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E-Challenge November 2015
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| Greetings! |
The Thanksgiving Day holiday is a week away. Our family is planning a big event. Our celebrations have thinned a bit the last few years. However, one of my cousins took his life a few weeks ago, and we decided that we need to gather more intentionally this year.
We are celebrating my parents' fifty-fifth wedding anniversary also. They wouldn't allow us to throw a Golden Anniversary party, but they are open to an extra cake this time. Dad's declining health may have something to do with that. Either way, I look forward to raising a glass of iced tea in their honor.
Additionally, we have the delight of welcoming our son's fiancee to Texas as she prepares to marry into our family of misfits and outcasts. She's a California girl. She has never experienced the backwoods lifestyle of our clan. This should be fun.
An empty chair and precious memories await us as we gather in Mom and Dad's log cabin in the northeast Texas countryside. I'm hoping it's cool enough for a fire in the centrally-located wood stove. We will dine on the best paper plates money can buy. We will consume more than we should. We will nap as the Cowboys try, try, try to start a winning streak. We will putter around Dad's shop. We'll check out the remnants of the summer garden. We'll admire Mom's latest artwork.
We will feel a loss we cannot fully explain. Not much will get said about it and nothing will find resolution. We will grieve again a most curious departure. We will remember.
It was on Thanksgiving some years ago that sleet covered the Texas Stadium field. The Cowboys lost to the Dolphins that day when Leon Lett didn't let things be. It was that day that my cousin and I had an uncomfortable discussion about a deep trauma in his life. He never got over that event. He never stopped looking over his shoulder.
Look around the room during your Thanksgiving feast. Whose hand do you need to hold tightly during the blessing? Whose chair could be empty next year? Who needs an uncomfortable discussion with you now? Who do you need to love and appreciate as if this were the last opportunity to gather like this until we all get to heaven?
We are going to celebrate life. We are going to celebrate family. We are going to celebrate milestones. We will laugh and weep and pray. We will give thanks.
With gratitude, David
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We thank God for you, each time we think of you. Thank you for serving the Lord and being His light here in Tarrant County.
May God continue to use you and bless you.
TBA Staff
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Pastor's Conference and Executive Board
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Pastor's Conference and Executive Board Schedule
Pastors, retired pastors, staff members and lay leaders are invited to participate.
We hope to see you there!
Location:
Cornerstone Assistance Network
3500 Noble Avenue
Fort Worth, TX 76111
Time:
Cost:
$7.00 for lunch
November 23 - Pastor's Conference - Danny Howe
November 30 - Pastor's Conference - Terry Colley
December 7 - TBA Christmas Luncheon - Travis Avenue Baptist Church, 800 W. Berry ($10)
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All Church Staff Christmas Luncheon
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Social Media Update
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Tarrant Baptist Association now has an Instagram account!
Please follow us on Instagram to stay connected -- @tarrantbaptist
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Do you totally trust God?
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How would you rate your trust in God on a scale of 1 to 10?
What would it mean for you to totally trust God? You may be like me and think that you do totally trust God. You gave your heart and life to him when you were young and have always been in church and Bible study. However, perhaps you still try to fix everything. You worry about your family, what you will teach or preach, how you will pay that bill, etc. You are stressed out and find yourself on the verge of losing your temper or burning out.
The Bible says, "Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun."
God never said that you would not face challenges, but he did say that he would never leave us. If we truly trust God, then we can commit our way to him. No matter what we face or the decisions we have to make, we can just give them to God and commit our way to him. We can trust him with the outcome. We don't have to carry the burden of fixing issues or people.
I Thessalonians 5:16-18 tells us to "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." We can only be joyful and thankful in everything if we pray and trust God. If we remain connected with Christ all day long (pray without ceasing), we will bear much fruit. Apart from Christ, we can do nothing.
How are you trusting God? What do you need to give him? When things arise, use this breath prayer - Into thy hands!
Becky Biser
Director of Leadership Development
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Reminder - Get Your Annual Church Profiles Turned In
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We need your help!
Thank you to all of you who have already turned in your Annual Church Profile (ACP) information to us! There are still many of you who have yet to turn in your ACP information, but there is still a little time left.
Please click here to go to our website and complete your 2015 ACP by November 30th.
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| Church Unique co::Lab - Open for Enrollment |
The next Church Unique co::Lab is open for enrollment!
A co::Lab experience equips a pastor and up to three leaders from his church to
lead the Church Unique process in the church he serves.
Our Church Unique Certified staff will train you and your leaders to facilitate the Vision Pathway. Your church will discover and capitalize on its uniqueness to fulfill God's mission and vision for you in this place at this time.
The co::Lab meets monthly on the first Tuesday of each month for seven months beginning in February.
