Half Time - Part 1

Being a former athlete, I've been in many locker rooms at halftime of the game, listening to halftime speeches by coaches. Now, having done a little coaching, I've actually given some halftime pep talks myself. Regardless of the score, the basic outline is always the same: here's what we're doing right, here's what we need to improve, and finish with some encouragement to go out and make the second half better than the first.

As a church, we are at halftime of our ministry year. We start July 1, and end June 30, so while the rest of the world celebrates a new year, we celebrate the midway point in our ministry. So here's my halftime talk: What we are doing right is... plenty!

• We have seen so much good and a boatload of lives changing, it's hard to know where to start. Obviously, one clear win is our baptisms - we've baptized 10 people since September!! Our goal for the ministry year is 15, and I thought that was an aggressive goal, but we're 2/3 of the way there already!
  
• Here's the best part: while a couple of those have been students and children (way to go Chris and Kappy!!), THE MAJORITY HAVE BEEN ADULTS!! If you study trends in the church in America, you'll find that most churches, if they even do any baptisms, don't do very many adult baptisms, if any. God is blessing this church family in allowing us to be a part of adults coming to faith in Christ, or returning to Him!
• Attendance is trending upward again! People are inviting their friends, and it's making a difference in the lives of real people every week. When you see a baptism, the person lighting the candle is usually the person who invited them to church in the first place.
  
• Our Reach Out ministries are clicking - Our presence at Trick Or Treat the Old Town Streets brought people to church THAT VERY NEXT SUNDAY! The Angel Tree Party was a huge blessing as well, and even though we were careful not to push ourselves on anyone, we had one family show up in worship that weekend as well!
• Possibly my favorite story to tell has been the invitation we got to help out at Recovery Fest, an event put on downtown by the folks at Health and Welfare. They use it to get info out in the community about all the recovery services available in our community, and they asked us to provide activities for the children during the event. Their statement to Kappy was, "We've been watching you, and we know we can trust you with our kids." Folks, when was the last time you heard of a government agency saying that to a church? I'm still geeked out about that!!
• Behind the scenes, the new governance structure has proven thus far to be a success. The elders have provided a set of Guiding Principles (available from the office by request), and a set of challenging but attainable goals for the ministry year. They are a hard working bunch, committed to personal ministry as well as the oversight of the entire congregation. They have been supportive and encouraging to me and to the direction of our church family, and I'm proud to serve alongside such high character people.
• The Student Ministries Team has taken our teens to the next level this fall, with quality conversations about faith and obedience to God's word quickly becoming the norm on Wednesday nights. Chris Bobblit and his team of Core Group leaders are making a kingdom impact in the lives of teens.
• Our Connection Group ministry had DOUBLED IN SIZE! The I Saw The Lord campaign gave us more than we had imagined in terms of traction with people getting into small groups for study and encouragement. I can't wait to see where this is going!!

Okay, that's just a sample of the good stuff God is doing in our midst. More of the Halftime Talk later. For now, take a moment and give God praise for the amazing, life changing ministry going on at FBC. I know I will!