Prais­ing the Lord today for:

The Geor­gia Bap­tist Con­ven­tion which took place ear­li­er this week. God is work­ing through our coop­er­a­tive efforts to reach peo­ple in Geor­gia and around the world.

A $10,000 grant award­ed to our Asso­ci­a­tion from the Geor­gia Bap­tist Con­ven­tion to help with our grow­ing prison ministry.

Our Min­is­ters Wives Fel­low­ship Min­istry as it con­tin­ues to flour­ish under the lead­er­ship of Gwen Williams. Their most recent event (Movie Night) was a blessing.

Boil­ing Springs Bap­tist who will be bap­tiz­ing 10 won­der­ful peo­ple this com­ing Sun­day. Thank you pas­tor Con­way Jones for lead­ing the church to care about win­ning souls for Jesus.

Please be in prayer for this week’s Church­es of the Week:
East Gor­don Street Bap­tist (with­out a pastor)
Friend­ship Bap­tist (pas­tor Paul Thompson)
First Bap­tist Alamo (pas­tor Kyle Woodfin)
First Bap­tist Glen­wood (pas­tor Kevin Hammons)
Faith Mis­sion­ary Bap­tist (pas­tor Jim­my Dupree)
Please con­tin­ue to pray for Cheryl Waters (wife of pas­tor Glenn Waters of Stuck­ey Bap­tist) as she con­tin­ues to recov­er in the hos­pi­tal. God is bless­ing and she is see­ing great improvement

I want to encour­age each of our DBA min­is­ters and their fam­i­lies to join us next Thurs­day, Novem­ber 19th at 6 p.m. at Taber­na­cle Bap­tist (Swan Cen­ter) for our year­ly DBA Min­is­ters and Fam­i­lies Christ­mas par­ty. This will be a great time of fun and fel­low­ship so make plans to join us. Also, as in recent years we will have great activ­i­ties for the chil­dren so please bring your entire fam­i­ly. The only thing we ask is that you call our DBA office by Mon­day to let us know how many peo­ple we should expect from your fam­i­ly. Look­ing for­ward to great food, great fel­low­ship and a won­der­ful time!

We are host­ing a lun­cheon next Wednes­day, Novem­ber 18th for every­one who has been help­ing us with the prison min­istry in order to plan for next year. This is also open for any­one con­sid­er­ing help­ing with this impor­tant min­istry. If you would like to attend the lunch meet­ing (lunch will be pro­vid­ed) please let us know by next Mon­day, Novem­ber the 16th. This min­istry is grow­ing quick­ly and we could use your help.

12 Ways Your Church Might want to Bless Your Pas­tor By Chuck Lawless
My sem­i­nary stu­dents occa­sion­al­ly ask me about whether a “pay pack­age” a church offers them is ade­quate. I can’t always answer that ques­tion eas­i­ly because I don’t know the church’s finan­cial state. What I do know is what I believe a church ought to pro­vide for its pas­tors. Your church may not be in a posi­tion to offer all these ben­e­fits, but per­haps you could work toward pro­vid­ing them:

  1. Hous­ing allowance. In my judg­ment, the pastor’s salary and hous­ing allowance should be con­sid­ered the pastor’s “base package.” The salary, of course, is assumed, and a hous­ing allowance is a des­ig­nat­ed por­tion of the pastor’s salary that allows for tax ben­e­fits. Make sure your pas­tor is aware of this opportunity.
  2. Self-employ­ment tax off­set. If your pas­tor pays self-employ­ment tax­es, your church should con­sid­er pro­vid­ing addi­tion­al funds that cov­er the por­tion they would have to pay if the pas­tor were clas­si­fied as an employ­ee. Tax rules still require your pas­tor to count the dol­lars as income, but the addi­tion­al funds toward those costs will be helpful.
  3. Health, dis­abil­i­ty, and life insur­ance cov­er­age. I encour­age church­es to pro­vide full fam­i­ly cov­er­age for health insur­ance, but do cov­er at least the pastor’s pre­mi­ums. Like­wise, the pas­tor may want more dis­abil­i­ty and life insur­ance cov­er­age than the church offers, but do offer at least some lev­el of insurance.
  4. Mileage reim­burse­ment. Many pas­tors trav­el a lot by car. They should not be forced to pay out of their own pock­ets for busi­ness-relat­ed travel.
  5. Retire­ment funds. Even if your pas­tors are young, help them think about the future by con­tribut­ing to a retire­ment fund for them. Even a few dol­lars per month can pay off in the long run.
  6. Book and resource allowance. If you want your pas­tors to con­tin­ue to study and grow, pro­vide resources for them to do so. They might exceed what­ev­er allowance you pro­vide, but help cov­er some of these costs.
  7. Trav­el allowance. Your pas­tors may want to attend train­ing con­fer­ences or denom­i­na­tion­al meet­ings that take place out of town. Make that pos­si­ble by pro­vid­ing a trav­el budget.
  8. Con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion funds. I trust you want your pas­tors to be the best-equipped lead­ers. If so, offer­ing funds toward fur­ther train­ing (whether via attend­ing con­fer­ences or work­ing toward an accred­it­ed degree) will encour­age them to get that training.
  9. Enter­tain­ment and fel­low­ship funds. If pas­tors take only one fam­i­ly per month to din­ner, the costs still add up if they are pay­ing out of their own funds. The church should cov­er the cost of enter­tain­ment and fel­low­ship that inten­tion­al­ly pro­mote the church’s ministry.
  10. Phone cov­er­age. Many pas­tors use their cell phones recur­rent­ly dur­ing the week to do church “business.” Con­sid­er pro­vid­ing at least a por­tion of these costs.
  11. Time off. Give your pas­tors a week­ly day off and sig­nif­i­cant time for vaca­tion (e.g., 3–4 weeks per year). Hold them account­able to get the rest and relax­ation they deserve and need.
  12. Sab­bat­i­cal time. At least every 6–7 years, give your pas­tor a one-month paid sab­bat­i­cal. I’ve writ­ten else­where about the ben­e­fits of a pas­toral sab­bat­i­cal, but I re-state my sum­ma­ry here: hard-work­ing pas­tors can use the sab­bat­i­cal to pre­pare for many more years of effec­tive ministry.

Dur­ing the month of Novem­ber we will be col­lect­ing indi­vid­u­al­ly wrapped cheese/peanut but­ter crack­ers to be used by our prison min­istry. Please bring all dona­tions to our Ailey office.
To dis­cov­er addi­tion­al ways you can part­ner with our Asso­ci­a­tion in reach­ing our com­mu­ni­ty, state, and world for Jesus please go to http://bit.ly/1pdc2Sr by past­ing it in your web browser.

FYI…………..Normantown Bap­tist has 8 extra church pews they would like to offer to a church in need. If inter­est­ed please call our DBA office.

Quote of the Week
In Luke 19:10, Jesus gave us His pur­pose. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” His pur­pose isn’t to pro­tect denom­i­na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, tra­di­tion­al litur­gies, dress codes, musi­cal styles, out­dat­ed min­istry meth­ods and pro­grams, or par­tic­u­lar trans­la­tions of the Bible. His pur­pose is to seek and save the lost.
–Brad Pow­ell (from Change Your Church for Good: The Art of Sacred Cow Tipping)

 

Week­ly Update 11/12/15