Up to 10 different congregations will participate in this process. You will have the opportunity to learn together as a team and from the other churches participating in the co::Lab.
This could be the best leadership development process you provide for your church in 2016.
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Life Change Journey for Pastors and Staff
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Life Change Journey for
Pastors and Staff
Want to experience a life change journey designed just for pastors, staff and leaders? This is not like any other discipleship conference you have experienced. This is a time you can refresh yourself in a hands-on experiential-type of journey. Here are some of the things you will experience:
- A safe environment
- Time for reflection
- Time to spend reading the Bible and reflecting on your relationship with Christ
- Authentic facilitators who let you discover your own way
- Prayers offered over you
- Laughter and fun
- A few stretching and challenging activities
- Time to hear God speaking just to you
- A renewed excitement and expectation about what God is doing in your life
The next re:FOCUS journey will start Sunday evening at 6:00 p.m. on May 1st and end at noon on Tuesday, May 3rd at the Riverbend Retreat Center. Each retreat time is unique and will focus on different aspects to help empower leaders.
Retreat #1
- Leaders will spend time re:Connecting with God and with peers in an experiential learning environment. This time will include alone time with God enhancing their dependence on the Father and time to make friends with peers that are both authentic and safe.
Retreat # 2
- Six months later leaders will come back together to re:Discover who God has made them to be. They will spend time exploring things about themselves and formulating their own personal mission statements.
Retreat #3
- In another six months leaders will re:Think what it means to be a disciple. They will explore passages of scripture and write their own definition of a disciple. They will gain a clear picture of what this disciple looks like and how they personally will help others grow to be a fully devoted follower of Christ.
Retreat #4
- The final retreat six months later will focus on re:Engaging with God in His Kingdom. How has God created me to be most effective personally on engaging others? What is He nudging me to do? How do I most effectively lead myself and others?
Between these retreat weeks leaders will meet together monthly to encourage and pray for each other.
Interested? If so, contact Becky Biser at becky@tarrantbaptist.org.
Sign up today!
Date: May 1-3, 2016 (Begin Sunday evening at 6:00 and ending at Tuesday at noon)
Cost: $125 each retreat (includes lodging, meals, snacks, books and other materials)
Duration: 4 retreats over 2 years
Register Here!
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Book Review - John Ortberg
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I don't know what it is about John Ortberg, but God speaks to me through his writings like few others. He is clear, concise, and compelling. He is authentic, vulnerable, and disarming. As one of my peer group members said this morning, it is as if he were reading our minds.
The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People is rich enough to warrant its weight in gold. If you've read Dallas Willard, you will hear echoes of his voice in Orberg. Ortberg was Willard's student and friend. Their hearts and minds operate in delightful synchronicity.
This is a book about transformation. It is about, well, living the life you've always wanted. It is about change, the good kind, the kind we long for. It is not about trying to do better by adding more rules and more rituals. It is about learning to live life in the full reality that God invades every moment.
I had lunch with Calvin Miller years ago. We were discussing our favorite books and authors. We talked about Dallas Willard's Spirit of the Disciplines. Dr. Miller leaned in toward me and said with reverent enthusiasm, "That's a book I wish I could read again for the first time." That's how I feel about Ortberg's chapter on The Practice of Celebration, which he titles, A "Dee Dah Day."
I could go on and on about this book. Consume it. Pass it along to others as a gift. Don't allow it to become the kind of gift that sits on a shelf and gathers dust. Read it along with those you give it to. Meet to talk about it. Grow together through it. Then do it again.
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App of the Month - Google Keep
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 Our staff uses Google Apps. This includes Google Mail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive. Google Keep has lingered on the fringes of this suite of tools for the last couple of years. It is similar to Evernote and Microsoft Office's OneNote. Up until recently, it was limited in functionality. It didn't really compare to those two titans of note-taking and note storage.
A recent update upgraded Google Keep to a close competitor with the better known and more widely used apps. It is colorful and adaptable. It can handle anything from To-Do lists to lecture recordings to photographs. It's new iOS apps make it more useful to those of us in the Apple world. If you use Google Apps but don't have a preferred app to serve as your digital note folder, why not give Google Keep a try?
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| Podcast of the Month - 5 Leadership Questions | 
I was listening to Dr. Gerry Lewis's Your Church Matters podcast recently and he mentioned a couple of podcasts I had not heard of. One of those was the 5 Leadership Questions. This podcast is a product of Lifeway's Church Leaders resources. The hosts are Barnabas Piper and Todd Adkins.
Each episode features a church leader of significance who answers the same five questions as other guests. The answers provide thoughtful material for continuing reflection.
Listen to the questions and answer them for yourself. What are your answers now? What would you like for them to be a year from now or five years from now?
Listen, learn, and lean in toward a preferred future.
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Coaching, coaching, coaching!
