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| Greetings! |
I facilitated a LifePlan for an outsider to Tarrant Baptist Association last week. This lawyer is a friend of the family who is seeking refined direction regarding current and emerging opportunities. Her preparation for and participation in the two days of perspective and planning was as thorough and energetic as you would expect from someone of her profession.
I asked Becky to join us for lunch on the first day. The two of them hit it off and enjoyed a lively discussion. I didn't participate much, but I enjoyed their interaction. Becky loaded her up with books to read and thoughts to think.
This professional woman with outside eyes had glorious things to say about our staff. She loved how well we get along and how we complement one another's skills and passions. She commented that she longs to enjoy those kinds of work relationships. She spoke to one of her coworkers during a break and explained what she was experiencing. Her coworker wanted to come join our team.
This is not an exceptional comment.
I also love the atmosphere in our offices. I celebrate Casey and Whitney at the front desk, Walter and Cindy who volunteer to manage many mundane tasks, Hector Mendez who serves well in many roles, and of course, Gary, Jay, and Becky.
Gary celebrated his fourteenth anniversary with TBA on January 1. What a gift he is to the churches of the association! His financial skills ensure that we make the most of every penny contributed by the churches. His passion for missions empowers him to lead out in ministry to internationals and refugees. He exercises his strengths every day in conversations and coaching sessions with church leaders.
Jay celebrated his sixteenth anniversary on January 17. His work with church starters keeps them encouraged and focused when they may well be tempted to give up. His prayers and personal warmth comfort many. His friendship is one of the finest gifts anyone could receive. His passion for coaching continues leading individuals and groups to create a preferred future energized by the Spirit of God.
Becky will celebrate thirty-four years with TBA on February 1. I cannot imagine TBA without her. She is learning new skills to develop leaders for God's kingdom work. She navigates churches through Church Unique. She facilitates individuals through LifePlan. She coaches, trains, encourages, prays, and serves in many different capacities. She is the go-to member of our staff for almost everything.
If I didn't already work here, I would certainly want to do so. I pray the Prayer of Jabez for myself on Mondays. When I ask God to bless me that I may in turn bless others, I have to confess that I am among the most blessed men on earth. I always think of the TBA staff as I count those blessings.
How may our staff bless you?
With gratitude,
David
PS: Our son's birthday arrives close to the end of the month. He will be twenty-eight years old. He is getting married in March. He is also about to receive a promotion to captain in the United States Marines. Yes, yes, I am proud of him. I am also proud of our Baby Girl who accepted an internship with a Dallas County judge for this summer. We will have a family attorney a couple of years from now. I'm counting on lots of pro bono assistance.
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Pastor's Conference and Executive Board Meetings
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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
January 25 - Executive Board
February 1 - Pastor's Conference
February 8 - Pastor's Conference
February 15 - Executive Board (at TBA office)
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Upcoming Training and Retreats offered by TBA
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Upcoming Training and Retreats
February 2, 2016 - Church Unique co::Lab
February 22-23, 2016 - Hearing God Retreat
March 28 - April 1, 2016 - Coach Training
April 23 - Association VBS Conference
9:00 to 12:30 (Free Event)
Wedgwood Baptist Church
5522 Whitman Avenue
May 1-3, 2016 - re:FOCUS Retreat
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Church Unique co::Lab - Open for Enrollment
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The next Church Unique co::Lab is open for enrollment!
February 2, 2016
10:00am - 2:00pm
(lunch included)
A co::Lab experience equips a pastor and up to three leaders from his church to
lead the Church Unique process in the church they serve.
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 February 2, 2016.
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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We Need Help for Missionary Families
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Help A Missionary Family
Hundreds of IMB missionaries and their families are coming home from the mission field before they were prepared to do so. These missionaries are looking for jobs, housing, and cars.
Some of the missionaries we know are coming to the Metroplex include those who have been serving in India, Brunei, Mexico, Malawi, South Africa, South Asia, and South America.
Please contact us with any good, solid leads regarding jobs, housing, and cars. Let's make their unexpected homecoming a good experience.
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Plan a Communication Clarity For Teams (CC4T) Session with the TBA Staff
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Looking to invest in your staff team? Consider Communication Clarity for Teams (CC4T) training with the TBA staff.
We will provide each of your team members with the DiSC Assessment, StrengthsFinder Assessment, a Spiritual Gifts Inventory, Thinking Wavelength Assessment as well as a Personal Mission Development concept profile.
The training schedule is normally 9:00am to 4:00pm.
Your team members will walk away with a better understanding of their teammates, as well as a comprehensive understanding of themselves and how God has made them unique for a purpose. Each team member will also walk away with their own person mission statement and tools on how to implement God's design for them.
The cost is $30 per team member and includes the assessments, lunch, snacks and training. If interested, contact Becky Biser at becky@tarrantbaptist.org. |
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Vancouver Vision Tour
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2016 Vancouver Vision Tour
February 22-25, 2016 ~ April 4-7, 2016 ~ September 12-15, 2016
There are a couple of places still available for the February Vancouver Vision Tour!
