiple levels. To hear what is not being said. To ask powerful questions that will peel back layers to get at the heart of what is holding others back in their lives. These "Ah Ha!" moments are empowering. Perhaps getting their health under control has been a challenge all of their lives. Or, perhaps when they meet barriers they give up. Want to help them succeed? If this is something you would like to be able to do, then make plans now to attend Modules 1 & 2 of Professional Coach Training the week of March 23-27 at the Tarrant Baptist Association office. Click here to register.
Ministers' Tax Seminar
The Ministers' Tax Seminar on February 19 from 11:00am - 2:00pm is your chance to get an overview of the nuances and intricacies of filing the federal income tax return for those who qualify as a minister for tax purposes. There are many pluses and pitfalls that figure into the preparation of returns for this special category of taxpayers. The cost of $10 includes lunch and the opportunity to get answers to all your questions about this important topic. Legacy Giving Dialogue The Legacy Giving Dialogue on February 28 from 9am-noon is a unique opportunity for those who wish to make current decisions about their resources that can bless generations now and yet to come. There will be an overview of Kingdom investment options that will be informative and beneficial. Expect to leave with answers to to your questions and a plan to take decisive action in this critical area of estate planning.
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Bookmarks
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What do you want to be when you grow up? Children are asked that question all the time. This is a question that never really gets old. It is relevant long into our adult lives. It may well feel urgent to you right now. Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten years? At retirement?
Last summer I walked through a process called LifePlan. I read Tom Paterson's book, Living the Life You Were Meant to Live in preparation for two days of perspective and planning with one of the finest facilitators I've ever met. Doug Slaybaugh is the organizational genius who made Purpose Driven a household name.
Living the Life You Were Meant to Live is a deeply introspective and spiritual book. Within its pages are nine modules that help us gain perspective on how we arrived at our current situations in life. Once we've wrestled with the past, we can then begin plotting our path forward. This is where strategic planning meets real life on a personal or family level.
One of the tools in the book is Four Helpful Lists. Take a sheet of paper and create four vertical columns. At the top of each column, write one of these questions: What is Right (Optimize), What is Wrong (Change), What is Confused (Clarify), and What is Missing (Add). Assess your personal life, your family life, your church, and your community with these questions.
Once you have gathered these insights, ask yourself three questions: What do you want more of or less of? What's stopping you? What one thing can you do this week that will get you at least fifty percent toward your goal? This is a tool that will serve you well in many different settings.
 This is a great book to read at the beginning of the New Year. It will help you focus on what matters most. You will take a good, long look at your life and your future. You will gain assistance in putting together the big picture you see yourself in someday. Once you read the book, you may want to work with a facilitator to complete your LifePlan. This is a new service we offer. Give me a call for more details.
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Generosity Lifestyle - Show Some Attitude
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Show Some Attitude
This is the final of eleven articles that I have written for the Challenge starting in early 2014 that deal with the generosity lifestyle. Each one of these articles has addressed one truth about living life from this perspective. If you would like to have a compilation of all eleven articles in one document, please write frontdesk@tarrantbaptist.org and we will be glad to send it to you.
My wife is a grade school assistant principal in the Fort Worth ISD. It seems like the majority of stories she comes home telling have something to do with young kids who have way too much "tude" for their age. They need adults in their lives to help them adjust that attitude when it gets out of line. She has had the opportunity to introduce scores of little ones to what this looks like.
The truth is that many of us as Christ-follower adults of all ages need to have a more accurate way of thinking when it comes to what constitutes a generosity lifestyle attitude of giving. It goes far beyond the level of cognition or head attitude. It deals more specifically with an attitude of the heart. In many cultures, including the Hebrew, the heart is considered the center of the soul or being of a person. This is particularly enlightening when we discover that the giving that most honors God emanates from this very source. Practicing a generosity lifestyle just naturally flows from the essence of those who have developed and perhaps even refined this "art" of giving from the heart.
Listen to the Apostle Paul as he writes to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 9:6-15:
Generosity Encouraged
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written:
"They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever."
Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
This is a timeless message that should encourage and inspire us as Christ-followers in the 21st century. Great personal life satisfaction comes from walking with an attitude of generosity in all aspects of our daily existence. God's moving in our world is multiplied and people are blessed when we have the right attitude of the heart about investing in eternity starting right now. I pray that each of us might enrich and sharpen our generosity practices in 2015.
Gary L. Crowell, CPA, CCA, ACC
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Vision 2020, Really?
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Vision 2020, Really?