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Coaching is an amazing tool! It has impacted all of your TBA staff. David, Becky, Gary and Jay are all certified coaches with the International Coach Federation and are faculty with Coaching4Clergy. Coach training is available March 28 thru April 1 of 2016 and then again later next fall, August 8-12.
Another special offering in the coaching experience is the ability for you as part of the Tarrant Association to avail yourself to being coached. You can receive a Laser Coaching session (a 20-minute session) once a month at no cost. Simply call TBA and reserve a time and coach. Laser Coaching will help you manage time, focus, prioritize, brainstorm possibilities, get unstuck and much more. Check it out! Give it a try! Call today---817.927.1911.
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Two Powerful Words
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Two Powerful Words
The words we select to communicate with others really do matter. The right words in the right context, even if very few in number, can have a powerful result. Two of the most powerful words in the English language are "thank you." These two words, when used in the context of the local church, have the potential of changing hearts and finances in significant ways.
Churches that find ways to say "thank you" to givers are those that see more consistent giving patterns from a broader spectrum of the church. However, it is not something that happens without intentionality.
Church leaders must create a culture of biblical stewardship and a generosity lifestyle by both asking and thanking. Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul to his spiritual son, Timothy: "Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage-to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life." (1 Timothy 6:17-19) (The Message). As Paul writes to the disciples in the church in Philippi, he expresses generous thanks to them for the way that they, alone, shared with him in the matter of giving and receiving, even when no other church did so. He says that he was not looking for the gift, but that the giving might be to their own credit and benefit for the generous way in which it was shared.
According to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability there are three things that leading churches are more likely to do in a practical way to be intentional about thanking givers: 1) They send personal thank you letters (not just acknowledgments) to givers 2) They call givers to express appreciation and 3) They disciple and engage givers further with meaningful gifts (inspirational books, etc.). A less used but highly effective method of thanking givers is face-to-face meetings.
Whatever the method, any approach for saying those two powerful words is better than no method at all. People may say to church leaders that it is not necessary to hear these two powerful words. But, the truth is that no one objects to having their contribution recognized, even though they have given out of a generous heart and "as unto the Lord." Let those of us who have influence and position to express gratitude take advantage of this easy but highly meaningful action. The local church and God's Kingdom will be better for our having done so. Gary L. Crowell, CPA, CCA Chief Financial Officer Tarrant Baptist Association
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What an Opportunity!
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What an Opportunity!
We are so very blessed to get to be a part of the Kingdom of God! The Lord has invited us to get involved with him in a divine work that changes lives for eternity! We are blessed with a church family to disciple as well as a local community to enrich! He has also called us to be intentional about working with him other places in Texas, in the U.S. and across the world!
Pray about and consider coming alongside a new church and their pastor. Do it locally, as well as somewhere in the state, country and world. You, as a pastor, can befriend and mentor a church planter. You know that the pastorate can be an extremely lonely place...well, consider the loneliness of a new church pastor. You can visit with him once a week, through FaceTime, Skype or just a phone call. A text that says "I am praying for you!" is a super blessing. A listening ear of someone who has already traveled farther down the same road is a priceless gift. Just ask, "How can I come alongside and help?"
Pray about and consider coming alongside a new church start by putting a commitment of monthly support in your church budget. These new start churches can stretch a buck farther then you can ever imagine. Even if you cannot send a large check, you can encourage other pastors and churches to join you in the support.
Don't just focus on one but open up to several! Consider either: (1) one or more locally, (2) one or more in
Texas, (3) one or more in the U.S., and (4) one or more outside the U.S.! Let me help you find them.
What an opportunity! Let's Do It!
Jay Harris
Director of New Church Starting
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Texas Baptists Disaster Recovery Update
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Join us as we pray for those affected by recent flooding in many areas of Texas. Texas Baptists Disaster Recovery is actively involved in rebuilding/repairing homes in Hidalgo County, Hays and Caldwell Counties (San Marcos, Martindale, Wimberley)
Volunteer Teams are needed!
If your church group would like to assist in rebuilding and repairing homes email Marla Bearden at marla.bearden@texasbaptists.org with possible dates. Housing is available.
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BAPTISTS PARTNER TO REBUILD
BORDER TOWN
ACUNA, MEXICO
Spring Break, March 13-17, 2016
Teams are invited to rebuild homes in Acuna and minister to families in need. Team members who wish to stay in the Texas Side may work in Del Rio. A valid passport is required to cross over the border.
Acuna is a safe place for teams to work. Youth under the age of 18 will need a parent present.
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BUILDING AND REPAIRING HOMES IN
MARTINDALE AND SAN MARCOS, TX
AFFECTED BY MEMORIAL DAY FLOODING
Spring Break, March 13-17, 2016
Texas Baptists Disaster Recovery continues to respond to the needs of families impacted by the Memorial Day Flooding in Central Texas. Housing will be in a local church. Teams will need to cook their own meals.