If your church is affiliated with the BGCT, or even dually aligned,arrangements will be made to pay your
hotel and local travel expenses. All you would need to pay is the flight ticket and a few meals.
If you or any of your pastors or staff members would be interested, please contact David Bowman.
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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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Book Review
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I visited one of my coworkers at the BGCT in his office one day in 2008. I enjoyed going there because he always had a stack of new books he was reading as part of his job in leadership development.
Among the new titles was Church Unique by Will Mancini. When I asked him about it, he said he thought I would really enjoy it considering my background in consulting. To say I devoured the book would be an understatement.
A few months later, I talked my supervisor into allowing me to drive to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary for the annual summit of the Society for Church Consulting. Will Mancini was one of the presenters I most wanted to hear.
Those twenty hours in the car to New Orleans and back were worth all that I gained at that meeting. The short version is that my conversation with Mancini led to a ministry partnership with hisMancini's company, Auxano. I've had a front-row seat since then to see the significant difference clarity makes for churches and ministries.
It is with great delight that I received a pre-publication copy of Mancini's new book, God Dreams: 12 Vision Templates for Finding and Focusing Your Church's Future. Once again, I devoured this book. I can't wait to use it in our work with churches and other ministries.
This is not merely another in a long line of books on the necessity of vision. This is a book that will empower even the least-visionary leaders to understand and master visionary planning. Church teams will benefit from the crystal clarity they gain from working through this content together.
The heart of the book is Part Three: Find Your Future. The five chapters in this part provide detailed descriptions of the twelve vision templates along with instructions on how to create a picture idea of your vision. If these chapters don't make your mind race and speed up your heartbeat, you might want to schedule your annual physical as soon as possible.
Part Four: Focus Your Long-Range Vision and Part Five: Execute Your Short-Range Vision help leaders understand the movement of vision. These chapters introduce the Horizon Storyline. This section gives you "practical tools to describe your own unique picture of the future."
"The beyond-the-horizon vision is a narrative of up to twenty sentences in length that vividly describes your church's future for the purpose of inspiring people and providing a context for shorter term planning. Think of the beyond-the-horizon vision as the future picture of your church and a declaration of your congregation's ultimate contribution. It is a destination in time that you choose somewhere between five and twenty years."
Wouldn't you enjoy leading in a manner that is vividly picturesque, purposefully inspiring, and accomplishes something of ultimate value for the Kingdom of God? God Dreams will empower you for that journey. Buy a copy for yourself and for every member of your team. Read it together and allow God to lead you forward into the preferred future of his dreams for you. Consider scheduling a two-day God Dreams Retreat with our staff.
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Apps of the Month
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Three of my favorite apps are Feedly, Pocket, and Evernote. They help me find, consume, and file useful information for future use.
Feedly is a newsgathering app that users customize to provide them with the news stories they want to see from a wide variety of sources regarding the topics they are interested in. Some of the feeds I follow are for tools I use like Dropbox, Evernote, Google, Trello, and Wunderlist. Other feeds are for topics like generosity, leadership, and productivity.
If I find stories I want to read but don't have time to read them at that moment, I click the Pocket link and the story is saved there so that I can read it later. I frequently use this process to load several stories at a time for later reading. I can read the articles I stash in Pocket any time I find myself with time to fill or when I'm waiting on someone else, such as in a doctor's office.
Many of the stories I find are read and then deleted from Pocket. Others are filed within the Pocket app with the appropriate tags so that I can find them later. Stories that I want to keep and return to again in the future are dropped into Evernote for safekeeping. I can place them in a designated notebook, tag them, or simply keep them in the Inbox. Evernote's search features allow me to find what I am looking for by keywords, date, or location where I created the note.
Another way to preserve what you read in Feedly and Pocket is to save it in Google Drive. You can combine the search capabilities of Google with the storage of Drive to create an Evernote alternative. Drop articles, YouTube videos, PDFs, and other matter into Drive. You can file it in a notebook or let it float free among other unfiled notes.
What tips and tricks do you have for finding and keeping useful information?
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Podcast Highlight
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Serial is a podcast that our Baby Girl introduced us to about a year ago. This podcast is from the creators of This American Life and is hosted by Sarah Koenig. This is compelling listening. It is not something to listen to with children due to the subject matter and language we don't normally use in church.
Last season's story was about Adnan Syed, who was convicted for murdering his high-school sweetheart. Here is what the producers say about Season One:
On January 13, 1999, a girl named Hae Min Lee, a senior at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County, Maryland, disappeared. A month later, her body was found in a city park. She'd been strangled. Her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was arrested for the crime, and within a year, he was sentenced to life in prison. The case against him was largely based on the story of one witness, Adnan's friend Jay, who testified that he helped Adnan bury Hae's body. But Adnan has always maintained he had nothing to do with Hae's death. Some people believe he's telling the truth. Many others don't.