--Jay Harris
 I'll bet the most over used visioning and demographic title now and in the next 5 years is something like "Vision 2020". It's already getting old. But it is here! Five years from now is the year 2020! How are you preparing for this bright future? Last week with the introduction of the new year came the Percept Group 2015 update of the Ministry Area Profile, the most valuable and used custom demographic ministry tool of our day. This study of your ministry area is a usual $300 expense but through your association you can secure one or multiple studies at no cost to you! Many of our new church starts as well as established churches have used these MAPs this past year. It helps you understand your community, the needs therein and how you might minister to those needs, impacting your immediate world for Christ. The great thing about the 2015 update, besides the fact that it is the latest info, is that it projects growth and trends into the next five years, to 2020! As you look into the future and seek God's rich direction take advantage of these amazing tools made available to you as part of the Tarrant Baptist Association:
1. Check out Church Unique co::Labs and consults, provided buy your TBA staff who are certified Auxano navigators;
2. Avail yourself to the coaching skills and relationships of your TBA staff who are all certified leadership coaches with the International Coach Federation; and
3. Become a ravenous student of your ministry area by ordering one or more custom Ministry Area Profiles of your community. 2015 looks to be awesome in God's Kingdom work! The next five years, "Wow! What possibilities!" Let's work together as God's team! |
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App of the Month - Slack
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I arrived Monday to an office without heat. My desk is a folding table. All of my resources are boxed up and stored somewhere. The construction noise made it impossible to think. The dust and odors of painting supplies made breathing a challenge. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time working in that atmosphere.
For the next month, our staff is going to work from multiple locations while the renovations continue. Google's office apps are making life easier. Evernote and Dropbox make file sharing a snap. However, it is now impossible to pop across the hall or around the corner for a quick conversation. Texting helps, but it is not suitable for sharing documents and files.
Enter a relatively new app called Slack. Slack provides real-time chat, collaboration, and file sharing. Conversations can be as broad as a team working on a particular project or as narrow as a direct message.
We are on the front end of using this tool, but I can already highly recommend it. We will continue using it after the renovation is complete.
There are apps for computers, phones, and tablets that sync across the different platforms. You can watch a helpful, entertaining video introduction here. There are other videos from individuals and teams who are using in their settings one pastor posted his review here.
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Riverbend Ladies' Nite Out
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Disaster Relief Opportunities
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Please visit the sites below for more disaster relief opportunities!
Texas Baptists Disaster Recovery
Day of Service: Monday, January 19, 2015, Noon to 2:00 pm or 2:30 to 4:30 pm. Volunteers are needed to pack nutritious rice/soy meals for those suffering from food shortages in West Africa. No special training needed. All ages are welcome to participate in this meaningful hands-on project. Click here to sign up individually or as a group.
SBTC Disaster Relief Click Here to see upcoming Disaster Relief Phase 1 Training Dates. Find out how you can help with the border crisis and look for other upcoming volunteer opportunities.
Texas Baptist Men Save the Date- Retreat and Specialty Training is March 17-19. Click Here for other disaster relief news.
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7 Habits of Highly Effective People
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VBS Preview
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 Lifeway VBS Preview
January 16-17
Associational VBS Training
Pastors, VBS Directors, Teachers, and Leaders are invited to attend our VBS training. We will have break out conferences for Crafts, Music, Missions, Recreation, Bible Study, Preschool, and more!
April 18 9:00am - 12:30pm, Southcliff Baptist Church, Free of Charge
Materiales de EBV (Spanish VBS Materials)
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BGCT Upcoming Events
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SBTC Upcoming Events
|  Phase 1 Disaster Relief Training: January 10, 2015, Hooks, TX Student Evangelism Conference: January 16-17, Arlington, TX
Surrender Summit: January 17-19, Grapevine, TX
Women in Ministry Forum: February 6-7, College Station, TX Empower Conference: February 23-25, Euless, TX |
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Local Mentoring Opportunity
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Ladera Palms Apartments on Fort Worth's south side needs some dedicated Christian young men to be mentors to young male refugees. These young men have accepted Christ but their families remain in the traditional religious systems (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam). The young men are from other countries, but they have learned English well enough to communicate beneficially in English. This is a wonderful ministry opportunity for Christian men who are dedicated to Christ and willing to invest time in one person for the glory of the Lord. The refugee needs to see Christian character and integrity consistently and in different situations.
 Below is a list of general expectations mentors need to consider. Others might develop over time as the relationship matures.
1. Submit to a background screening
2. Meet weekly
3. Listen openly and non-judgmentally
4. Respond clearly in Christian love
5. Commit time to the relationship
6. Most important: be a dedicated Christ follower whose personal relationship with Christ is priority one
If you are interested, please contact Cheryl Shultz at (817) 229-4506 or email her for further information. Feel free to share this need with others in your church or contacts who might be interested in becoming involved in this ministry.
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Other Upcoming Opportunities/Events
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2015 NAMB Sponsored Vancouver Vision Tour - Feb. 9-11; Apr. 20-22; July 27-29
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News from the Churches
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Lamar Baptist Church has Awana character costumes they would like to give to a church who can use them. There is one Cubbies and one Sparks character costume available. Please email lisa@lamarbaptist.org if you are interested.
First Baptist Colleyville is selling pews that will seat around 950 people. They are in excellent shape and were purchased new in 1997. White colonial ends with a teal fabric on the pew. A church could purchase a lesser number as needed. The pews will be available for removal in February 2015. All interested parties could contact David Sylvester at 817.281.4158. Click for a listing of pew lengths.
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Becky Biser
Tarrant Baptist Association
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