Team Leaders - Contact Marla Bearden or Gerald Davis to schedule your team.
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Texas Baptists Disaster Recovery work operates completely on special gifts from Texas Baptists. To support recovery efforts click HERE!
or mail checks to Attn Marla Bearden, Texas Baptists Disaster Recovery
7557 Rambler Rd, Suite 1100, Dallas, TX 75231-2310
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Training Opportunity for WMU Groups
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WMU Training Opportunity
Tarrant Baptist Association Woman's Missionary Union recommends a brand-new website developed by national WMU for leadership training. Currently available online training is for leading WMU Churchwide, Women on Mission, Acteens, Girls in Action, Mission Friends, and getting to know Christian Women's/Men's Job Corps, as well as a Leadership Certificate Program and Leadership Enrichment course. Cost is $20 each. Go to www.ChristianLeaderLearning.com for more information and to get started.
More course offerings will be available at the same site during this Fall of 2015, and additional courses will be offered in 2016. Also, training will be available at the annual meeting in April 2016. Information will be released later.
We regret that the statewide trainings last month were cancelled due to low registrations. But, this is a great time to respond to this new training availability online. Please help us get the word out!
Thank you very much.
Inez Stephens, Director
Tarrant Association WMU
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BGCT Upcoming Events
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SBTC Upcoming Events
|  Heart of the Child Conference - April 22-23, 2016 : Broken Arrow, OK |
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21st Century Wilberforce Initiative - Speak Freedom
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Invest in Religious Freedom
Take Action
The 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative advocates for religious freedom as a universal right. Over five billion people, 77% of the world's population, live in a context characterized by religious persecution, discrimination, or restrictions. Twenty Christians are killed because of their faith every day. Genocide is occurring against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.
The 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative is creating an alliance of churches that will make religious freedom a priority. Wilberforce provides current, reliable information and training for these churches and suggests practical ways they can mobilize as advocates for defenseless people.
I have worked with Dr. Randel Everett on religious freedom issues over the last couple of years. This is a consuming passion for him and his team. I strongly encourage you to lend your voice and church support to this ministry.
With gratitude, David Bowman
For more information about the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative and
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| Texas Harvest America | |
Don't miss out on the church involvement meetings later this week!
Wednesday, November 18
10:30 A.M. - Pantego Bible Church
8001 Anderson Blvd.
Fort Worth
817.274.1315
Thursday, November 19
9:30 A.M. - The Church on Rush Creek
2350 SW Green Oaks Blvd.
Arlington, TX
817.468.7729
2:00 P.M. - 121 Community Church
840 Mustang Dr.
Grapevine
817.488.1213
Friday, November 20
10:00 A.M. - Alsbury Baptist Church
500 NE Alsbury Blvd
Burleson
817.295.0134
2:00 P.M. - The Oaks Baptist Church
4601801 Interstate 20
Grand Prairie
972.263.2224
AT&T Stadium
March 6, 2016
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American Interim Pastor Ministry (AIPM)
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American Interim Pastors Ministries, Inc.
Are you interested in serving as an interim pastor for six months in a British Baptist or Evangelical Free Church? Assignments are normally 6 months. American pastors receive no salary. The church provides a furnished house with bills paid and a car with expenses paid. Reimbursement is also provided for airline tickets and visa application fees.
Contact Chuck McComb for more information.
Chuck McComb
412 Carriage Creek Lane
Friendswood, TX 77546
281.799.1869
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Prisoners' Families in Your Community
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FACT:
2.7 million children have a parent in prison.
Prisoners' children live in shadows, shamed and disadvantaged by their parent's crimes. With help from Prison Fellowship, you can deliver Christmas gifts and the Gospel to prisoners' children.
Churches, Bible Study groups, Sunday School classes, and families are invited to help a child in your community this Christmas. Sign up here
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News from the Churches
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Lake Arlington Baptist Church's Lionheart Children's Academy has a preschool play cycle set (pictured to the right) available for any church that needs it. If you are interested, contact Karin Laymance at  karinlaymance@lionheartkid.org or call 817-451-4110.
Southcliff Baptist Church has DVD copies of Bill Hybel's "Just Walk Across the Room" series. If any church would like to have them please contact Rhonda Jackson at 817-924-2241 or Rhonda@southcliff.com.
You are invited to join with churches in Nepal to be a part of what God is doing in bringing spiritual healing to this hurting country. Join with other Baptist from TBA and International Commission (IC) on a short term evangelistic mission trip February 10-21, 2016. If interested, call Gary Godkin, 817-845-0440 or email him
Gary.Godkin@IC-World.org for more information on this trip!
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