This season's story is about Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl was held by the Taliban for five years after he deserted his outfit in Afghanistan to make a point to his superiors. His story has been in the headlines for months. His legal issues continue to this day.
Why did he walk away? What was he trying to prove? What should happen to him now? Hear Bergdahl tell his own story about what he did, why he did it, and all that happened to him while he was held captive.
These stories provide insights into what is going on in this world at a level we seldom encounter. I find myself praying for these real-life individuals and others like them who live desperate lives without the hope of Jesus and the grace and peace he longs to extend to them.
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re:FOCUS Journey for Pastors and Staff
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re:FOCUS 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: MAY 1 - MAY 3
Sunday at 6:00pm thru Tuesday at Noon
Cost is $125
- 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. The cost is $125. 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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Thoughts on Charitable Giving in the New Year
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Figuring out how to focus on Christian stewardship can be quite a complex puzzle when I can't get one car paid off before I need another one. It seems that the providers of goods and services in our society have their hand in my pocket more than I do. There never seems to be enough to get everything done in my finances that demand my attention. How in the world am I to create space for charitable giving with money being so tight?
Conquering this dilemma requires a firm understanding of some key concepts. First, the foundational principle is that the starting and finish line for giving is that it all belongs to God anyhow. I just have the opportunity to spend and invest it as He allows me access to the resources (money, home, car, retirement accounts, etc.) They all belong to God. We just get to put our name on them for a period of years. Think about this: You cannot lose anything that you give to God since He already owns it all.
Second, the question of what we should give must be answered. Your mind may have jumped ahead to money or some other belonging, but that is not the most worthy answer. We must give ourselves to the Lord first. The Apostle Paul commended the Macedonian Christians not only for their generous giving but because they "gave themselves first to the Lord." (2 Cor. 8:5)
Third, what should be the motivation for our giving? God wants us to give from a willing and obedient heart. Our attitude is the key. "God loves a cheerful giver." (2 Cor. 9:7) Every time we give sacrificially and with joy, we give a little of our selfishness away. Our life focus shifts off of us and onto God and how to bless others.
Fourth, we should manage our finances in such a way that there is adequate margin to give liberally. "Whoever sows generously will also reap generously." (2 Cor. 9:6) Tithing (10% of one's income) is a well-known biblical standard. However, today there is a modern term frequently used in Christian stewardship circles. It is the concept of "percentage giving." This approach uses the tithe as a base standard and encourages adding progressive percentage upward adjustments as the management skills over our finances increase. If you are on an intentional path to bring your finances into line, it may be that your giving percentage may not currently meet the tithing standard, but the goal is to continually increase that percentage and see how God blesses as your obedience and faith grow.
Giving doesn't just happen. It requires planning. It may require some tough financial decisions in order to have the freedom to give more. You may need to reduce your debt load or opt for a simpler lifestyle. A consistently observed budget may be a good tool to aid in the process. Remember, we are handling God's money. May we all be found faithful!
Gary L. Crowell, CPA, CCA
Chief Financial Officer
Tarrant Baptist Association
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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 or click here to register!
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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.
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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Registration is now open for Make Your Groups Matter, Texas Baptist Educators Retreat
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SBTC Upcoming Events
|  Heart of the Child Conference - April 22-23, 2016 : Broken Arrow, OK |
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Harvest America - March 6, 2016
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 Hundreds of local churches have come together to bring music from Chris Tomlin, Lecrae, Switchfoot, and MercyMe, with a message of hope from Greg Laurie to AT&T Stadium. This event is the epicenter of a free nationwide simulcast that will extend into thousands of churches, theaters, and living rooms across the country. With only two months to go, your church should start praying now for people you would like to see come to faith, and begin promoting the upcoming event using the materials provided. We want to encourage your people to
Pray-Invite-Bring. Click here for more information on how you can become more involved and equipped
through attending meetings and training sessions.
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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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| Congratulations to Bob Roberts on Friendship Medal | |
Please join us in congratulating our own Bob Roberts (Northwood Church) on his recent honor of receiving the Friendship Medal from the Vietnamese government. This is the highest award given to a foreigner in Vietnam and was awarded to Bob by the Vietnamese President himself. Thankful for this brother and his ministry!
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News from the Churches
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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 at
Gary.Godkin@IC-World.org for more information on this trip!
North Pointe Baptist Church is having a Parenting Seminar ("Dealing with Anger and Bad Attitudes" for Parents of Children 2-18) on Friday, February 19 from 6:30-9:00 PM. Click here to register or call 609-771-8002 to sign up. For more information, contact Robert Schulze at robert@npfam.com.
There is a conference for Texas Baptist Ministry Assistants on April 7-9 in San Antonio. Click here to visit their website and access the registration form.
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